MY KEPT AMAZON RANKING RIGHT NOW:

* Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,089 in Kindle Store (See Bestsellers in Kindle Store)

Popular in these categories: (What’s this?)
#13 in Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Romance > Fantasy, Futuristic & Ghost
#28 in Kindle Store > Kindle Books > Fantasy > Contemporary
#54 in Books > Romance > Vampires

What is coolest to me is that in overall books, romance: vampires (that’s just one category over) I’m in the bestseller list (Their list goes up to 100)

I would love to get into the top 20. And I’d love to get into the top 500 of the kindle overall sales ranks.

The trouble with the higher you move up though is the harder it is because the more sales are required. It’s really not that hard for a good book to get in the top 10,000 of the Kindle store, IMO. (Though PLEASE don’t take offense if you’ve written a good book and are not in the top 10,000 in the Kindle store. There are a lot of factors. i.e. if you don’t have a really recognizable and easily pigeon-holed, category, genre, you could have written the best thing since… well since something great, and still not be in the top 10,000 so don’t anyone bite my head off here. Also price point is a factor. And there are probably others I haven’t even thought of. Writers I know who are far far better than me are ranked much worse than 10,000 in the Kindle store. So let me keep my head pls k thx) But the further up you climb the more competitive it gets.

However, the good thing about it is… the farther up you climb, the more exposure you get to readers, and so the more sales opportunities you automatically have.

And that’s really the reason I want to push so high. If I can get my ass into the top 500 of Kindle and stay there, then I’ll be making strong sales and it “may” hopefully help me drive sales for my other work when I get it up there.

Here my price is really helping me. Granted, out of the categories where I’m listed in the top numbers, most of the other books listed are priced between $5-$7, even in the kindle store. There are a few freebies higher in the charts than me.

So I believe my price is a factor in people giving me a shot, but I don’t think it’s the only factor. If it were, most of the bestsellers in those categories around me would be at my price point or lower.

This is exciting to me. If I want to push myself higher though I need to get my ass on the Kindle boards and the Amazon discussion forums in the appropriate categories… not doing the hard sell, just conversing, mingling, getting my name in front of people’s eyeballs, so if/when they see me later, they go: “Oh hey, I talked to her, she wasn’t completely annoying (yeah I really have to hope here), maybe I’ll give her fiction a shot.”

ETA: And one other thing I’d like to point out is… this is not an exercise in “oh look how great I am.” Almost none of this is “about me.” It’s about readers. For whatever reason (and I don’t think I’m the greatest writer evar, or anything lame and self-indulgent like that), readers are liking KEPT, responding to it, and telling others who in turn repeat that process. Without the readers I’m going nowhere.

The only extent that it’s “about me” is that the higher I can go in the ranks, the more likely it is that my 10-year plan will work, and I can make a livable wage writing and producing my own fiction. I think with a backlist of 10 books I’ll really have a shot at it, especially if I can get high enough in places like Amazon.