" Saucy is a real character dealing with real stuff—hard stuff that doesn’t have easy answers, not in real life and not in fairy tales, either. This is a really compelling and ultimately hopeful story. Highly recommended."
– Debby Dahl Edwardson, National Book Award finalist and author of
My Name is Not Easy
Read a sample chapter.
One of the online tools I use weekly is AuthorCentral.com, which is an Amazon site with a backend for authors. It gives authors access to the listings about your book, statistics about sales, reviews of all your books on a single page and access to Amazon for correcting mistakes.
Typical page from AuthorCentral. I’ve just “claimed” by Aliens, Inc. Series which will be out in August, 2014.
When you log onto AuthorCentral, the first thing to do is claim your books. Click on the Books tab at the top, and then ADD BOOKS. Once the process is completed, you’ll have access to the book listing, book details and book extras. These shouldn’t be changed willy-nilly, as your publisher has likely spent time in honing the description. But you do have access to change anything that is wrong, to add good news about awards and such, and to tweak as needed. Indeed, there is a space for “FROM THE AUTHOR” which gives you the perfect place to add information. The Book Extras are primarily intended for Shelfari, which isn’t one of the most popular sites; often, I don’t bother to do anything here. But it’s available if you like.
Profile. The profile tab offers simple access to your Amazon Author page, something you want to update a couple times a year, or as new information is available. Included are you bio, bibliography, photos, videos, blog feeds and the ability to list events.
Sales Info. This includes sales data over time and by geographic region, as reported by BookScan. That is important: this only includes sales data from BOOKSCAN. Still, this is important and helpful. Say you visited California and wanted to know the effect of that visit on sales. You could check the sales data the next week. The information is also broken down book by book.
Author Rank. Just like Amazon gives your books a sales rank, it also gives YOU a sales rank. For a certain time period, how did your sales stack up against other authors in your category? I tend to ignore this one.
Customer Reviews. On the other hand, I check my customer reviews about once a week. It’s convenient to have all reviews from all your books in one central location. Otherwise, I’d have to visit each book listing on Amazon to see new reviews. It’s a bit slow (24-48 hours) pulling in a review. When a friend emails to say s/he has posted a review, I can check the book page and see it immediately; however, it doesn’t show up on AuthorCentral for a day or two.
Overall, these tools allow writers to keep a pulse on their book sales. It’s been a valuable addition to my set of online marketing and promotional tools. Thanks, AuthorCentral.
Today, I got the following letter from Amazon’s AuthorCentral service. It’s a great service that allows you to view data on all your books in a central location, including sales (as reported by BookScan, an important caveat). You can check for updated reviews, see if your visit to Kansas City last week resulted in a bump in sales there, and correct anything on the book’s listing that needs correction.
And now this:
Dear Author Central Member,
Today we have added a new feature, Amazon Author Rank,
the definitive list of best-selling authors on Amazon.com. This list makes it easy for readers to discover the best-selling authors on Amazon.com overall and within a selection of major genres.
Your Amazon Author Rank:
12953 in Teens
Amazon Author Rank is your rank based on the sales of all of your books on Amazon.com. Just like Amazon Best Sellers, it is updated hourly. The top 100 authors overall and the top 100 in selected genres will be displayed on Amazon.com. You can see your Amazon Author Rank trended over time in Author Central.
You can find your Amazon Author Rank in Author Central under the Rank tab. Historical rank data is available from September 28, 2012.
We’re always interested in feedback, so please let us know what you think.
The Author Central Team
https://authorcentral.amazon.com
P.S. You may have friends who are authors; feel free to pass this email along to them.
Amazon Author Rank is a feature available to all authors registered in Author Central.
Author Rank
First, let me point out that this is only an AMAZON author rank and only speaks to how well you sell ON AMAZON.
I tried to find this displayed somewhere and I’m not sure where it is. I think that when you search by category, there’s now an Author tab in the lefthand column, so you’ll show up on that list for whatever category you are searching. See the screenshot. I couldn’t get this to show up when I searched Children’s Books in any category.
I’m not sure I like this one. I know my books are ranked by how well each one sells, and that seems reasonable. And on some levels, maybe ranking an author’s overall performance isn’t all bad.
But, as authors, we know exactly where we stand in the pecking order. Try signing books at a national conference, where your line is, well, one person and next to you is Kate DiCamillo, who’s line is out the door and down the street. Oh, yes. Authors know exactly where we stand. Well, if we didn’t before–we sure will NOW!
As you see above, I am ranked 12953 in Teens. Curious, that I am in the Teens category, when most of my recent books are picture books. Who put me in that category? How can I change categories? Are children’s book authors ranked? I’ll look into that, for sure.
Of course, it’s all about selling books. It’s another category for people to search and get a recommendation (read these books by this author who is the Number 4 Author in teens!). And it might actually give back list from a Top 10 author a boost.
But there could be downsides:
Editor: What’s your Amazon Author Rank? We aren’t allowed to sign anyone ranked lower than 500.
Librarian: Oh, she’s just a 1200 Rank Author, so I don’t think kids will be interested in reading her books.
Will this be yet another way to kill the Mid-List Author?
Will you fight to climb the Author Rank ladder?
Will you evaluate all publicity on how it affects your Author Rank?
What do you think about being Ranked?
Not a member of AuthorCentral yet? Click here.
