The Pre-order rank rollercoaster...

[TimothyEllis]

So my Midshipman Spacemage Pre-order progressively went live across the world over the last 24 hours.

Talk about a roller coaster ride. Emotionally at least.

I went to bed early last night (1.30am instead of 3am), major jitters, felling like I had the flu coming on, and having seen the rank come down from 30k+ to a bit over 5300.

Pre-orders were higher than for the last book, which ranked around 1100 on day 1. So was expecting at least that.

Get up this morning 9 hours later, and the rank is still just over 5300.

Serious WTF moment!

The sales got divided up across days. The bulk of them went into the day before release (including the US sales) which is like serious HUH? The money went into actual release day.

Reads were about what I expected. No idea of borrows, but enough reads to prove KU was active. Except the book doesn't have anything on the page to show it's in KU. That in itself is a serous WTF?

So 9 hours of rank with an apparent hard ceiling.

Then I check it just now, and now its #783.

Ok, so now into expectations territory given the pre-orders, but Amazon FFS, first you had me nose diving into a depression, and then just about give me a heart attack.

I guess the day 1 rule for pre-orders is WAIT FOR IT.

But yeah, when I got up, and saw a 5,000 rank, I almost swore off pre-orders forever. Started wondering what changes Amazon had made to the rank algorithm since the last release.

So I should be feeling this: 

Instead, I feel this:  

[Marti Talbott]

So my Midshipman Spacemage Pre-order progressively went live across the world over the last 24 hours.

Talk about a roller coaster ride. Emotionally at least.

I went to bed early last night (1.30am instead of 3am), major jitters, felling like I had the flu coming on, and having seen the rank come down from 30k+ to a bit over 5300.

Pre-orders were higher than for the last book, which ranked around 1100 on day 1. So was expecting at least that.

Get up this morning 9 hours later, and the rank is still just over 5300.

Serious WTF moment!

The sales got divided up across days. The bulk of them went into the day before release (including the US sales) which is like serious HUH? The money went into actual release day.

Reads were about what I expected. No idea of borrows, but enough reads to prove KU was active. Except the book doesn't have anything on the page to show it's in KU. That in itself is a serous WTF?

So 9 hours of rank with an apparent hard ceiling.

Then I check it just now, and now its #783.

Ok, so now into expectations territory given the pre-orders, but Amazon FFS, first you had me nose diving into a depression, and then just about give me a heart attack.

I guess the day 1 rule for pre-orders is WAIT FOR IT.

But yeah, when I got up, and saw a 5,000 rank, I almost swore off pre-orders forever. Started wondering what changes Amazon had made to the rank algorithm since the last release.

So I should be feeling this: 

Instead, I feel this:  

Thanks for the update. I've been waiting to hear how it turned out for you. If the rank eventually catches up, then maybe I'll try it. Now all I have to do is figure out a release date that won't make me feel pressure to get it done. I'm loving writing this book, but it's research intense.

[TimothyEllis]

Thanks for the update. I've been waiting to hear how it turned out for you. If the rank eventually catches up, then maybe I'll try it. Now all I have to do is figure out a release date that won't make me feel pressure to get it done. I'm loving writing this book, but it's research intense.

The release date for this one was end of Feb, so its a month early releasing.

What worries me is a lot of KU followers won't know it's out yet, as the follower email was weeks ago, and had the old release date on it. Last book didn't get a second followers email, so not expecting one now either, but the last book only came forward a week, not a full month.

And with no KU tags on the page at all, one has to wonder what Amazon are doing now?

[Marti Talbott]

Thanks for the update. I've been waiting to hear how it turned out for you. If the rank eventually catches up, then maybe I'll try it. Now all I have to do is figure out a release date that won't make me feel pressure to get it done. I'm loving writing this book, but it's research intense.

The release date for this one was end of Feb, so its a month early releasing.

What worries me is a lot of KU followers won't know it's out yet, as the follower email was weeks ago, and had the old release date on it. Last book didn't get a second followers email, so not expecting one now either, but the last book only came forward a week, not a full month.

And with no KU tags on the page at all, one has to wonder what Amazon are doing now?

I lived in Seattle for many years and the thing is, Amazon doesn't treat it's workers very well. They live in a pressure cooker with people yelling at them. That's why, even when I know they're giving me the wrong answer, I always give them excellent marks. They're just doing what their told, and they don't make a lot of money doing it either.

Now if you wanna talk Amazon executives who make all the rules, that's different.

[BelindaWhite]

The KU button is there for me now.

[Marti Talbott]

Thanks for the update. I've been waiting to hear how it turned out for you. If the rank eventually catches up, then maybe I'll try it. Now all I have to do is figure out a release date that won't make me feel pressure to get it done. I'm loving writing this book, but it's research intense.

The release date for this one was end of Feb, so its a month early releasing.

What worries me is a lot of KU followers won't know it's out yet, as the follower email was weeks ago, and had the old release date on it. Last book didn't get a second followers email, so not expecting one now either, but the last book only came forward a week, not a full month.

And with no KU tags on the page at all, one has to wonder what Amazon are doing now?

Just got an email announcement for your new book from Amazon. Thought you might like to know.

I also put my new book up for pre-order through D2D as an experiment to see it sells without any promotion.

[TimothyEllis]

Just got an email announcement for your new book from Amazon. Thought you might like to know.

Thankyou, yes.

I didn't get one, so it wasn't a follower email, but nice to know it's on some recommendation type emails.

Update: Book made it up to #634 on day 1, and is now slowly falling back, but not as fast as the previous book, which only made 1100ish.

Big surprise is my book 1, which is now up to #21,237 after being down in the 100k+ range for a long time. It's even back in the top 100 for one of its sub-categories.

As far as money is concerned, the huge spike on day 1, means a huge drop off over a few days, and then back to ordinary until the next book comes out. But book 30 has definitely flowed back into the back catalogue, and series 5 has flowed back into series 1. Of course, this book starts where series 1 ended, so it seems to be working for flowing back. Money wise, it means while book 30 drops, the daily holds up anyway for a while as new readers filter through.

Also worth a comment, the money for book 30 is mainly KU at the moment. Which makes sense, since the whole months sales happened on 1 day.

[Bill Hiatt]

Amazon results have often lagged. I know it's a massive enterprise, but this particular feature is annoying, mostly because there's no way on Amazon to see ranking history on a book. I've had situations in which I'm pretty sure I hit a relatively high level, but by the time the Amazon lag ended, the book was already descending in rank again, making it impossible to tell what it's true high was.

I'm not clear why Amazon spreads out the preorders (and hence their ranking impact) but not the money. It seems like that has the effect of screwing authors and doesn't benefit Amazon at all.

[TimothyEllis]

Amazon results have often lagged. I know it's a massive enterprise, but this particular feature is annoying, mostly because there's no way on Amazon to see ranking history on a book. I've had situations in which I'm pretty sure I hit a relatively high level, but by the time the Amazon lag ended, the book was already descending in rank again, making it impossible to tell what it's true high was.

I'm not clear why Amazon spreads out the preorders (and hence their ranking impact) but not the money. It seems like that has the effect of screwing authors and doesn't benefit Amazon at all.

BookReport finds the best rank the book has had, so you do know it if you missed it. I had a few surprises when I saw this feature the first time. My 3rd, 4th and 5th books did substantially better in the ranks than I even knew. But this also highlights how much more difficult getting rank is now, than back in 2015.

The sales spread is probably a deliberate sabotage of huge spike ranking, spreading the rank boost over 2 days, and thus knobbling what would otherwise be attainable. But I'm being cynical. It could just be lousy programming, using different dates for different functions. The fact the book goes live in Australia some 18 hours before the US, seems to bugger up the ranking in the US, and probably the release, since both last books are recorded as being released on the day before they actually were.

[JRTomlin]

Where does BookReport show the rank?

ETA: By the way, on my last release, Amazon never sent out a notice. Admittedly I didn't do a pre-order. I still am not quite convinced they're a good idea.

[Marti Talbott]

Thanks for the update. I've been waiting to hear how it turned out for you. If the rank eventually catches up, then maybe I'll try it. Now all I have to do is figure out a release date that won't make me feel pressure to get it done. I'm loving writing this book, but it's research intense.

The release date for this one was end of Feb, so its a month early releasing.

What worries me is a lot of KU followers won't know it's out yet, as the follower email was weeks ago, and had the old release date on it. Last book didn't get a second followers email, so not expecting one now either, but the last book only came forward a week, not a full month.

And with no KU tags on the page at all, one has to wonder what Amazon are doing now?

I looked and I am following you on Amazon. I follow me and never get the notices, lol.

I put my book on pre*order on D2D two days ago, as I probably already said, to see if it would sell without any promotion. Well I'll be, it has two pre-orders already. So I put it on pre-order on Amazon just now with an April 30 release date. This book is research intensive. I plan to take good notes to see what I did, and what Amazon did, as it moves along. It's kind of fun until it gets frustrating, right?

[TimothyEllis]

Where does BookReport show the rank?

ETA: By the way, on my last release, Amazon never sent out a notice. Admittedly I didn't do a pre-order. I still am not quite convinced they're a good idea.

BR has a rank tab. It lists all your books, with current rank, rank change since yesterday, and best rank achieved. It has to be synced with Author Central to get these though.

I think the follower email is linked to author rank. Below a certain point, they don't bother sending one out at all. Above it, how long shortens as the rank improves. But it does seem to be a best time of 5 days after adding to Author Central.

I also think this was changed to make pre-orders more attractive. But the release email seems to be more random than the PO email.

[Laughing Elephant]

Congratulations on a successful launch, Timothy.

   

[JRTomlin]

Where does BookReport show the rank?

ETA: By the way, on my last release, Amazon never sent out a notice. Admittedly I didn't do a pre-order. I still am not quite convinced they're a good idea.

BR has a rank tab. It lists all your books, with current rank, rank change since yesterday, and best rank achieved. It has to be synced with Author Central to get these though.

I think the follower email is linked to author rank. Below a certain point, they don't bother sending one out at all. Above it, how long shortens as the rank improves. But it does seem to be a best time of 5 days after adding to Author Central.

I also think this was changed to make pre-orders more attractive. But the release email seems to be more random than the PO email.

I generally rank around 10k so that may be too low for them to bother but it is rather annoying and is another reason not to bother with pre-orders.

Mine doesn't have a rank tab but I've never synced it to Author Central. I never even knew BR  should be linked to Author Central or how to do it, so thanks for mentioning it. Since I'm wide it's not something I depend on a lot, but I'll sync them up.

And congrats on your good launch.

[Marti Talbott]

I didn't expect this, but my pre-order already has a rank. I haven't promoted it yet, so the rank is low, but it's there none the less. Only 9 sales on Amazon so far.