The Highs and the Lows of Rankings on Amazon

August 6, 2007 - 2:07pm — Blake

The NYTimes Takes A Look at the Amazon.com sales rankings. When Amazon created the system 10 years ago, it could hardly have known how greatly its list would change the dynamics of the publishing business (much the way the company itself did) or how hard writers and industry executives would work to game the system. Today the Amazon rankings list and, to a lesser extent, a similar list on the Barnes & Noble Web site is the subject of great microanalysis and some mystery.

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August 6, 2007 - 3:44pm — Bibliofuture

Sales rank over time

There are also sites that show the Amazon sales rank over time. For example here is a graph of the sales rank of the book The Accidental Systems Librarian. The site, Charteo.us, does not track all books. You have to enter the book to have the site start tracking the book. Libraries could use these charts to help determine if interest is still strong in a certain book. The trick is that you have to have the foresight to start tracking the book before you need the data so that you can go back and look at it.

August 6, 2007 - 3:47pm — Bibliofuture