Statistics and lies... Amazon's Author Central

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
Benjamin Disraeli

Amazon has this very interesting thing called Author Central. It is where all my books sit on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/RJ-Scott/e/B00480VVB0/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1).

They have this new gadget in Beta at the moment which gives you an idea of what is happening to you as an author and where you sit in rankings.

You may not know that my degree is Statistics and so I can look at the chart with my statistician hat on and come out with all kinds of crap to explain what the chart is doing. But I don't really need to. It kind of speaks for itself.


See that huge drop? November.

That will be when Silver removed all my Sanctuary books and my day on day stats were ruined. :( It didn't last long but it is so noticeable.

Just before the drop - maybe a month before all I had that was new was Oracle and Oracle 2, which were never big sellers, that accounts for the small slide there as well.

See the peak in December?

That would be Christmas. New York Christmas and The Christmas Throwaway went well at Christmas and I even made it in to the top 100 contemporary authors for a week or so. Was exciting.

Now I am suffering a bit with Silver sales. Nothing else has changed. My new books do well, but the spreads are larger between peaks and troughs. I would LOVE to see the data that Silver is seeing on Amazon and see what has happened to books like Texas 2, Texas 3, Gallows Tree, Deefur Dog... as I personally think they have tanked.

As my books with TEB and eXtasy hit Amazon I hope to see a continuation of the upswing that is beginning to happen. Without new books hitting Amazon on a monthly basis a drop in ranking is inevitable.

Like I said... interesting.

If you are an author, have you looked at your page?

5 comments

  1. The funny thing is that I had a slump at the exact same time but I'm not with Silver????

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    1. rofl... maybe it was an amazon thing then... and not a result of the Silver idiot... rofl... I like to blame Silver for everything...nods

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  2. My one book has the same huge drop in November, too. Wonder what that's all about?

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    1. all silver's fault... rofl... probably something to do with Amazon...

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  3. Interesting data to see. I do agree that if an author isn't putting out new material consistently (whatever that schedule may be for them) then they aren't going to see the increase in rating no matter how big the following they have.

    Was November when Amazon did that funky thing with the rating system that everyone hates? I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Or I could just be making stuff up. Has been known to happen :)

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