A fascinating deception - ways to NOT improve your sales

I was potteringaround some indie ebooks on Amazon the other day and came across a forum titledalong the lines of 'Success, reached the top 100, many thanks to readers'. No,I'm not giving you the author's name ;p
Anyhoo, when Ispotted that I clicked on it and studied the author's name but it didn't ringany bells. I do tend to glance over the top 100 in kindle at least every othermonth so I was surprised and curious as the name was so unfamiliar to me, so Iwent and looked up this author's books. She has four novels up and in the blurbfor each novel refers to herself as a 'top selling Amazon author'. Curiouslyenough, none of her books when I looked at them were even in the top 300,000 onthe kindle rankings. Am I right then, do you think, in deducing this is a ployto convince future readers of her worth?
I mean, I supposeshe very possibly could have been in the top 100 at some point, but I would besurprised if her books had sunk that quickly (they've been up less than a year).From what I see, most that reach the top 100 in Amazon can at least keep below100,000 on the rankings. Which is really pretty damn good when you considerthat Amazon now has over (yes, OVER) 1 million ebooks on it.Wow. That's a lotof ebooks to look at!
Anyway, back tothe topic at hand. I feel for any brand spanking new authors out there becauseit isn't easy to get noticed, yet just to frustrate there are enough 'success'stories of newbies who really have struck it lucky. Whether by writingspecifically to appeal to a current market taste or having the right personread it at the right time, these 'instant success' stories can be very hard onthe new indie author. But I would suggest that declaring yourself a 'top seller'if you aren't, is a risky business ploy.Remember thosesuper scary sleuths on the Amazon kindle forums I've mentioned before? This isthe sort of thing they love. And itdoes result in the said author being crucified.If you want totout your book to others and in the heat of the moment call it a best seller inthe sense of 'it will be', hey that's your agenda and without it being writtendown there's no one to really prove you said it. But writing it on your bookdescriptions on the public sites where you sell them is risky when you havenothing to back it up. Also, it does come across as dishonest. I'll happilypurchase a book regardless of its ranking as long as it looks like a good read,but if it appears to be deliberately trying to fool a future reader intopurchasing it, that author will be added to my personal black list.
What are yourthoughts on this? Have you seen any practices like this? And no title or authornames please ; )And don't forget to vote your favorite cuss (the vote panel top right)
Take care all!Nic The Arrival, available for free right here on this blog!Awakeningon Amazon or UKAmazon or in Epub format right here on my blog (the bright yellow buttonson left!)