Amazon's Author Central and all-new Author Rank

In case writers needed something else to obsess over - cause honestly, how many times can you refresh the KDP sales reports or check your book's ranking - now there's Author Rank. 

Authors on Amazon may have received an email in mid-September asking us to review or update the information in our Author Central profiles. "Author Central? What's that?" Wait; you don't have an Author Central account? Time to get one at Author Central.Amazon.com. From there, you can see all your titles, current rankings, reviews, add videos / book trailers and, as suggested in the Amazon email, establish or review your profile which is then visible to all Amazon customers. So add a nice picture.

You can also create profiles on the Author Central UK, French and German sites too. Is all that necessary; can't Amazon just show the data available in the .com site? No idea.

What does Author Rank indicate? According to Amazon, it's "the definitive list of best-selling authors on Amazon.com.  This list makes it easy for readers to discover the best-selling authors on Amazon.com overall and within a selection of major genres.

Amazon Author Rank is your rank based on the sales of all of your books on Amazon.com.  Just like Amazon Best Sellers, it is updated hourly.  The top 100 authors overall and the top 100 in selected genres will be displayed on Amazon.com.  You can see your Amazon Author Rank trended over time in Author Central.

You can find your Amazon Author Rank in Author Central under the Rank tab.  Historical rank data is available from September 28, 2012."

Why is my rank so low? Congratulations! As with sales rankings, lower is better - #1 means you're the top author in your particular genre.

Why is my rank so high? Congratulations! You've sold at least one book as an author on Amazon. (Don't be sad - just go with it!)

I don't have a rank! Um...um...I bet you will soon! Yeah, that's it.

When I click Rank, I see a genre listed. What does that mean? The categories your books appear in on Amazon. For instance, Amazon has classed my books  as historical fiction, romance and contemporary (more on that later), so Author Rank shows my standing in those genres. Not exactly how I classify my work - all except On Falcon's Wings & Long Way Home are categorized in Amazon KDP as Historical Biographical and would appear on that category if they were in the top 100 related books sold. (How I wish!!!) 

Why should I care about having an Amazon profile? It's one more place for you to be visible and share more about yourself with Amazon customers. Showcase your personality, writing interests, and provide insight into your creative process.     

Where does the profile appear on Amazon? Find your title on Amazon. Click your name next to Author in brackets. If you have an existing profile, it will show the information you've added to the Author Central, your picture and titles, sorted by the last title to decrease in sales rank (remember, low or decreasing is good). You can also link your blog, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest accounts to your profile and see links to the other authors whom your Amazon customers have bought titles from. Looks like:

Obsessed with Amazon Sales Ranking? You're Not Alone.

Just in case you needed another reason to interrupt your writing productivity, Amazon's got a little something for you.

They must be aware that authors obsessively check the sales ranking of their books, at least three or four times a day. No sniggering, you know you do it, too - "Oh, let me just check one thing before I go to bed....woohoo! 11,395!" followed next morning by, "Hang on, just have to look at one thing...damn! It's 13,794. Heading the wrong way!!!" In fact, I know it's not just me who does this - Amazon even says so on the Author Central website. Now, authors have an (easier?) way to manage their compulsive need to check sales rankings.

If you have no clue what Amazon Author Central is, let me sum it up: a free Author Page, where you or your publisher can list your biography, books, photos and videos, your blog, and even tour events. Two things you need to get started: a book you've written and an online account with Amazon. Ever wondered where your books are selling? Amazon has taken it a step further by providing sales data paperback and Kindle purchases of your book(s) in the US from Nielsen BookScan. This service was once available only to the publishing industry at thousand-dollar fees. Also, Author Central consolidates your sales ranking history, viewable over a span of two weeks, one month, or based on all available sales data. Admit it: isn't it much easier to have all the information over a span of time, rather than obsessively checking the ranking several times a day? Feel free to check as often as you want, and jump for joy or freak out over the information - no one will ever know.

This move by Amazon has spurred all sorts of responses. Some of my favorites from Twitter are here. Reasoning behind the decision? Amazon VP Russ Grandinetti says: “Authors are an important community for us … We’re really happy to make it easy and free for them to see geographical BookScan data updated weekly, as well as historical Amazon bestsellers rank, for their books. We hope this creates an improved feedback loop for authors and enables them to develop more effective methods for reaching the widest possible audience.”

Ha! All thoughts on corporate culture and reasoning aside, I know one thing it's gonna do for me - feed my obsession! Mwahahaha, mwahahaha.