I’m a little late on this but it’s still November 1 so if you’re into social change and want to help with a little experiment then read the post on worldchanging.com, then go to Amazon.com and buy their book today.
The plan is to use the internet and word of mouth to get enough people to buy the book today on Amazon to push it up in terms of sales rank. This will get the attention of Amazon, who will likely order more books, and will hit the radar of the indies too.
The plan is a little hit and miss on how the publishing industry actually works, but since I’m a tree-huggy, alternative girl, I want to buy this book, and, therefore, also want to support the enthusiasm of their plan. Since I’m a practical, hard-working bee in the publishing industry, let me explain where the cracks exist.
It is very smart to use word of mouth and generate lots of sales, even for a short period of time. Here’s the but …
1. You want to have lots of sales over a longer period of time, at least a week, not just one day. The perception is wow, they got a whole bunch of people to buy the book on one day. Great. But those sales likely equal the sales they would have gotten over a longer period of time. The pie doesn’t get bigger, the sales just all appear on one day. NOTE: I said this is the perception. Of course, you’ll sell more books because you’ve done an outreach campaign to educate people about your book. But you need to think about how to sustain the sales too.
2. Amazon’s bestseller list is influential to Amazon buyers and the publisher involved. A one-day blitz might get media attention or Amazon’s attention, but you want real long-term impact and, again, a way to sustain sales. Booksellers can return stock so you can do the blitz to get more orders but it doesn’t help you if they return them a month later.
3. Amazon ranks books based on sales over the previous hour. The ranking system is strange. I don’t know why authors keep checking it. It’s an interesting guide but so what if you were #1 for that hour and then #72 for the next hour and then back to #30,000 at the end of the day. That’s not the real data that Amazon looks at, or what a publisher or bookseller considers when making budget decisions.
What does work is the enthusiasm the WorldChanging Team has for the book, for giving readers a purpose and plan, for generating interest and publicity about what they are trying to do and for their book.
You can get attention. My point is simply do it for long-term benefit rather than a short-term media hit.
I recommend reading the comments after the post because there are some clever tips and information from other authors and book people about how to be even more effective than the one-day blitz, and how to be more effective in an indie shop. Read in particular what Maria Headley has to say.
Anyway, I’ve requested this book for my birthday but I’m not going to order from Amazon.com because even though I have a Canadian shipping address, they source US books. I want to support Canadian publishers and distributors so I order from Amazon.ca for hard to find titles and buy from my local shop.