Amazon's Best Sellers

Does Amazon’s Best Seller List mean anything?

I woke up to a normal sunny summer day, with the angry waves crashing at the seawalls dancing to the rhythmic techno beat of our neighbor’s music. I addressed the howling woofs of my tiny Yorkie pups gently nipping at my ankle clamoring for breakfast. I let them out to play and do their business, I turned on the California news about the fires, and said a little prayer that my friends are safe & sound. I caught up on the ‘Cancel Culture’ recall of the California Governor as the doggies sauntered in. I was feeling overwhelmed and worried about my loved one’s who’ve contract Covid-19. Just days later, I would lose my two beloved cousins to Covid-19. One in the US and the other in Cebu.

How much can one person take? I caught myself contemplating, Sometimes the Negativity is too much, maybe I shouldn’t watch the news at all? An hour passed before I was truly ready to face the digital world lurking in my computer. I ran my emails, checked in on FB to see what’s happening with my friends, frenemies, and imaginary FB friends. Another hour passes. Alright, now down to business, checked my amazon pages, stats, and suddenly whoa, I made #1 on Amazon Hot New Releases list! It must be a fluke. “Shards of Time” is currently #1 in the Amazon Hot New Releases as of today!

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I frantically scrolled further; it was also #3 from Amazon’s Best Seller list, in addition, my two year memoir ‘A Doorbell, A Dictator, A Dad’ ranked #9!

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I must have inadvertently pleased the computer algorithm Gods! Hmmm…. I was ecstatic for about 2 seconds, and immediately did a shout out at FB! I had more than 200+ congratulatory post and my ego was well and truly inflated. But about 20 minutes into it, my suspicious analytical left-brain thought, Hold up; what occurred since yesterday that had caused this reversal of fortunes?

I confessed to my husband Darwin, ”I feel like an imposter!”
“You’re not, hon. You deserve it. Don’t sell yourself short.”

”Listen, I learned from experience the way to navigate a product to the top is by running promo campaigns, pounding on all the social media doors, and running ads. I’ve done none of that!”

Recently, I’d been totally invested in managing my friend’s book campaign. I was doing all of the above mentioned and I was also absorbed in monitoring her reports, tracking the number of downloads and ‘page reads’, and I had just taken a crash course in Amazon ads. I was seeing the hard work begin to pay off!

Prior to my foray into authorship, I was a web designer. I’d wrestled with search engine optimization and algorithms on a daily basis. My job was to rescue websites from the dark abyss of their obscurity and drag them kicking and screaming into the light of the common day. I’d gotten pretty savvy at it too. So the premise I began with was that I might have a slight advantage in cracking the self-publishing self-marketing code.

Talking absently to Darwin again, ”Maybe, I did something accidentally that pushed my book to the top 10 while I was sleepwalking? I’m not ruling out visiting book pixies!”

Darwin said, “What, don’t you want to believe your book is doing good?” he asked. “I honestly love your book! Why is it so hard for you to believe that other people liked it too?”

Who was I kidding? Its alright, but there are SO many great books out there by some really super authors. Had I stumbled into some arcane keyboard secret? In my case with my second book, ‘Shards of Time’ I really hadn’t even run a promo yet; I had just released it and I was more interested in cleaning up any grammar and formatting errors. My heart wanted to believe it but my head needed proof!

Maybe I shouldn’t look the gift horse of blessed synchronicity in the mouth! To make a long story short, here’s the secret: as it turns out the only thing that I did differently was that I added ‘genre categories’. Bryan, the pro who taught the Amazon ad classes suggested, “Instead of running your book in only 2 genre categories, Amazon allows you to run up to 10 categories. You only have to asked for them!”

Eureka, mystery solved! Instead of being a small fish in a big ocean. Putting my book into smaller niche genres allowed my book to find its way to the top by reducing the competition. At that point my retired husband offered to do the math, but I shyly demurred saying, “Maybe later, dear.”

So not only did I become a big fish in a super small pond, I knew why. Happy heart & happy mind. Before my super week had even ended I got another piece of good news. A brick-and-mortar store in Berkeley in northern California, ‘East Wind Bookstore of Berkeley’ picked up my book. Here’s how that happened. I knew that they supported ethnic and minority writers.‘

I just released my book,’ I wrote them. ‘Would you be interested in selling them in your store?’ I asked.

‘Sure.’ was the response. ‘Please send us some copies to review.’ Several weeks later, I followed up on it, but no response. Being the clichéd sensitive writer that I am, I took it to heart, but no one was there to toot my horn on my behalf. That’s what old school publishers used to do for their clients. I’m my own client… hello! The good fortune of getting a high ranking on Amazon was a huge emotional lift, but I knew these kinds of stats never last long, and I wanted to use it to give my book a boost into some hands. I figured, I’ve gotta’ strike while the iron is hot!

I disabused myself of the notion that my narcissism had again gotten the upper hand. I decided to blow my own horn. Who else was going to do it?Anxiously, I wrote again, ‘FYI, if you have doubts about my book, I am currently Amazon’s #1 New Hot Releases and my 2 books made it top 100 best seller list.’ I shamelessly sent them some screenshots to boot. ‘So there!’

I thought.Before I knew it, I’d received the email saying, “We ordered some copies from Ingram Sparks, please do a shoutout to all your social media channels so that they can buy your book from us.” I felt so honored and super pleased that it worked out.Grab your paperback copies here: https://www.asiabookcenter.com/store/p3390/Shards_of_Time%3A_A_Memoir.html

I’m aware it’s not Barnes & Nobles, but still it’s a very important bookstore for me. Not only is it in Berkeley, my favorite area in Northern California. My homestead. My ol’ stomping grounds. Berkeley is the bastion of liberal minded people. It’s a beautiful cozy, multi-culturally diverse crowd with a combination of intellectuals, artist, working-class stiffs and tons of foreign students! Some people call it Bezerkeley, but for me… I just feel cool walking down University Ave or Shattuck. I love the ‘Gourmet Gulch’ with all the great restaurants. Berkeley is tres-chic!