# How to Become a #1 Best Seller in 2 Weeks with your first book



## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

I was looking at the listing for one of my books on Amazon and noticed the #1 best seller for Epic Fantasy was on the "also bought" list. I clicked on the link to check it out. I was shocked at what I found. The book is barely 2 weeks old and it is the first book by a brand new, self published author. His overall rank is currently #201.

I have tried finding the author to ask how he did it, but there is no contact information, website, or Facebook page listed on his Amazon Author's page. I am putting a link for the book below and hoping that we can figure out how he had such a ridiculously successful launch. If the author is on Kboards, I would love advice on how to duplicate what he did.

http://www.amazon.com/SORCERER-Elemental-Magic-Series-Book-ebook/dp/B00OWSLDCA/


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Hmmmm.  This has been happening with several extremely crappy KU books recently.  Given the level of writing, the utter lack of editing, and the cover on this, I'm thinking that a sniff around a certain other forum would find places where you can buy hundreds of borrows.  There is nothing here that would make this book be something that genuine readers would want to download in droves.


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

Agreed. Two of the top three reviews complain about editing and random PoV switching. This book as no business at #1.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I see why.  I just looked at the also boughts.  It means sci-fi fans are taking a chance on indie authors.  If the book is good, it will stay up there.  If not, oh well.
At least 4 of the also boughts, I know from here.  

Just a little food for thought.


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## Maddie_K (Sep 13, 2014)

djv1120 said:


> I was looking at the listing for one of my books on Amazon and noticed the #1 best seller for Epic Fantasy was on the "also bought" list. I clicked on the link to check it out. I was shocked at what I found. The book is barely 2 weeks old and it is the first book by a brand new, self published author. His overall rank is currently #201.
> 
> I have tried finding the author to ask how he did it, but there is no contact information, website, or Facebook page listed on his Amazon Author's page. I am putting a link for the book below and hoping that we can figure out how he had such a ridiculously successful launch. If the author is on Kboards, I would love advice on how to duplicate what he did.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/SORCERER-Elemental-Magic-Series-Book-ebook/dp/B00OWSLDCA/


That book popped up on my also-boughts too. I agree with the others, I couldn't even get through the sample, I have no idea how this guy got to #1 like that.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

I agree with all your comments. With that said, what if the book was good? If you could put a well-edited book with a nice cover in that position, it should maintain momentum. If you had a series, you would pretty much be setting yourself up for considerable long term success.

What secret/service can I use to duplicate the results?

Is it just luck?


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

If you bounce it up with fake borrows, you still get people buying who aren't looking inside and just click on a whim.

"Taking a chance on an indie author."  Really.  No one who's literate and is checking the "look inside" goes so far as to actually buy it.

I'd check out Fiverr and WSO.  I bet someone's talking there.  I'm not interested, myself.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> I see why. I just looked at the also boughts. It means sci-fi fans are taking a chance on indie authors. If the book is good, it will stay up there. If not, oh well.
> At least 4 of the also boughts, I know from here.
> 
> Just a little food for thought.


I don't think epic fantasy buyers are just going to go out and by a brand new book from a new author by the truck load unless something else is going on. There had to be a ton of sales to put it on the first page of multiple "also bought" lists. The book is now at #195. What does that take - 2500 sales over a day or two? Based on the reviews and lack of other books by the author, it can't maintain (or achieve in the first place) that kind of rank without something external. I would love to know what that might be. I am open to wild speculation.


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## Michael McClung (Feb 12, 2014)

I'm currently mired in my third day of copy editing my pre-release, making tiny, important-only-to-me choices (would floating, spinning or swarming be a better description of the stars you see when somebody punches you in the face?) Apparently I'm wasting my time, since the #1 book in my genre describes a trumpeter as a "horn man."


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

I think the second comment  has it nailed - a lot of borrows from less than legitimate sources. And if that's the case, then it's not luck, it's chicanery.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I was thinking cool, some of our authors are getting some visibility from the also boughts.  So is it all bad? 
And if anyone has PROOF this a scammer, report it to Amazon.


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## bethrevis (Jul 30, 2014)

ʬ said:


> I'm thinking that a sniff around a certain other forum would find places where you can buy hundreds of borrows.


I am clearly naive. I never would have even considered this to be a possibility.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> I was thinking cool, some of our authors are getting some visibility from the also boughts. So is it all bad?
> And if anyone has PROOF this a scammer, report it to Amazon.


No, we're not getting visibility. This book is getting visibility on our pages.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

ʬ said:


> I'm thinking that a sniff around a certain other forum would find places where you can buy hundreds of borrows.


Just out of curiosity, what other forum. If I could understand the "black hat" process, maybe I could figure out how to do duplicate results legitimately.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Here is a little food for thought.  Some of you are accusing other authors of doing something illegal,  if they are I am sure Amazon will catch them before the bills are paid.  Thanks Patty or Camille for the post on this yesterday. 
Whether they are or aren't is not really your concern unless you are in charge of KU.  

Please remember this is a very public forum.  Note some lurkers and some loud-mouths do come here looking for new authors to read.
says the resident loud-mouth.  Think more about your image and quit worrying so much about others.  Readers are usually smart enough to spot a scam.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Oh.  I see what you are saying now.  I was on the other book page and saw books I recognized.  Sorry for the misunderstanding.  

Oh and I guess I should dust off your book and read it.  It has been sitting on my Kindle shelves for 11 months now.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> Here is a little food for thought. Some of you are accusing other authors of doing something illegal, if they are I am sure Amazon will catch them before the bills are paid. Thanks Patty or Camille for the post on this yesterday.
> Whether they are or aren't is not really your concern unless you are in charge of KU.
> 
> Please remember this is a very public forum. Note some lurkers and some loud-mouths do come here looking for new authors to read.
> says the resident loud-mouth. Think more about your image and quit worrying so much about others. Readers are usually smart enough to spot a scam.


I agree with most of this, except for the part about it not being the concern of other authors. Because if the book in question got to #1 on the chart because of a scam, it's screwing over the book that's actually earned the #1 spot through legitimate practices and hard work. That is a concern.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

cinisajoy said:


> Here is a little food for thought. Some of you are accusing other authors of doing something illegal, if they are I am sure Amazon will catch them before the bills are paid. Thanks Patty or Camille for the post on this yesterday.
> Whether they are or aren't is not really your concern unless you are in charge of KU.
> 
> Please remember this is a very public forum. Note some lurkers and some loud-mouths do come here looking for new authors to read.
> says the resident loud-mouth. Think more about your image and quit worrying so much about others. Readers are usually smart enough to spot a scam.


If the borrows are legitimate in that they come from someone who has a KU subscription, and people are paying for borrows 'off-site', I'm not sure Amazon would know. I don't think they would investigate all that closely. The book is a legitimate book too, even if it is poorly edited.

The reason it does concern those of us in KU is because there is a limited KU pot. At least, that's why it bugs me. Now, I have no clue if this particular book has any bought borrows and I'm not accusing it of anything, but if it did, and hundreds of other authors also had paid for borrows, then yes, that directly takes money out of my pocket. I can't afford to compete with books buying their way onto the bestseller lists. I just spent $75 on advertising to give one of my books away--maybe it would be better spent buying borrows? I would never do that, but if it comes down to those books getting the lion's share of the KU pot, then I'd pull out of KU. I bet a lot of other ethical authors of good books would do the same thing. Maybe that would be a good thing in the long run, but it will change things.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Thanks for the answers especially Mary.  
I do see the concern on the money part of KU.  
Now keep in mind I am not in KU, as a reader or an author.  But you do bring up an interesting point.  How many KU subscribers would borrow books just to help out an author?  
I am in several book groups on Facebook and everyday there are least 20 KU offerings per group.


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## Lefevre (Feb 1, 2014)

Sounds like a fake borrows job...


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Is it a short story? Short story witch hunt! Oh wait. It probably isn't even short. Too bad we can't blame short story authors for ruining KU today.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> Here is a little food for thought. Some of you are accusing other authors of doing something illegal, if they are I am sure Amazon will catch them before the bills are paid. Thanks Patty or Camille for the post on this yesterday.
> Whether they are or aren't is not really your concern unless you are in charge of KU.


Gah, Cin. You have NO idea how the algos work, do you? It's also not illegal. It's probably against Amazon's TOS, but I doubt they'll do anything about it until it becomes rampant. Hell, that's why Vampire is now a USAT bestseller. Amazon just really doesn't care that people cheat most of the time.

Does that mean I'll do it? Not a chance. But it's a real thing.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

I went over to Warrior Forum and did a little research. In two minutes I already found a software that spins content to create a "5000 word book in minutes," which is probably what produced the non-fiction books we saw yesterday. 
I'm sure I'll find a borrow ring if I keep digging. Although, we've all already seen the "Buy 75 borrows" service. I don't remember what it was called, but I'm sure these books are a product of something similar.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

To get 200 takes about 200-300 sales a day right now.  I don't know how many borrows that would be.  Someone in KU can tell me.

A KU "borrow" farm would be super lucrative right now if you hired cheap labor to do the paging and charged $1 per borrow.  Everyone would come out ahead.


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

ʬ said:


> To get 200 takes about 200-300 sales a day right now. I don't know how many borrows that would be. Someone in KU can tell me.
> 
> A KU "borrow" farm would be super lucrative right now if you hired cheap labor to do the paging and charged $1 per borrow. Everyone would come out ahead.


Until the borrow royalty became so tiny due to the amount of borrows that KU became completely unprofitable for anyone.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I'm not sure what I was supposed to have said yesterday, but I'll say this: I think that we (and especially writers who sell a huge chunk of their books on Amazon--which is all of you and not me mwahaha) have more to fear from this sort of stuff than from any shenanigans Amazon will throw at us.

Not because people are doing illegal stuff and us indies are being squeezed rah rah rah (I hate the word indies, so note its use here), but because the buying public will lose faith in Amazon's offerings that come through the web page or recommendation engines. And this is how most of you (not me. My books aren't in any alsobots) get your sales.

Amazon is on its way to become one great big stinking fetid bargain bin. The people who wade through it will get dirty. Not many will want to do it. They'll no longer trust the bestseller lists or the alsobots.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

It was Camille I was thinking of , but Patty always has wise words too.  Hence my confusing the two.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Remember the Free Book Service fiasco? Amazon sussed that out. They did it with fiverr reviews. Hopefully, they will do the same with purchased borrows. And soon.


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## Nikki Pink (Jan 23, 2013)

ʬ said:


> To get 200 takes about 200-300 sales a day right now. I don't know how many borrows that would be. Someone in KU can tell me.
> 
> A KU "borrow" farm would be super lucrative right now if you cheap labor to do the paging and charged $1 per borrow. Everyone would come out ahead.


About 200 to 300 borrows


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I'm an Amazon customer and have no problem finding good things to read. Amazon makes the process easy and simple for me and always has suggestions that fit with what I buy and want. Until another site can actually manage that, no amount of very obvious drek like the book talked about here is going to have much impact on my experience as a shopper. It's painfully obvious just looking at this book (cover, blurb, sample) that it sucks. I doubt if it were recommended to me I'd even click the cover, so none of my time would be wasted. I certainly wouldn't read it.

As a writer I do hope that the other sites step up their game and make the customer experience more pleasant and the recommendations and search-ability of their sites far far more useful than they are. As it stands, Amazon is king for a reason right now.

This kind of borrows rank inflation won't last. The book will sink as soon as the writer runs out of scams and money. It's a losing proposition and not many will be fooled by it in the long run.


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## Mark Tyson (Sep 22, 2014)

This book you speak of has been irritating me for days. I started to put up a similar post to this one but since this is a public forum, I didn't want to seem like I might be bashing the book or the author. It came up in my also boughts as well and when I curiously looked at it, I noticed it was formatted in Courier font like from a typewriter ICK. It was extremely difficult to read that way. The blurb was even pretty bad. I have been scratching my head about this one as well. I wish the author all the success in the world as long as its legitimate and not some weird ploy.


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## Deke (May 18, 2013)

Oh boy, is this buying borrows a new thing? I'm always behind the curve. Should I be hiring some Romanian app-master to "borrow" my new release a few hundred times?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Folks, let's avoid sweeping negative characterizations, OK.  I've edited a post and removed two posts that referred to it.

As for books, I never run across these kinds of books, but then I don't do searches of this nature on Amazon.  I typically find out about books off-Amazon (like here) and then go to Amazon to buy them.  Obviously others do use the search feature.  I would recommend complaining to Amazon CS.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

ㅈㅈ said:


> This kind of borrows rank inflation won't last. The book will sink as soon as the writer runs out of scams and money. It's a losing proposition and not many will be fooled by it in the long run.


These types of schemes are *never* about the long run. They're only about maximizing what they can squeeze out of the scam in the short run until Amazon catches on and shuts them down.

Say you get 10 warrior forum "authors" who agree to work together. Each contributes $500 towards KU subscriptions to create a pool of 500 borrowers. Each of those 500 borrowers downloads and reads one of the author's books. 500 * $1.50 = $750. Instant 50% profit.

I think something like this could be why I'm suddenly seeing a flood of brand new erotica authors - each with only one book which is often < 3k words - where the one book is ranked under 15k.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Exactly. For individuals, it's never about the long run. The long run is not what's going to threaten "real" books either. It's that Amazon can do nothing except play whackamole with these people, and the lists of some genres (self-help, erotica) become continuously polluted with a constant churn of books resulting from these schemes. Which means that if people browse through the bestseller lists and alsobots, they have to wade through this crap, which means a good number of them will resort to other methods than the alsobots and lists to find their books. Which means that the #1 recommendation engine for people selling books on Amazon will be less effective.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

Well, I guess I'm glad I stirred up a lot of conversation. I didn't intend for it to be a rip on author/book, but if there is shenanigans going on, that should be called out.

Here's the real question: is there a legitimate way to do what this book has done?

As I mentioned earlier, if you could do this with a decent book/series, it should take off and keep going. Not saying this justifies any shenanigans, but if there was a way to get a book in front of a lot of readers (other than Bookbub), I definitely want to know about it.

FYI, ranking is now down to #172.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

A couple of years ago, I heard of a site in Asia which will buy as many copies of your books as you want (500, 1000, 5000, whatever) and they spread the buys through many different servers around the globe to hide the fact they are all emanating from the same place. Naturally, you want to price the book low for this period so it won't cost you a fortune. Then, when the book hits the upper Amazon rankings and is on everyone's alsobot list, you raise the price and make a big score.

I only heard of this, and I never got any real details, but I'm pretty sure it exists, and furthermore, I'm pretty sure a lot of people have used it. In various PMs I've shared with writers, more than one has told me their success was "partly due" to certain "black ops" which of course they wouldn't reveal. This would certainly explain the sudden skyrocketing of debut novels by unknown authors who then shrug innocently and say, "Just lucky, I guess."


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

ʬ said:


> Gah, Cin. You have NO idea how the algos work, do you?


I'll step in here, partly because Cin was getting what she said from me, but also because she was summarizing something pretty complicated, that I said in a series of comments on another thread about another situation. (And a lot of what I said was summary too.)

So to clarify: Whether Cin understands how algorithms work or not (and whether the activity is illegal or not), she is essentially correct, as long as you understand she really meant analytics and algorithms together, and that Amazon will do something _if it rises to a level where it matters._

In the other conversation, we were talking about an outright scam, which involved dozens of books in a tight pattern which is quite likely to set off alarm bells. This one... maybe, maybe not. It's actually not this author and his (or her) behavior that is likely to set off the alarms, but the pattern of the people borrowing. If there is an organized "borrows for sale" group, THAT will be noticeable to Amazon, and they will care.

(Authors tend to think about these things as if we are the star of the show -- athletes in a race, and therefore cheating to get ahead matters. That's not how Amazon sees it.)

IMHO, this really doesn't matter and has no real effect on writers or readers (just another book they aren't interested in to them). The only way this will lead to a negative effect is if we are trying to (as someone upstream said) find a way to game the system "legitimately." Maybe you believe that is possible (I don't) but regardless, Amazon, like all search-centered companies, is constantly adjusting their system for such activity. They have to.

And if the Black Hats are doing it, Amazon will do one of two things: they'll either go after whoever does is (blacklist, withholding of funds, etc.) OR they will change the algorithms to take the juice out of the practice. More likely they will do the latter (given what they've done in the past).

And anybody who is trying to "legitimately" do the same thing as the Black Hatters do will be "hurt" by losing a marketing tool, but not really in any other way. If you think sucky books that make an anomalous success hurt you, then you are doomed because it happens legitimately all the time..

So in my book, this might be worth gossiping about, but it's sure not worth fussing about.

All of those 'game the system' advantages are necessarily short lived. Always. The system changes to account for it, or the system dies. (Usenet is an example of the latter, the web is an example of the former, thanks to Google.)

If it offends you that this person may make money on his book via KU, console yourself with two thoughts:

1.) There is a long lag between a sale and when Amazon pays you for it. If this person is using illegitimate means, then Amazon is likely to catch them, and never pay them.... and we'll never hear a thing about it. The author may not even have his account shut down -- it may just be that those illegitimate "borrowers" have lost their accounts and and their borrows recinded.

2.) There are a whole lot of other people out there who are thinking about how you don't deserve whatever you get either. ("Heavens, those vile self-publishers are cheating! They've jumped the line and not paid their dues. Their writing is awful! Readers will hate us all!")

Hey, most of the spots on the best seller lists before KDP were bought -- chosen ahead by distributors, often by how much co-op money a publisher put out. The fact that we're seeing possible scammers leaping up the lists is just a sign that the leveling of the playing field is now mature. We're in a different paradigm now. It doesn't matter. Readers will find what they want.

Camille


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

There are other debuts that do skyrocket for quite discernible reasons.  Some of them stumble onto algo juice, and some arrange it.  The fact that you almost never see this happening at B&N shows the difference in the power of the algos.  Benefiting for algorithms is NOT cheating.  It's a replacement for when booksellers used to read a really great book and then they hand-sold it to thousands of people and it became a "surprise" bestseller.  If there were only books on all the same shelves with the ONLY word of mouth happening between readers unconnected with bookstores, it's extremely hard to manage any kind of velocity.

If you put something out that a number of people are hungry for and if they find your book, that can make the kinds of "buzz" that gets real traction.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Readers will find what they want (or what they think they want, or what they're being told to want). It's how they find these things that can have a major impact on writers.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I'm not sure what I was supposed to have said yesterday, but I'll say this: I think that we (and especially writers who sell a huge chunk of their books on Amazon--which is all of you and not me mwahaha) have more to fear from this sort of stuff than from any shenanigans Amazon will throw at us.
> 
> Not because people are doing illegal stuff and us indies are being squeezed rah rah rah (I hate the word indies, so note its use here), but because the buying public will lose faith in Amazon's offerings that come through the web page or recommendation engines. And this is how most of you (not me. My books aren't in any alsobots) get your sales.
> 
> Amazon is on its way to become one great big stinking fetid bargain bin. The people who wade through it will get dirty. Not many will want to do it. They'll no longer trust the bestseller lists or the alsobots.


Uhm, your _Heir's Revenge_ is in the also-boughts for one of my books or at least used to be.

Otherwise you've got a point. I haven't trusted Amazon's bestseller lists in a long time now and I don't think I ever looked at also-boughts before I started self-publishing. Amazon's recommendation e-mails have also gotten notably worse of late. I get recommendations for all sorts of products (mostly clothes and the like) I have never bought at Amazon and never would buy online at all. Considering that Amazon have my customer data for more than ten years, I guess they must have noticed by now that I only buy books at Amazon and very rarely CDs or DVDs. Plus, a while back Amazon sent me a recommendation for a trad pub book by an author whose work I dislike intensely and have never bought, nor have I ever bought anything remotely similar. I suspect the publisher paid for the e-mail blast for that author's book. On the plus side, Amazon did send me a mail for one of grumpy cat's recent books and she is an author whose works I've read and enjoyed before.

Mostly I find my books the way I've always found them: A book or an author catches my eye online, either here or elsewhere on the net. I head to the dealer of my choice (Amazon or sometimes Thalia for print, Kobo and sometimes Amazon for e-books) and buy the book.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Uhm, your _Heir's Revenge_ is in the also-boughts for one of my books or at least used to be.
> 
> Otherwise you've got a point. I haven't trusted Amazon's bestseller lists in a long time now and I don't think I ever looked at also-boughts before I started self-publishing. Amazon's recommendation e-mails have also gotten notably worse of late. I get recommendations for all sorts of products (mostly clothes and the like) I have never bought at Amazon and never would buy online at all. Considering that Amazon have my customer data for more than ten years, I guess they must have noticed by now that I only buy books at Amazon and very rarely CDs or DVDs. Plus, a while back Amazon sent me a recommendation for a trad pub book by an author whose work I dislike intensely and have never bought, nor have I ever bought anything remotely similar. I suspect the publisher paid for the e-mail blast for that author's book. On the plus side, Amazon did send me a mail for one of grumpy cat's recent books and she is an author whose works I've read and enjoyed before.
> 
> Mostly I find my books the way I've always found them: A book or an author catches my eye online, either here or elsewhere on the net. I head to the dealer of my choice (Amazon or sometimes Thalia for print, Kobo and sometimes Amazon for e-books) and buy the book.


Well, I've given up looking at yasiv, because everything consistently comes up blank. According to them, my books have outgoing alsobots, but none incoming other than my own books. My Amazon sales are certainly consistent with that. Maybe yasiv is just BS anyway.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

djv1120 said:


> Well, I guess I'm glad I stirred up a lot of conversation. I didn't intend for it to be a rip on author/book, but if there is shenanigans going on, that should be called out.
> 
> Here's the real question: is there a legitimate way to do what this book has done?
> 
> ...


Well, if you find your audience and get them to sign up for your newsletter of new releases, and they actually want to buy what you release next and then do so, that can give you a boost. But the ranking isn't going to be extremely high unless you have a lot of rabid fans. (_Rabid fans_ sounds rude. I wonder what the appropriate term is? Any fan is appreciated, of course!) The hard part is finding your audience, pleasing them, and getting them to sign up for your list! If they sign up without actually wanting your books, it doesn't help.


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## jegarlick (Jun 23, 2013)

ʬ said:


> If you bounce it up with fake borrows, you still get people buying who aren't looking inside and just click on a whim.
> 
> "Taking a chance on an indie author." Really. No one who's literate and is checking the "look inside" goes so far as to actually buy it.
> 
> I'd check out Fiverr and WSO. I bet someone's talking there. I'm not interested, myself.


Wow, is this kind of stuff really happening? Buying borrows? Omgosh...I am so disillusioned...wow...
Please post if you find out what is going on...I'd love to know.

I also see a book that is/was (haven't checked today) holding at #1 in Steampunk that isn't going to available for sale for months...so it is purely on the power of pre-sales...with no reviews...just arc reviews and it is holding steadily. It is from a large mainstream publisher. I'm beginning to think these lists are being bought and manipulated more than we all, or I know...sigh.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

I got an email this afternoon after I started this thread that is just too funny, ironic, and just plain sad to not share. The email was titled: *book rank: from 880k in rank to 1000, overnight, guaranteed*

There is one testimonial from an author who used the service and drove her book from 883,861 to 1,967. Now I'm not sure when the promotion was done, but the book has only been out for about 6 weeks so it couldn't have very long ago. As of right now the rank is 385,832 and the book has only 1 review. This isn't the kind of results I would expect from a $497 promotion.

Here's the link if you want to get a laugh: http://mikeylightning.com/bestseller-service-vip/


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

I love the idea of rabid fans. 

Frothing, foaming at the mouth, banging on their keyboards demanding new content! 

Hey, I think I just described George RR Martin's fan base...


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

It's a new release. My guess is that he did a pre-order on it, and that launched it on the bestseller lists. It's got a good cover and an interesting blurb. During the pre-order period, you can't read any sample pages.

He may have gone out and told everyone he knows about his book coming out, and worked the pre-order period to his advantage, to get as far up as he could. He may have bought some debut book ads.

Considering people have to pay $9.99 a month to be able to borrow books, I don't see how it's possible for someone to game the system, unless they have a boatload of money and no sense.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Eh.  Even some kboards authors did it, round-robin style, when it KU first came out.  You could watch their ranks go upppppp....and then dooooooown when the 30 or so were done borrowing each other's books.

For about a week, I had a fun time figuring out who was "in."

Sophrosyne, that's not how preorders work on Amazon.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> Well, I've given up looking at yasiv, because everything consistently comes up blank. According to them, my books have outgoing alsobots, but none incoming other than my own books. My Amazon sales are certainly consistent with that. Maybe yasiv is just BS anyway.


I've long suspected that yasiv isn't entirely accurate.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

jegarlick said:


> I also see a book that is/was (haven't checked today) holding at #1 in Steampunk that isn't going to available for sale for months...so it is purely on the power of pre-sales...with no reviews...just arc reviews and it is holding steadily. It is from a large mainstream publisher. I'm beginning to think these lists are being bought and manipulated more than we all, or I know...sigh.


Are you talking about the book Ticker? It is available for sale right now as a pre-release under the Kindle First program. The 4 Kindle First books each month generally stay at the top of their categories for the month they are available. Kindle Prime members can choose one of the 4 books for free, everyone else can buy them for $1.99.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

ʬ said:


> If you put something out that a number of people are hungry for and if they find your book, that can make the kinds of "buzz" that gets real traction.


This.

Sometimes, if we're not hungry for it, we can't see why it's doing so well. Sometimes, those who are hungry for it, aren't even that thrilled with the product, but they're not looking for quality -- they're just glad that somebody finally wrote something relating to this thing they are hungry for.

And sometimes a boost is a fluke: I've mentioned before about how Amazon sent me a note congratulating me about the phenomenal success of a book that hadn't sold a single copy in months. I called them up to ask about what was going on. After a little chat we figured it out: Turns out that I'd been in a discussion on the Amazon communities that got people interested in checking out who I was. I had not posted a link to the book nor mentioned any of my book names, which meant that the pattern of interest was "genuine." (I.e. people came in as they naturally do when they hear a lot of buzz -- they came in from all different sources, had all different browsing patterns that were usual for people who have heard about something that interested them.)

The Amazon rep told me that that kind of activity made me a genuine "hot" property for a week on Amazon. It gave me a boost in the algos. Amazon did not consider this to be a mistake, or a problem, even if my books were not even in the genre of the people looking at them. It was just how "buzz" works.

Camille


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

The only way I have found to jump start a new release is good keywords. If you find the right market and use the right keywords, you can rank pretty high in erotica. In romance, it really depends more on multiple books and promos. Seriously, the tried and true ways everyone knows around here do work. The thing is, you have to know your market, write what people want, and use the right keywords to get it front of their faces.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

ʬ said:


> Eh. Even some kboards authors did it, round-robin style, when it KU first came out. You could watch their ranks go upppppp....and then dooooooown when the 30 or so were done borrowing each other's books.
> 
> For about a week, I had a fun time figuring out who was "in."
> 
> Sophrosyne, that's not how preorders work on Amazon.


Are you sure? Because that seems to be how my pre-order worked. The book was listed on the bestseller ranks, during the pre-order period. The only reason I could figure out, was that the rankings took pre-orders into account.

Maybe Amazon changed the way that pre-orders are configured into the overall algorithms?

I thought people were borrowing each other's books so they could read them for free, while being supportive of other KB authors. Like we all download all the freebie books that KB authors put up. Color me naive, I guess.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

Mike Dennis said:


> A couple of years ago, I heard of a site in Asia which will buy as many copies of your books as you want (500, 1000, 5000, whatever) and they spread the buys through many different servers around the globe to hide the fact they are all emanating from the same place. Naturally, you want to price the book low for this period so it won't cost you a fortune. Then, when the book hits the upper Amazon rankings and is on everyone's alsobot list, you raise the price and make a big score.
> 
> I only heard of this, and I never got any real details, but I'm pretty sure it exists, and furthermore, I'm pretty sure a lot of people have used it. In various PMs I've shared with writers, more than one has told me their success was "partly due" to certain "black ops" which of course they wouldn't reveal. This would certainly explain the sudden skyrocketing of debut novels by unknown authors who then shrug innocently and say, "Just lucky, I guess."


I remember hearing similar, but the idea of it was ultimately debunked. While the distributed network of servers sounded feasible, the management of accounts and payments did not.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

I just can't see it. It sounds like it's too much of a pain in the ass to do, when you could just buy a Bookbub ad, or write another book. 

If you have a spare grand laying around, and the only thing you can think of to do with it, is buy borrows or buy buys, that's pretty lame.

Besides, even if you're lame enough to think scamming is a legitimate form of marketing, someone would totally blow the whistle on you. If some big name author or celebrity was scamming the system, people would be lining up to expose it. And small fish authors couldn't afford to do it.


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## RubyL (Jul 28, 2014)

Sophrosyne said:


> It's a new release. My guess is that he did a pre-order on it, and that launched it on the bestseller lists. It's got a good cover and an interesting blurb. During the pre-order period, you can't read any sample pages.
> 
> He may have gone out and told everyone he knows about his book coming out, and worked the pre-order period to his advantage, to get as far up as he could. He may have bought some debut book ads.


Unless something's changed in the last couple of weeks, pre-orders don't do anything for your ranking. I'll have to disagree on that being a good cover as well. It looks like someone photoshopped a lava rock onto a beach, neither of which imply fantasy or match the types of covers doing well in the genre. I also found the blurb too simplistic and the writing awkward. Getting ads before you have reviews is next to impossible too.

I'm with the OP. Looks like a scam.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Then it mus


RubyL said:


> Unless something's changed in the last couple of weeks, pre-orders don't do anything for your ranking. I'll have to disagree on that being a good cover as well. It looks like someone photoshopped a lava rock onto a beach, neither of which imply fantasy or match the types of covers doing well in the genre. I also found the blurb too simplistic and the writing awkward. Getting ads before you have reviews is next to impossible too.
> 
> I'm with the OP. Looks like a scam.


Then it must have changed. Because I could have sworn I've seen rankings on lots of books that have enough pre-orders to hit the charts. I'll keep an eye open next time I know an author has a pre-order up and post a picture.

Also, there's a few blogs now who are taking ads for new releases. It used to be impossible, but it's not anymore.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Sophrosyne said:


> Then it mus
> Then it must have changed. Because I could have sworn I've seen rankings on lots of books that have enough pre-orders to hit the charts. I'll keep an eye open next time I know an author has a pre-order up and post a picture.
> 
> Also, there's a few blogs now who are taking ads for new releases. It used to be impossible, but it's not anymore.


This book maybe could have been organic, which I doubt. But the nonfiction ones we saw yesterday, there is no way in hell those were organic. I just feel like I'm seeing a pattern.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

David S. said:


> Of course small fish authors could afford to do it. If you can pay $500 for a BookBub ad and take your chances, assuming you get accepted, which you most certainly won't with a scamphlet, then why not pay $500 for enough guaranteed borrows to launch your "book" into the stratosphere?
> 
> It's a no-brainer.


'Cause it's unethical and I really believe that most people aren't unethical scammers. But, like I said, color me naive. I really do have rose-colored glasses on most of the time.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Half Pint said:


> This book maybe could have been organic, which I doubt. But the nonfiction ones we saw yesterday, there is no way in hell those were organic. I just feel like I'm seeing a pattern.


Ah. I missed those. You all could be right. I just like believing the world is honorable. I may be completely wrong.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

Sophrosyne said:


> Then it must have changed. Because I could have sworn I've seen rankings on lots of books that have enough pre-orders to hit the charts. I'll keep an eye open next time I know an author has a pre-order up and post a picture.
> 
> Also, there's a few blogs now who are taking ads for new releases. It used to be impossible, but it's not anymore.


As I understand it, pre-sales count as sales the day they happen as far as rankings. You can definitely rank before you ever get paid.

The sales do not all show up at once on launch day, though.

If you want proof, just check out this book by a fellow Kboarder. She currently ranks in the top 100 for 3 different categories and around #5,000 overall. The book doesn't release for more than a month.

http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Thieves-Legends-Dimmingwood-Book-ebook/dp/B00O9V33LO/


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

djv1120 said:


> As I understand it, pre-sales count as sales the day they happen as far as rankings. You can definitely rank before you ever get paid.
> 
> The sales do not all show up at once on launch day, though.
> 
> ...


Exactly! Thank you!


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

My latest release hit #1 in its rather obscure category (Non-fiction>Astronomy) in its first 2 weeks (I had lined up a lot of ads during the book's pre-order period.)

So I wondered if it would automatically get the #1 Best Seller label for that category. It didn't. So I asked KDP what the criterion is to get the label and if I could request that it be applied. No answer.

Maybe a book has to be at #1 for a certain length of time before the #1 label is attached. I don't know.

Does anybody know the criteria for this potentially very useful recognition?


Philip


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Philip Gibson said:


> My latest release hit #1 in its rather obscure category (Non-fiction>Astronomy) in its first 2 weeks (I had lined up a lot of ads during the book's pre-order period.)
> 
> So I wondered if it would automatically get the #1 Best Seller label for that category. It didn't. So I asked KDP what the criterion is to get the label and if I could request that it be applied. No answer.
> 
> ...


I've been wondering the same thing.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

David, you're right, but those people usually stink of scamminess and phony marketing ploys. And I would think the get-rich-quick scammers would fizzle out fairly quickly. I've seen some of those books, and they're so inundated with one-star reviews, they're pretty much dead in the water.

Although, speaking of scams and get-rich-quick schemes, I remember awhile back, pirates were stealing erotica and selling it to 'wanna-be' get-rich-quick authors. They figured since it was erotica, no one would come after them, because most erotica authors write under a pen-name, and they wouldn't want to expose themselves. They picked the wrong guy though -- a retired security guard outed himself and sued. 

Amazon deleted the wanna-be author's account and kept all of his royalties and boy, was he pissed. He was complaining how he had paid good money for those stories, so he owned them. The site was shut down. I don't know what happened next, but if anyone has an update, I'd love to hear it.

Phillip, I thought you only got that cute little label if you were running a Kindle Countdown. That's the only time I've seen them pop up.


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## kimberlyloth (May 15, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> I'm not sure what I was supposed to have said yesterday, but I'll say this: I think that we (and especially writers who sell a huge chunk of their books on Amazon--which is all of you and not me mwahaha) have more to fear from this sort of stuff than from any shenanigans Amazon will throw at us.
> 
> Not because people are doing illegal stuff and us indies are being squeezed rah rah rah (I hate the word indies, so note its use here), but because the buying public will lose faith in Amazon's offerings that come through the web page or recommendation engines. And this is how most of you (not me. My books aren't in any alsobots) get your sales.
> 
> Amazon is on its way to become one great big stinking fetid bargain bin. The people who wade through it will get dirty. Not many will want to do it. They'll no longer trust the bestseller lists or the alsobots.


Exactly. When people lose faith in the bestseller list, they will go elsewhere and rankings won't mean a thing. Hopefully Amazon recognizes this and fixes the problem.


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## MikeDavidson (Oct 5, 2013)

djv1120 said:


> As I understand it, pre-sales count as sales the day they happen as far as rankings. You can definitely rank before you ever get paid.
> 
> The sales do not all show up at once on launch day, though.
> 
> ...


C. Greenwood (carol or dara on the kboards here), who wrote this book has an already established reader base. So this is not a good example.

The man (michael) who wrote this 'sorcerer (elements)' book is a first time author. He has a terrible description, unappealing cover, and terrible editing/ choppy writing style. So how is he doing well? Cheating. Plain and simple.

Likely He's buying his own book for visibility for a period of time to get some sales to get it on the algorithm.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

MikeDavidson said:


> C. Greenwood (carol or dara on the kboards here), who wrote this book has an already established reader base. So this is not a good example.
> 
> The man (michael) who wrote this 'sorcerer (elements)' book is a first time author. He has a terrible description, unappealing cover, and terrible editing/ choppy writing style. So how is he doing well? Cheating. Plain and simple.
> 
> Likely He's buying his own book for visibility for a period of time to get some sales to get it on the algorithm.


I was just using this as an example of pre-sales counting towards ranking. I certainly wasn't comparing the two authors.


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## MikeDavidson (Oct 5, 2013)

djv1120 said:


> I was just using this as an example of pre-sales counting towards ranking. I certainly wasn't comparing the two authors.


Oh gotchya. Sorry about that


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

************


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## Lucas Bale (Jun 4, 2014)

RubyL said:


> Unless something's changed in the last couple of weeks, pre-orders don't do anything for your ranking.


I thought so too, but now I don't think that can be right. I have a book on pre-order right now, DEFIANCE (the second book in a series), and it had a massive uptick in pre-orders when something (I don't know what - perhaps a GR Giveaway of DEFIANCE) drove up sales of THE HERETIC (the first in the series). It bumped DEFIANCE (and THE HERETIC) up the charts into a couple of Top Twenties (sub-genres) and put it first or second on Hot New Releases pages.

This is all the UK charts and lists, but the same rules must apply?


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Preorders definitely count towards ranking, on the day they're preordered.


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

Don't know how the author has managed it, but his rank is staying strong and he has reviews rolling in every day, and not just on the US site. All without an online presence of any note.


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## MikeDavidson (Oct 5, 2013)

Ty Johnston said:


> Don't know how the author has managed it, but his rank is staying strong and he has reviews rolling in every day, and not just on the US site. All without an online presence of any note.


Maybe the algorithm glitched and blessed his book while we're all sitting here in the mud.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

Ty Johnston said:


> Don't know how the author has managed it, but his rank is staying strong and he has reviews rolling in every day, and not just on the US site. All without an online presence of any note.


I am fully convinced that something is pushing his book and it certainly isn't the cover or qualiy of writing. The author may be a real person to boot. I just want to know how he drove his book so high.


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## storyteller (Feb 3, 2014)

eh, the reviews mostly say that the story was compelling to them.  considering (from reading the blurb and sample) that it's a bog-standard successful fantasy book plot, it's not so surprising that people like it, as it has the same plot as established million-selling fantasy writers like terry goodkind, but is waaaaay cheaper to purchase.  

i don't know if he's "cheating", he could just be benefiting from the fact that a lot of people will excuse massive technical problems for a comfort-food premise at a nice cheap price to try out.  

It is not, for example, much different in premise than "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson.  After reading the sample, I am really convinced that it's just a case of his pastiche-style overcoming his massive editing/grammar problems.  The folksy thing almost certainly helps people feel connected to the story.  It's a cheesy silly story, badly written, but even in the sample there's a lot of heart and I actually wanted to read more about Alec and Aunt Karen and, well, all the rest.  Sanderson is a far, far, far better writer, but both guys are writing very similar coming of age tales about upstart young men trying to make their way in a challenging world about to have major upheaval affecting even the gods and elites.

He got lucky, kind of like John Grisham.  Grisham was a terrible writer (at least, the book I read, The Firm), but I sure wanted to know what was going to happen in the next chapter anyway, despite the wooden dialogue and pathetic lack of description of the story-world.

Don't hate, appreciate!  A good yarn really can strike it rich, even if it's clumsily told!  This guy is a prime example!

PS: the cover was ninja, very much nailed the affect of fantasy covers.  So I guess covers matter.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I hate to be one of the lone voices of dissent here, but having received similar rude suspicions about my summer success from another forum (from a group of authors no less that didn't even KNOW they could put their books in different categories) just because WE as a collective group market one way doesn't mean there are not so many other, effective ways to market.

Off the top of my head, this author could be a major COSplay or tabletop gamer. My sister is into that scene and she goes to events with THOUSANDS of people. If I wrote fantasy, I would print some snazzy business cards telling anyone and everyone about my new book. Or maybe the author is a part of an online server or forum for fantasy fans. It ONLY takes a few hundred sales to start the snowball going down the hill.

Or, how about this theory. The author is part of a megachurch and his book was featured in the church bulletin, going out to a couple thousand people in the parish. People likely to give him a super high conversion rate because they KNOW him. I notice his 5 and 4 star reviews talk about the book being CLEAN. That means likely they are part of the readership that looks for that kind of designation on their fiction. Those readers pay happily for their niche, trust me.

Or, he's part of a large manufacturing company out in Iowa, maybe even works at a nuclear power plant, has former military experience and word went out over his private, personal social media that he was published... and soon it spread, like wildfire, across the country because suddenly you have friends of friends of acquaintances who are in vastly different marketplaces and social media rewards that semblance of virality. I've seen this happen with my own posts on Facebook, when my Navy wife friends start sharing it and they're in California, Hawa'ii, Washington, Virginia, etc. even with the same # of shares, I get better reach and Facebook's lovely "this message is doing so much better blah blah blah why don't you expand it's reach by paying $X" all because of the spread I think as it's the only variable difference I see (still a link etc). 

I don't have proof for any of this, but it's JUST as plausible as someone buying borrows (which I think Amazon would notice a sudden spike of a book get 10% read and no more in the hundreds in a short period of time). 

The online platform is just one way to sell ebooks, and more and more this forum is becoming whatever the majority does is seen as the only legitimate way to sell books. Me? I had a fanbase from my previous book and a mailing list of 1,000 readers plus a book deal blog I own that gets thousands of hits a month. To the other JAFF authors, I was this new, unknown author who just showed up and started outselling everyone but the very established authors in the genre (and even some of them, too). I didn't GO their route of only posting on a forum and hoping the governing body of that forum would offer me a "publishing contract" for a pittance of my sales revenue. And they had no concept that it could even BE done a different way.

Unless there is proof of unethical behavior, we shouldn't point fingers or speculate. Despite how much we might think we know about each other, it's still the Internet and no one really knows anyone's else's RL.


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## Ros_Jackson (Jan 11, 2014)

Amazon should separate the paid bestseller lists from the borrowed ones, just like it does with free/non-free. I agree with Patty, if people don't trust their recommendations it's a problem for all of us who gain visibility through their lists.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

Lady Vine said:


> Preorders definitely count towards ranking, on the day they're preordered.


I disagree. The count before that.
The top 100 science fiction charts in Germany include several books that are only available for preorder right now. This is a series that has been running in weekly installments since 1961, explaining how anything could be popular enough to pull this off. The important part is, they chart way before they are available.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

crebel said:


> Are you talking about the book Ticker? It is available for sale right now as a pre-release under the Kindle First program. The 4 Kindle First books each month generally stay at the top of their categories for the month they are available. Kindle Prime members can choose one of the 4 books for free, everyone else can buy them for $1.99.


Ticker? Yes, I have that on pre-order (uk audible version)


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## Evan of the R. (Oct 15, 2013)

ThomasDiehl said:


> I disagree. The count before that.
> The top 100 science fiction charts in Germany include several books that are only available for preorder right now. This is a series that has been running in weekly installments since 1961, explaining how anything could be popular enough to pull this off. The important part is, they chart way before they are available.


This is what Lady Vine was saying.


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## darkline (Mar 30, 2014)

I agree with Elizabeth. There could be nothing dishonest going on here. I didn't read the book, but it _is _possible to be a good, engaging storyteller without being a good writer, and it is possible to succeed without a great cover, formatting and writing. It happens. Maybe the story(don't confuse with writing) is that good. Maybe the author was just very lucky. Who knows.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Evan R. said:


> This is what Lady Vine was saying.


Thank you. Yes, this was exactly what I was saying.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

ThomasDiehl said:


> I disagree. The count before that.
> The top 100 science fiction charts in Germany include several books that are only available for preorder right now. This is a series that has been running in weekly installments since 1961, explaining how anything could be popular enough to pull this off. The important part is, they chart way before they are available.


They can't count before they're pre-ordered. She means they count on the day the order is placed and affect rank on that day, not the day the book goes live.

However, pre-orders count on the day the book goes live _internally_, and count on that day toward bestseller lists, NYT, USAT, etc. But pre-orders don't affect rank on the day the book goes live anymore than past sales ever do.


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## Chance (Jul 2, 2014)

I've seen this before. There was one in particular that was bizarre IMO - I think it was called "Mystery Man" by an author named Jeff (forgot the last name). It was a 10 or so page short story that had grammar errors all over the place (and from the reviews I've seen - I didn't buy the book - the story wasn't good as well). The thing is, that particular title was ranked, at the very highest, in the 4-digits. Yeah, like top 5k-<10k or so. It stayed that way for a good few weeks, so apparently unless there is a reader base that embraces literature written at low-grade level, there's probably something fishy going on with those poorly-written books that rank at or near best-seller ranks. Then again, I rarely seem to bump into them, so I'm not that concerned (yet).

In fact, I just checked on that particular title I mentioned a few minutes ago. Apparently it's now in the 100,000+ ranks so I guess when there's enough disgruntled reviewers then the poorly-written books will (eventually) go down the toilet.


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## Claire Frank (Jul 28, 2014)

David - I think you bring up a fair question, and obviously you weren't accusing this author of anything, just curious to find out how he may have achieved such a high ranking. I wonder the same thing! There's another book that popped up on the fantasy lists recently that's also killing it - first book, new author, no other books out yet. He does have an online presence, so at least it is easier to see that he's "real" LOL. But I've been dying to know how he managed to get such great visibility right out of the gate. It's this one - http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-What-Lost-Licanius-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00ME5G3DM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1416242660&sr=1-1&keywords=james+islington.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Claire Frank said:


> David - I think you bring up a fair question, and obviously you weren't accusing this author of anything, just curious to find out how he may have achieved such a high ranking. I wonder the same thing! There's another book that popped up on the fantasy lists recently that's also killing it - first book, new author, no other books out yet. He does have an online presence, so at least it is easier to see that he's "real" LOL. But I've been dying to know how he managed to get such great visibility right out of the gate. It's this one - http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-What-Lost-Licanius-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00ME5G3DM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1416242660&sr=1-1&keywords=james+islington.


I don't know how he got the visibility, but while the writing could use some polish, the dialogue is very good. The prologue made me want to keep reading, for sure.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I seem to remember people getting all up in arms when one author dominated the top 15 free books.  No one here knew her so basically the same accusation.    With just a wee bit of research,  turns out she was very well known in her genre/field and so hundreds of thousands picked up the ebook copies when she made them free for a few days.  I cannot remember her name but her books are used in many many Christian churches across the country.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

darkline said:


> I agree with Elizabeth. There could be nothing dishonest going on here. I didn't read the book, but it _is _possible to be a good, engaging storyteller without being a good writer, and it is possible to succeed without a great cover, formatting and writing. It happens. Maybe the story(don't confuse with writing) is that good. Maybe the author was just very lucky. Who knows.


I don't see anything suspicious, either. It could be he already had a following from some other endeavor before he published. I would sure love to know how he did it, though!


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> I hate to be one of the lone voices of dissent here, but having received similar rude suspicions about my summer success from another forum (from a group of authors no less that didn't even KNOW they could put their books in different categories) just because WE as a collective group market one way doesn't mean there are not so many other, effective ways to market.
> 
> Off the top of my head, this author could be a major COSplay or tabletop gamer. My sister is into that scene and she goes to events with THOUSANDS of people. If I wrote fantasy, I would print some snazzy business cards telling anyone and everyone about my new book. Or maybe the author is a part of an online server or forum for fantasy fans. It ONLY takes a few hundred sales to start the snowball going down the hill.
> 
> ...


I truly hope it is legitimate. In fact, that is exactly why I started the tread - I want to learn how it was done. I have searched multiple times and have been unable to find any trace of this author on social media. Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the mystery will never be unwrapped. There are just too many things that don't make sense ... right down to the 1.99 price that only delivers a 30% commission.


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## alsentan (Jul 26, 2014)

djv1120 said:


> What secret/service can I use to duplicate the results?


That's what I want to know!


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## David J Normoyle (Jun 22, 2012)

Claire Frank said:


> David - I think you bring up a fair question, and obviously you weren't accusing this author of anything, just curious to find out how he may have achieved such a high ranking. I wonder the same thing! There's another book that popped up on the fantasy lists recently that's also killing it - first book, new author, no other books out yet. He does have an online presence, so at least it is easier to see that he's "real" LOL. But I've been dying to know how he managed to get such great visibility right out of the gate. It's this one - http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-What-Lost-Licanius-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00ME5G3DM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1416242660&sr=1-1&keywords=james+islington.


I came across this book (bookbub ad I think) and read it, and recommended it to friends. Really great story. Looking forward to the sequel.

Edit: I don't buy many books from bookbub, often start and give up on many that I do pick up as cheap reads and I'm not sure I've recommended any bookbub-found books to friends before. That book's pretty special in my opinion. So don't think there's any real secret to that one except for writing a great book ala Hugh Howey.


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## DanaG (Feb 13, 2011)

djv1120 said:


> Well, I guess I'm glad I stirred up a lot of conversation. I didn't intend for it to be a rip on author/book, but if there is shenanigans going on, that should be called out.
> 
> Here's the real question: is there a legitimate way to do what this book has done?
> 
> ...


The thing is - I'm not saying that this book is specifically doing that, but in general - if people are creating a "borrow circle" or "borrow exchange" - I don't see any way that could be done legitimately.

Also, as to a brand new author suddenly shooting high up in the rankings - when that is LEGITIMATELY done, it's often a new pen name but not a new author. This happened to me when I had my first break out bestseller. I'd been experimenting with various pen names for about a year and a half when I debuted a new pen name and tried a new genre of romance, and my book made it really high on the Amazon ranks within a couple of weeks. Like, in the top 40. It looked like I was a brand new author coming out of nowhere, but I wasn't.


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## djv1120 (Dec 7, 2013)

Claire Frank said:


> David - I think you bring up a fair question, and obviously you weren't accusing this author of anything, just curious to find out how he may have achieved such a high ranking. I wonder the same thing! There's another book that popped up on the fantasy lists recently that's also killing it - first book, new author, no other books out yet. He does have an online presence, so at least it is easier to see that he's "real" LOL. But I've been dying to know how he managed to get such great visibility right out of the gate. It's this one - http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-What-Lost-Licanius-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00ME5G3DM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1416242660&sr=1-1&keywords=james+islington.


This is an even better example because it has sustained for a few months. It seems to be higher quality and has a professional looking cover. In both cases, I think a massive amount of sales had to be made over a short period of time to launch it. After that, the book will rise or fall on its own merits.

I just want to believe that there are legitimate methods to achieve the results. I could even accept that somebody spent a lot of money. The alternative is that it was just dumb luck and that is a demoralizing prospect because I have never experienced a lot of luck.


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## darkline (Mar 30, 2014)

It is undeniable that a lot depends on dumb luck. You can have a great book, a great cover and a great blurb, do all the right things to market it, but luck still plays a huge role. 
For example, your book ends up on an Also Bought list of a very popular book, you get reviewed by a popular blogger/reviewer on Goodreads and then Word of Mouth does the rest. You can't predict things like that.  A lot depends on luck.


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## dmdaye (Jun 6, 2014)

It does sound like someone has found a way of lending in such a fashion that they've rocketed up the rankings, you would hope that Amazon can fix this


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

It is easy,  give everyone you know $10 a month + 50 cents for each of your books they borrow.    There now you have more borrows.  Oh wait, they would cost you more than you would make.


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## thomaskcarpenter (May 17, 2011)

djv1120 said:


> I agree with all your comments. With that said, what if the book was good? If you could put a well-edited book with a nice cover in that position, it should maintain momentum. If you had a series, you would pretty much be setting yourself up for considerable long term success.
> 
> What secret/service can I use to duplicate the results?
> 
> Is it just luck?


Judging by the reviews, it looks like it's a good story, but just not produced well (editing, formatting, etc.) I don't think there's any secret or service you can use. It's all about the story, which I believe, is how it should be.

Though I do agree there's always an element of luck, but if you don't have the good story in the first place, you can't get lucky.


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## C. Michael Wells (Feb 26, 2014)

Claire Frank said:


> David - I think you bring up a fair question, and obviously you weren't accusing this author of anything, just curious to find out how he may have achieved such a high ranking. I wonder the same thing! There's another book that popped up on the fantasy lists recently that's also killing it - first book, new author, no other books out yet. He does have an online presence, so at least it is easier to see that he's "real" LOL. But I've been dying to know how he managed to get such great visibility right out of the gate. It's this one - http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-What-Lost-Licanius-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00ME5G3DM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1416242660&sr=1-1&keywords=james+islington.


A Shadow of What Was Lost is one of the best self published epic fantasy books to come out in the last year or so. It's easy to see why it has done so well. It has a great cover, good blurb, tight editing, and follows what epic fantasy should be to a t. It's a classic coming of age story done right. One of the few books that I have recommended to my speculative fiction writer's group.


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## dragontucker (Jul 18, 2014)

I saw this book too and wondered how it is doing so well. I hope he didn't use any schemes or tricks. It gives me hope with my fantasy I am releasing to KU


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

ThomasDiehl said:


> I disagree. The count before that.
> The top 100 science fiction charts in Germany include several books that are only available for preorder right now. This is a series that has been running in weekly installments since 1961, explaining how anything could be popular enough to pull this off. The important part is, they chart way before they are available.


Half the German SF top 100 is always Perry Rhodan at any given time.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

Lady Vine said:


> Thank you. Yes, this was exactly what I was saying.


Apologies. I read it as saying pre-orders get counted into the ranking on delivery day.


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

ShayneRutherford said:


> I agree with most of this, except for the part about it not being the concern of other authors. Because if the book in question got to #1 on the chart because of a scam, it's screwing over the book that's actually earned the #1 spot through legitimate practices and hard work. That is a concern.


Isn't this a bit like athletes using steroids? They're taking those top spots away from those more deserving, along with all of the ancillary benefits which come along with it.

Not saying the author in question is up to anything; I have no evidence of that, so I'm not going to throw any stones. But, given the cover and comments about the book needing editing, something's either going on or everything just fell into place or maybe covers and good prose don't mean as much as we all like to think.

<shrug> Back to writing...


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## RVwriter (Nov 17, 2014)

I'm new to this so I have been doing searches on Google about how to promote a Kindle Book. There are dozens of Free Promote sites and others who offer ways to scam the system. If everyone set by "the rules" we would all drown. Thousands of books are put up daily. As for the quality, until Amazon implements an editorial review, all sorts of quality will exist in the system.

Isn't the whole point of self publishing to give anyone a chance to sell?  
I can think of 10 mainstream authors who really aren't that good, they just had great publicity machines behind them.


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## darkline (Mar 30, 2014)

I just had a thought: maybe the author set the book free from the start and got a lot of free downloads, which translated into sales when the book came off Free? It is one of the legitimate launch strategies and sometimes it works very well.


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## Censored (Oct 31, 2014)

darkline said:


> I just had a thought: maybe the author set the book free from the start and got a lot of free downloads, which translated into sales when the book came off Free? It is one of the legitimate launch strategies and sometimes it works very well.


My understanding was that Amazon killed this strategy, as the free downloads no longer affect the paid rank when the free promo ends.

I'd certainly like to know what this guy did to achieve this success, too, but short of him showing up here, I doubt we'll ever know for sure.


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## Scout (Jun 2, 2014)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Unless there is proof of unethical behavior, we shouldn't point fingers or speculate. Despite how much we might think we know about each other, it's still the Internet and no one really knows anyone's else's RL.


Exactly. There is absolutely *no* proof this dude did anything other than publish a book. Thank you for your insightful post, yet again. Cheers.


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## delly_xo (Oct 29, 2014)

Honestly, my 1st book did very well - went on several free charts when it was free and stayed on those same charts as paid. It currently has 80 reviews. I didn't buy any borrows or anything, I was just as baffled as to why it did well (see my first post RE it being a fluke). That said, the book has garnered legitimate criticism around some of the editing (I did pay an editor too), but so far people still seem to LOVE it - so much so they are still buying it more so than the following book I released. 

All I did was purchase a few days of a FB boost for that first book, but whatever the heck I did, it worked.

Point is, this is entirely possible and it's not due to some magic formula. Maybe he had ads waiting to go and tons of pre-orders. Who knows? 
My website isn't always up to date and I don't have that many ppl on my FB either.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

djv1120 said:


> The book is now at #195. What does that take - 2500 sales over a day or two?


No, only about 500-600 a day. Selling 2500 a day will put it close to the Top Ten.


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## Rue Hirsch (May 4, 2014)

Here's the thing about fantasy: many readers of that genre still favor the Tolkien-esque story lines and tropes. Its something that baffles me personally, because I have read enough of farmer boy turned hero stories in my day to give me a belly ache. But fans of the genre are loyal to these ideas. Its what defines the genre in a way. 

Yeah it leaves me wondering why I work so hard to make my work presentable when these sorts of things happen. But we don't know what kind of networking he did pre or after release to get the word of his book out there. Maybe that's what has brought him this succcess. Sure, his writing isn't the best but it seriously seems like a lot of readers don't care about that. I have read some horrible stories on another forum (fantasy related) that get a lot of good comments and I'm like whaaa? No...poor grammar, cliche stale characters, and people love the stories. Why? Because most of them follow the basic fantasy plot lines.


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## A.E. Williams (Jul 13, 2014)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Half the German SF top 100 is always Perry Rhodan at any given time.


LOL! As well it should be! 

A.E. Williams


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## Elle J. Lawson (Jan 24, 2015)

As of today, it's at #11,863. Mine is at #376,451, so I'd say he's still going strong. Somehow.


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## Gator (Sep 28, 2012)

Elle J. Lawson said:


> As of today, it's at #11,863. Mine is at #376,451, so I'd say he's still going strong. Somehow.


He has a hot and steamy dragon turd on his cover. Your cover is just hot and steamy.


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

Has anyone noticed something else that is odd? At least to me it is.

Compare his Amazon and his GoodReads ratings. On Amazon he is rated 4.0 of 5 stars. On GoodReads he is rated 4.06 of 5 stars.

Albet the difference is small, on Amazon the rating is based on 204 votes, and the rating on GoodReads is based on 485 votes. How come, that on a site like GoodReads, where we all know they grade and rate far, far harsher than on Amazon (and even the rating system is different there, 4 stars on Amazon is not the same as 4 stars on GoodReads), did this dude get a better rating than on Amazon, from more than double the votes difference!? How did he get so many votes there in the first place!? Usually all the titles I have compared have less votes, reviews and such on GR than on Amazon. Again, consider the fact that he is a debut author.

I'm still suspicious, despite the possible explanations and theories to legitimate success by some members here.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

I don't know if he used ill-gotten means to rank so highly initially. Certainly possibly, maybe even kinda likely. But there are book promotion companies who do things legimately, too, let's not forget. And a quick read of the reviews gives a pretty good hint at how he stayed well-ranked and is still selling okay months after the release: a good story. 

Even the most glowing review about the great storyline tend to criticize the writing and editing. It looks like the guy just told a story that readers of the genre really enjoy, enough that many overlooked the flaws and kept going. I read a pinch of the sample, and it wasn't the worst writing evarr. I've no idea about the story, since I don't read fantasy, but if it's what readers are looking for, there you go.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Gaulvinov said:


> Compare his Amazon and his GoodReads ratings. On Amazon he is rated 4.0 of 5 stars. On GoodReads he is rated 4.06 of 5 stars.
> 
> Albet the difference is small, on Amazon the rating is based on 204 votes, and the rating on GoodReads is based on 485 votes. How come, that on a site like GoodReads, where we all know they grade and rate far, far harsher than on Amazon (and even the rating system is different there, 4 stars on Amazon is not the same as 4 stars on GoodReads), did this dude get a better rating than on Amazon, from more than double the votes difference!? How did he get so many votes there in the first place!? Usually all the titles I have compared have less votes, reviews and such on GR than on Amazon. Again, consider the fact that he is a debut author.


Trade and self-publishing, I almost always have more reviews on Goodreads than Amazon. Sometimes the reviews skew higher on one than the other, but they're always ballpark similar.

I don't see anything dodgy or amiss about that part of it.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

ricola said:


> To get 200 takes about 200-300 sales a day right now. I don't know how many borrows that would be. Someone in KU can tell me.
> 
> A KU "borrow" farm would be super lucrative right now if you hired cheap labor to do the paging and charged $1 per borrow. Everyone would come out ahead.


We figured out the math on that a few months back. It's insanely lucrative if you have the resources to pull it together. You can recoup the cost of the initial layout for the KU subscriptions in no time.

I have heard it stated elsewhere that Amazon is starting to crack down on the KU "borrow circles" and banning accounts over it. Unlike other scams this particular one costs Amazon money, so they've got more of an incentive to actually deal with the problem rather than just shrugging it off like they typically do.


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## Elidibus (May 13, 2015)

I think what I'm about to say counts as being devil's advocate, but, barring finding out anything else about this, it seems like I'm just gonna have to agree with everyone. A good book just sells. Maybe people are growing more and more forgiving about editing and formatting, if the story is really awesome. I'm sure as the self publishing industry continues to grow, the increased numbers will find us with an increase in the amount of writers such as this, who have an otherwise good story, but lack form. And maybe we've already reached this trend?

It would back up some independent research I've been doing on editing and reviews. It seems people as a whole tend to forgive editing on stories that are good. Often, the reviews I read that are negative cite story problems, such as cliched endings and stereotypes. However, what little I've examined surely doesn't count for the vast majority of stories out there.  But it's a possibility, right? Does the average person care a whole lot about editing? We should set about finding a good answer. Or maybe a better question would be to what degree poor editing and formatting reflect negatively on an otherwise exceptional story.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

For me the entire question becomes one of HOW did a story (GOOD OR BAD) get enough visibility to sell?  Obviously from a debut author.  When one is a debut author, one asks this question.  The fact that a book can obtain enough visibility to sell DESPITE lacking in one or more categories that we strive to perfect here on Kboards is doubly frustrating.

I chalk it up to luck in those cases.  Some really good books I've read from Kboarders are struggling while some less than interesting books (and I'm being super kind here to keep Betsy and Ann off my back) seem to do well no matter what they do/did.

I take comfort in the fact that many authors have indicated that their success may have been with book 2 or book 3 or book 5 or book 10.  Maybe that Amazon visibility lift is just waiting for one of us with a new release this year or it's waiting for one of us with a bookbub ad this year


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Salvador Mercer said:


> For me the entire question becomes one of HOW did a story (GOOD OR BAD) get enough visibility to sell? Obviously from a debut author. When one is a debut author, one asks this question. The fact that a book can obtain enough visibility to sell DESPITE lacking in one or more categories that we strive to perfect here on Kboards is doubly frustrating.
> 
> I chalk it up to luck in those cases. Some really good books I've read from Kboarders are struggling while some less than interesting books (and I'm being super kind here to keep Betsy and Ann off my back) seem to do well no matter what they do/did.
> 
> I take comfort in the fact that many authors have indicated that their success may have been with book 2 or book 3 or book 5 or book 10. Maybe that Amazon visibility lift is just waiting for one of us with a new release this year or it's waiting for one of us with a bookbub ad this year


Can you 100% prove this is a debut author?


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> Can you 100% prove this is a debut author?


Yeah, it could be someone's pen name.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Yeah, it could be someone's pen name.


Or a group pen name.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

A new pen name for an established author isn't going to perform any better than a brand new author - unless the author publicly links them. Richard Bachman was only every moderately successful until he was revealed to be a Stephen King pen name.

It's very possible for a horribly edited book that's barely readable by my standards to legitimately get into high rankings. There's a particular one in a trope I absolutely love that I've purchased twice (bought, returned, repurchased) because I want so badly to like it. It has a lot of good reviews - other than the obvious "Please get an editor" ones, and even most of those are positive about the story itself - but the grammar/punctuation is so utterly atrocious that I can't make it through the second chapter. But it's obvious from the reviews that most people love it, warts and all. I don't understand it, but I can't argue with it any more than I can argue with gravity. It just is.


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

KelliWolfe said:


> A new pen name for an established author isn't going to perform any better than a brand new author - unless the author publicly links them.


This ^

For a great example of just this, Robert Galbraith's debut crime novel sold 500 copies, until it leaked out whose pen name it was...


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

Guys ...

I just found out that this guy's book has been out since 25th October 2014 (at least). So he hasn't written anything in some while, and markets this book again, as something new. Perhaps there was a prior attempt at getting the high note, but failed? And this time the wind picked up?

We all know that in order to get recognized as an author, you need to release as many works as you can in a short while, as you are starting out. And this rings true for fantasy authors as well, I've done my homework. This guy is an anomaly in every regard that you look at it.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

Gaulvinov said:


> We all know that in order to get recognized as an author, you need to release as many works as you can in a short while, as you are starting out.


We do?


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

cinisajoy said:


> Can you 100% prove this is a debut author?


Probably not even 50%, but I'm not writing gospel here either. All we can do is look at the book, look at the author profile, do a net search and decide. I think some other posts covered this well and I'd include the Harry Potter author too IIRC.

I noticed my little book caught a tail and I was getting around 10 buys a day from less than 1 after my promotion. I went from 40k after the tail, hitting 12.8k with no promotion. I looked everywhere and found my book in the KU > Fantasy > Sub categories in the top 1% of pages (page 1 for a weaker category and page 4 of 400 for EPIC Fantasy hehe. I figured that is where my sales were coming from and my graph also shows a marked uptick in KU/KOLL borrows.

When my sales started to tank, I reviewed my page rankings in those categories and found I had dropped from page 1 to 3 in Metaphysical & Visionary and page 4 to page 10 in Epic.

I think IF a book gets into one of those Amazon algorythms just right then the book can take off. In fact, any book will take off and bad reviews don't seem to hinder the potential reader. After a dozen of them (or hundreds for one author I know) the book still sales.

My point is worry about what you can control and try to make your own luck. I wanted to demystify the entire question, probably for my own sanity if nothing else.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

KelliWolfe said:


> A new pen name for an established author isn't going to perform any better than a brand new author - unless the author publicly links them. Richard Bachman was only every moderately successful until he was revealed to be a Stephen King pen name.


It's been rumored that Wayne Stinnett is a pen name used by Randy Wayne White.  



Gaulvinov said:


> We all know that in order to get recognized as an author, you need to release as many works as you can in a short while, as you are starting out.


More importantly is creating a good story, well told and well edited. Dumping a bunch of poorly written material into Amazon all at once, won't change that.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

dianapersaud said:


> Or a group pen name.


Man, I wish I belonged to a group pen name! That would be the way to rake in the dough.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

KelliWolfe said:


> A new pen name for an established author isn't going to perform any better than a brand new author - unless the author publicly links them.


Or has figured out how things work and knows how to launch a book now, vs before. Ask Bella Andre.


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