Not Quite Ian Rankings!

So here I am just back from the hospital, sitting here trying to get comfortable with a back sore with needle jabs. It is probably the fifth procedure I have had on my back in say 7 years with varying success but no permanency. Back pain seems to be an ever present corollary to my life. To add to my woes my new laptop is sick and so I am back on my old machine.

Not done a post in a while and not in the most positive mood to do one but what the heck. I have been spending more and more time on Twitter since I began using it in earnest from September. Yet my primary purpose of getting my name as an author out there and going 50 Shades viral has not happened. I have sold about 6 from Twittering although I have had a couple of good reviews from people on there. I am also getting some help on The Puzzle which has now been finished a year but no agent has expressed an interest – I am not a famous name you see with an automatic audience.

Twitter is still an alien planet to me. Play an hashtag game and you mike get some likes. Same for joining in one of the quizzes. Or even for a quick pun on someone else’s tweet. 29 likes is still me best for my Oxomoron reply to a Susie Dent tweet. 29 is not a lot for Twitter but it is for someone like me. I am also quite involved with A Wordle league that I have started with another guy on Twitter to which over 200 people have signed up. Therefore, we have a War of the Wordles but would they all buy a book – a Wardle of Words?

Time for an experiment. There was a little argument on Twitter a few months ago about how many sales make one a bestseller. In summary the figure was 5,000 a week. Now, I won’t think I have sold 200 yet and my first book came out in the 80’s. I am less interested in royalties at this time because at about 0.60 per go for me it would take millions of sales for me to do what I have wanted since 18 and become a full time writer. What does intrigue me though is the correlation between a sale and the Amazon rankings. And so we come to the experiment.

I sold my last book on 13th March and here are my current Amazon rankings.

Rewind – 1,271,620 – Reviews 9 – 7 UK and 2 US – six 5 star, two 4 star and a 1 Star from some guy in the US.

Once Upon A Week – 1,289,261 – Reviews 4 – 3 UK and 1 US – two 4 star and two 5 star

Trouble Cross – 1,639,683 – Reviews 3 – all UK and all 5 star

Pratt, Pratt, Wally and Pratt Investigate – 5,228,436 – no reviews

T is for Trouble – 5,587,707 – no reviews

Doctor, Oh No! – 5,587.721 – no reviews

Now the bottom three look way down from the others but this is to be expected because those of you who follow my writing mishaps will know that on the advice from two reviews I split Trouble Cross into 3 parts. PPWP Investigate is the main story, T is for trouble the back story and Doctor, Oh No! the James Bond spoof that is written by the main character within the main story. I don’t think any of these have sold a copy since I split them up. I don’t know if reviews have any bearing on rankings but I have noted them anyway. They remind me that people do like my writing and except for one person, liked my books enough to write a nice review.