My Author Rank…irregular heartbeat or panic attack?
For some, I bet that’s easier said than done.
From a writer’s standpoint, I agree that the author ranking should not be the main focus. The idea is to write books and make them available. The more books you have, the easier it will be to push sales of previous books, which will help drive your author rank higher. However, from a marketing standpoint, I think it’s a good idea to keep an eye on your author rank, on a semi-regular basis anyway. Why? Because it helps to determine when a marketing approach works and when it doesn’t; or rather, what might push your rank up and what doesn’t.
This is what I’ve figured out so far:
From there things get real quiet for awhile. My rank slips and slips from the end of July until the end of September. I didn’t hold any signings, take part in any other marketing ideas and I didn’t enter any contests…I was pretty quiet as I worked on my second book. But I was writing and writing is what I have to do to get more books out there in order to make more sales in order to push that rank even higher.
Spike in Mystery category during Kindle Countdown Deal |
I agree with other bloggers who tell writers not to let their ranking consume them. I believe using it to figure out what might work with regard to marketing is useful but letting it determine how you write or what you write is not productive. Writers need to write what they feel and feel what they write. The validation for work completed comes from how readers respond to what you’ve created. And as a writer continues to create, they’ll reach more readers and gain more ground as their author rank grows organically through hard work and determination (plus a dash of patience).