Tuesday 2 June 2009

Those numbers

I think all authors must be obsessed with numbers: sales rank, print runs, royalty percentages, etc. etc. etc. Then there are search rank numbers. I don't know what, if anything, these esoteric indices reveal about sales, but...

On current (as in today's) Amazon searches (search rank, not sales rank) CAFÉ AU LAIT comes up as:

#1 (out of 757) - African-American romance novels
#2 (out of 1,657) - African-American romance
#2 (out of 201) - Caribbean romance
#11 (out of 1,673) - African American romance (without the hyphen)
#32 (out of 31,963) - contemporary romance

This can't be bad. If you know otherwise, do NOT burst my bubble!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

This can't be bad. This can only be excellent!! I have no pins :)

Also, customers who bought CAFÉ AU LAIT also bought Indecent Proposal by AC Arthur and Can't Say No by Bette Ford. I like following purchasing trends as well.

Jenny Beattie said...

OMG. I would be SOOO obsessed. I do think this sounds wonderful so well done to you.

Unknown said...

they sound wonderful!!!
lx

Tamsyn Murray said...

Tres bien, my dear, I am most impressed. What's the difference between African-American and African American??

Stephe said...

*applause, applause*

Looks mighty good to me. You go!

Liane Spicer said...

akalol, the trends are fascinating, aren't they?

JJ, I don't know how one can not be obsessed about these things. It must have been easier back when there was no Amazon!

Liz, they do, don't they?

Tam, the difference is a hyphen. Some people use it, some don't. *shrug* And it's interesting that in marketing the book the publisher labeled it as AA although I'm not American and none of the characters are either. I think multicultural is a better label, actually.

Thank you, Stephe! Let's just hope these figures actually mean something! At the very least, it's good to know the book shows up on the first page of some of these searches and not too far in on some others!

Lane Mathias said...

Those look like very impressive numbers! Look at the one for contemporary romance!

Deborah Carr (Debs) said...

Not bad at all.

Flowerpot said...

That sounds brilliant! Mind you I'm hopeless with numbers...

Liane Spicer said...

Lane, the one for contemporary romance nearly sent my eyebrows to the back of my head.

Debs, I kinda think so myself.

Flowerpot, I don't like numbers either, but these I find fascinating - for obvious reasons.

PJ said...

Very impressive figures, Liane. Well done on achieving so much with your debut novel.

Liane Spicer said...

Thank you, PJ. I'm not sure if those figures signify anything impressive, but they do make me feel like the book is finding its place in the world.

nyc/caribbean ragazza said...

congrats...that is exciting.