Last week my new book in the Author Your Ambition series, Going Wide, went wide and was released to the world. Hands down, this book has sold the most of any book I’ve ever put on pre-order. The book was on pre-order for 50 days and of the 10 books I’ve released in the past 6 years that’s about the average pre-order length I’ve done so it did way better than my other books comparatively. The pre-order did what it was supposed to do. All those orders counted as sales at 12:01am that morning. And then I got a boost in sales from those who forgot and from Dale over at Self-Publishing with Dale giving my book a rave review on his channel. (It helps to have connected ARC readers). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4t8UIEznUo&t=34s

By the time baby girl was down for bed and my husband and I were about to eat dinner I checked my rankings (horrible habit) and I was #2 in the new release category for two of my categories on Amazon. So close, but not quite there. I was a little disappointed to not be #1, but I’d never been #1 in a category before so I was kind of used to it.

So we ate dinner and watched TV and before I went to bed I decided to check one last time. And, what do you know. I had sold a few more books and boom.

#1 New Release with that bright orange sticker on my book.

To say I started celebrating would have put it mildly. I was so amped.

So now I’m going to tell you how my life has changed since I got that orange sticker…

IT HASN’T!

And to be honest, I’m a little mad at myself for falling into this trap EVERY TIME I LAUNCH A BOOK. I know my book is quality, I wouldn’t put it out into the world with my name on it if I didn’t think so. Yes, I know that the Amazon Best Seller Ranking can help to get the book discovered and increase sales. Yep, got it. But the work I do to sell the book is what is guaranteed, not the end result. Even Amazon clearly states on their website that these rankings change hourly and there is a specific weighting to it that isn’t necessarily explained.

“Rankings are updated hourly but may take 24–48 hours to appear. Rankings reflect recent and historical activity, with recent activity weighted more heavily. Rankings are relative, so your sales rank can change even when your book’s level of activity stays the same.’ – https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201648140

I spend A LOT of time working with authors and explaining to them that this number is so arbitrary. Will it help, yes. Can you set yourself up for success, absolutely! But should you drive yourself crazy trying to reverse engineer the algorithm to “hack it” , no. Never.

And if you didn’t happen to catch it, this was my 10th book that finally achieved this status on launch day, after 6 years of learning and growing an audience, and providing value on this channel, and networking with other credible people in the space to be able to get their endorsement.

And guess what, when I woke up the next morning… it was gone. The reality is, my life didn’t change because of this and your life won’t change either just because of a temporary sticker on your book page. Go and write your best book, do the best with that you have, and enjoy your launch day and don’t spend all day hitting refresh on your rankings.

Music from: https://www.bensound.com/​ E.R.F.

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