#1 Best Seller on Amazon…Yikes
Nobody was more surprised than me!
My book did in fact become a #1 best seller on Amazon as designated by the little #1 red banner on my book page. To be clear, the book was awarded #1 Hot New Release for my category of Aging Parents. More about that later.
A few comments to bring this humble brag under control:
Thanks to everyone who bought the book. I must have more friends and family than I thought. Or maybe there are a lot of people at the age who are asking themself this question - Are We Old Yet?
I am sorry for the delayed ship date. Amazon strongly suggests new books start with a preorder period with a delayed ship date. And if Amazon asks, I think it prudent to comply.
A discussion about selling books on Amazon will bring some needed transparency to this topic and avoid my return to …humble bragging. Important for all of us.
Amazon was initially founded as a book selling platform in 1995. It changed the way we searched and purchased books forever. Some would suggest it increased book sales/reading because of the easy browsing and buying from the comfort of our home. Others would point to the devastating effect it had on local bookstores which saw a decline in locations of 52.8% from 1998 to the year 2020. Independent bookstores suffered even more having a 64.2% decline in locations. Both the good and the bad that Amazon brought are true. Do we like Amazon? You can decide, but if the answer lies in sales success, I think the answer is clear.
So how does a book become a #1 best seller on Amazon? Well, it is not easy and the strategies are endless. Please allow me to highlight just a few:
Write a book that appeals to a large audience: 10,000 people turn 65 everyday in the United States. Large audience? I checked that box.
Be famous: In the author world that is described as having a “platform”. Peter Attia wrote Outlive, the #1 selling book in every one of my selling categories, and currently ranks #32 of best selling books in all of Amazon (it was in the top 10 for months). Peter Attia is a Stanford/Johns Hopkins trained physician, hosts one of the most popular podcasts for aging and health with over 50 million downloads and has 36K followers on LinkedIn. I have 2,037 connections on LinkedIn. I do not get a check for this box.
Have many, many 5 star reviews on Amazon: Currently I have none because my book is in the preorder stage so people can’t offer a review because Amazon won’t accept a review unless they are a verified purchaser, which only happens after the book is shipped. Catch 22 for me on this one. I hope to be able to have this box checked in my future. Yes, this is a gentle ask. If you read my book and like it, please give me a (good) review on Amazon. If you, for some reason, don’t like the book, please pretend we did not have this conversation. This box will hopefully get a check in March.
Marketing: Unless you are Peter Attia, people will not find your book on Amazon without marketing. Huge topic, with many options. Let me share a few that I am using - email, organic social media, PR and just starting to make the rounds in speaking engagements and being a guest on podcasts. At this time there are no plans for paid media. I will give myself a half check.
A professional website: Thank goodness I hired a professional to build my website. It provides some credibility as people engage with me. Big shout out to www.paulinewiles.com.
Pauline did a great job(in my opinion). Big check here.Luck: For self-published authors such as myself, this could be the most important strategy to becoming a successful author, with success being defined by book sales. May I suggest that anyone who writes and publishes a book with any level of sales should be considered a success. If you are thinking luck should not be considered a strategy, may I say I understand your thought. However when you consider that “luck happens when preparation meets opportunity,” the game changes. I can’t check this box at the moment, but I am “preparing” as best as I can.
So how difficult is it to become a best seller on Amazon? I can answer that question with one word. Very. Let’s consider just a few facts here about this mass global entity we call Amazon:
Contains over 32.8 million published titles. Getting to the top of this massive heap seems daunting because it is. If you rank in the top 328,000 books you are in the top 1% on Amazon. To get to #1, you still have a long way to go.
In 2022 over 788.7 million printed books sold in the USA alone (reminder Amazon is global).
The average book sells 200 copies in the first year and a total of 1,000 over its lifetime.
Self-published books sell 250 copies in its publication lifetime, with more than 90% selling fewer than 100 books.
Where does this bring the story for my book?
My little book is a tiny minnow in the world’s largest book ocean. I am humbly thrilled to be recognized as a #1 Hot New Release in my category. I fully understand that this “fame” is fleeting. Someday my book will be forgotten by all except for me, my family and maybe a few of my closest friends. Fact.
But I took a picture. A picture of my book being named #1 on Amazon. It will become a proud memory for me for the rest of my aging journey. Someday when I am old and finally say “yes” to the book title, I will look at the picture and say to myself “I am glad I wrote the book”.
Enjoy your day,
Just a little extra-
I wanted to know what are the top selling books in history. My research was a bit confusing as not all of the websites had the same titles in the exact same order. But here is the list that seems the most accurate on the topic. The Christian Bible is in fact the top selling book in history with over 5 billion copies sold. I am not sure if this goes back as far and includes The Dead Sea Scrolls. The Quran is second with sales of 800 million copies. Here is a list of the top selling secular books.
Don Quixote written in 1512 by Miguel deCervantes
A Tale of Two Cities written in 1859 by Charles Dickens
Le Petit Prince written in 1943 by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone written in 1997 by JK Rowlings
And Then There Were None written in 1937 by Agatha Christie
The Hobbit written in 1937 by JRR Tolkien
Dream of the Red Chamber written in 1791 by Cao Xuegin
Alice in Wonderland written in 1865 by Lewis Caroll
And now we know.
References
Fiorillo, Katherine. August 2,2021, The 50 Bestselling books of All Time. Business Insider
Talbot, Dean. January 5,2023. Number of Books Published by Amazon. WordsRated.com
Staff. List of Best-selling Books. Wikipedia
Williams, Terry. October 22, 2023. The Complete Guide To Amazon Book Sales. 33 Square
Clear, James. Best-selling Books of All Time. Jamesclear.com