Two Writers Rambing – PeaCOCK Proudly… but don’t trip over your own tail feathers

 

Here is some etiquette about using bestselling titles. Take it with a grain of salt, mull it over or ignore it. It’s up to you.

 

While its still only the opinion of Talon and myself, we feel its important we, as authors, don’t over use or water down what it means to be a bestseller. However,  there has been the wide spread usage of the title: Best Seller. This isn’t to say that everyone who uses the phrase hasn’t earned it. Many have. But let’s get down to the meat and potatoes of what is really considered a Best Selling Book/Series/Author and whether or not you should be decorating your books covers with it.

 

Regardless of your personal take on the Indy vs Tradition pub’d authors, the rift is there and argued and scrutinized from both sides. But we forget that the readers see this too and have their own take on it. The term ‘Best Selling’ usually means New York Best Selling list or USA Today’s Best Seller. But Amazon has gotten pretty big over the years and they have their own bestselling lists. Actually they have a bunch of them, but realize it or not they are not there to boost the ego of the author; they are there to supplement the ‘Don’t-have-time-to-browse’ Shoppers. A large percentage of buyers often take advantage of Amazon’s bestselling lists as the ‘lazy’ means to find what is hot. {I use the term ‘lazy’ loosely, because a large sum of shoppers don’t look past the second page – totally different discussion}  Hence why there are so many list to browse. There is a best seller list for most every genre and popular subgenres. This is all marketing design so that shoppers can find what’s hot in a certain topic easily. This is actually very good for authors (most of the time), if you can make the list, but some lists are harder than others. The other thing to remember is these lists update ever hour.

Now while making the top 100 on Amazon is something to be proud of. We’ve been giddy to tears on the few list landings ourselves. But given the flux, making it on a list is less substantial than the phrase ‘here today gone tomorrow’.

What makes me bring this up is, some time ago Talon actually got involved in a discussion where he saw one author, whose first book out made it to #97 once, posted a question in a discussion group for feedback. She wanted to redesign the cover of her book (still the first one) to say “Best Selling Author” on it and was looking for supportive agreement. He made a gentle comment, way down in the thread, about “Be proud and happy for your accomplishment but don’t over flaunt it.” Well let me get out the ruler so I can measure up just how deep the crap got after that. Needless to say he left without a thread to cover his ass with. And no amount of kosher explaining would chill down the over heated authors who were very vocal as to how pissed they were he would suggest such a thing. How dare he take away someone’s trophy.

 

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The thing about getting the bestselling lists is, it doesn’t always take a lot of sales to reach the top. It depends on what else is on the market, what’s new, and that number of incoming titles to that genre or subgenre. There is also some suggestions that Amazon tends to fudge the ranks up from time to time. But aside that to give an example, when Becoming His Slave came out, we made #5 in Bdsm and #9 in erotica. It took nearly a thousand books sales to make it and it was impossible to get higher as the book couldn’t knock either of the three 50 Shades titles out of rank.  Later when A Place of Cliff and Rough Attraction were released they too both made the bestselling list in Gay Erotica, but it only took a couple hundred for them. When Keeping His Destiny was released it made it to #14 in the post-apocalyptic genre, a very small genre and no new headliners to compete against so it only took 65 sales to make that one. So you see… making a list is a fickle thing, it may mean you sold a lot of books to get there but sometimes you don’t when the timing is in your favor.

Another thing to consider is how long a book stays on the list.

 

 

So after all the math, you’re probably thinking I am trying to snatch the rug out from under you… not at all.

 

                                  

 

MAKING ANY BEST SELLING LIST (Amazon, All Romance ebooks, or your publisher’s) THEY ALL COUNT AS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT TO BE DAMN PROUD OF.
We’re proud of ours so should you be elated about yours.

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But it doesn’t mean you should have the label installed in neon light on your jacket or book cover.

       

And here’s why…

                               

THE PLASTIC TROPHY FOR SHOWING UP SYNDROME

 

It’s become too regular for new Indy authors to nab and hang onto that title ‘Best Seller’ and they plaster it on their walls, blogs, and book covers.

 

Readers see this and ‘maybe’ they go take a look based on that claim, [remember: lazy shopper marketing ploy – don’t dismiss it, Amazon makes bank on this]. But, your book only has 2 or more reviews. Instant reaction from shopper is “hmmmm something seems to be a tad aloof here.”

Guess what they do next? They move on without buying your book. YOU just lost a SALE, because you were too quick to be all about that 5 hour fame and set on display in neon advertisement.

But that’s not all, Traditional Authors, who are often quick to point out how amateurism we Indies are, will (even when we are not), and shoppers pick up on that and it sticks. What they see is you’ve misled them and readers are very unforgiving when it comes to spending their money.

Like it or not, if you have only made the bestseller list once and for only a short time DONT put that banner over your head. It will hurt you in the bottom end.

Make the list and be happy, do a shout out on your wall. Even include a screen cap. Do the happy dance with friends and fans, maybe treat yourself to a bottle of wine or a double dipped ice cream. And DO a sticker or star on your blog where you have all your books on display. Thats the best place to add a Best seller label along with so and so’s book of the month when you get those. Then move on.

 

Now in case some of you are asking: “Why should I care what you do?”

What many Indies don’t realize is you are all shareholders in a market. If you treat it like a low budget inn, that’s all it will ever be for all of us. Over embarking a title, makes a new author look like an amateur and that is not advantageous to your overall goal. Best seller book for a day does not make you an actual Bestselling Author. It does make you feel good, so go ahead and peacock for a day, just don’t step on your feathers.

 

ABOUT THESE AUTHORS

Princess so and her twin, Talon ps love to torment their editor with a nefarious world of foreign-lang, slang, local dialect, stretched/outside-of-the-box definitions, and have even been known to throw in some con-lang at times. This, of course, is all thrown in there with the dyslexia soup stock they both suffer from that makes editing with them a joy {joy: n see mental illness}. But the final product comes out as richly detailed holographic worlds of Paranormal, Sci-fi, and Gay/MM Erotic Romance; War-time Romances; and along with Prin’s favorite works of Post-Apocalyptic Dark Fantasies.

Come laugh it up with htem at

Website:

www.talon-ps.com

The Twin’s facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Talon-ps-Princess-so/240542056008862

Talon’s facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Talonps?fref=ts

Princess’ facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/princess.obriot