Whew, what a publication launch week for my new book, Love you to Death. On publication day my book reached #44 in bestsellers in the UK, #52 in bestsellers in Canada and #59 in hot new releases in the US, all for the same category of ‘horror anthologies’. It stayed in bestsellers in the UK for five days in a row, reaching #25 in horror anthologies at its highest ranking, and #77 in the US for two days in a row.
But why does sales ranking matter for authors?
How sales ranking gives insight into promotion
For the benefit of readers who aren’t writers, sales ranking is a book’s overall position in terms of sales. The lower the ranking, the better. The ranking might not mean much in terms of overall sales as it changes throughout the day, and I don’t think it affects the algorithm much, but it’s useful to track for authors because it can let you know if a promotion campaign was successful or not. For example, I noticed a spike in sales on 3rd February after I posted a sample reading video on Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube, so the sales ranking gave me a good insight into how effective my video was (here’s the video).
In terms of discoverability, I’m thinking that making more promotional videos seems to be a good use of my time and it is far cheaper than paying for advertising (which I will do at some point). Expect a lot more sample readings to be flooding my social media!
Why pre-orders are effective for marketing
My number of pre-orders for Love you to Death jumped again since my previous books, Pseudologia Fantastica in 2024 and Matthew’s Twin in 2023, which makes me think (I’m guessing here, I’m not a marketing analyst) that readers of my previous books are sticking around for my new releases…just what an author wants. A few years ago, I wasn’t too fussed about making my new releases available for pre-order, but now I know how useful pre-orders are for marketing. Pre-orders give your book a sales ranking, which means it will appear on the ‘Hot New Releases’ chart – in other words free promotion. Since a book will appear in Hot New Releases for the first month, this means that potentially, depending on how far in advance you allow pre-orders, the free promotion could last for several months. Even better if your book sells well enough to get into top 100 bestsellers for your category, as it’ll mean more chance of readers finding it. I myself tend to browse new releases and bestsellers, and have added many books to my Kindle that way, so if it works for me as a reader, hopefully other readers will find my books in the same way. Good for visibility!
Discoverability: in summary
Apart from making sure your book has detailed metadata and keyword targeting to make it as visible as possible, I think getting it onto the Hot New Releases or even bestsellers list is a good way to make it more discoverable and maximise promotion for longer. In my case, promo videos definitely help with that.
And, on that note, if you’re a reader who pre-ordered Love you to Death, or bought a copy this week for its launch then THANK YOU! Having readers keeps me motivated to keep writing, most definitely.
Leilanie Stewart 