Why amazon.com has helped me sell my book and ruined my life in the process

The truth of the world we live in is that if you want to publish a book, amazon.com has to be a part of your life. There really is no way around it. And that is the best and worst thing for an author. Our book, Hade's Gambit, hit amazon.com last week, and since it isn't in stores, people have to buy it online. And, of course, the mere fact that people can buy our book is a wonderful thing. The process itself of getting the book online has been a fairly simple and painless one from an author's perspective. It just sort of shows up one day, and all of a sudden you are a published author. Pretty cool!

There were some bumps as it got started going, but only for those of us watching the site constantly and wanting everything up and running like, I don't know, five minutes ago. Once it showed up, the book was not available to purchase (out of stock), but after a while the book became available, although at this writing they still don't have the artwork up for our book (we were told if it isn't there after 90 days to contact them...). And now, after a week, they have discounted the hard cover from 32.00 down to 29.75, so that is good! They seem to be keeping the book in stock as well. I guess what happens is that our publisher contracted with Lightning Source, the actual printer of the book. When amazon.com feels that they can sell some books, they send for a box of 20 paperbacks and 8 hard covers, and so they have it on stock. You can go on and see, for example, that on Monday there were 5 copies left of the paperback, and on Tuesday there were 2, so we must have sold three books!

So now you are wondering, where has amazon.com ruined your life? The answer is found in one little number found in the descriptive part of the book. They tell you who wrote it, who the publisher is, how many pages it is, etc., etc., and they also include the book's ranking on amazon.com. Ah... that little number, so meaningless, so vital, so ruinous to a person with borderline obsessive compulsive behavior! The number tells you how your book is doing in relation to all of the other books it sells. I would love it if there was a Mr. Irrelevant for this list - the absolute highest number on their list. But, you really don't know where the list ends. Are there 450,000 books, 4.5 million books? Is there a green zone, where those books are considered a success, a yellow zone for maybe, or a red zone for just awful? Are we in the majors, the minors, or just playing streetball with our neighbors? It is impossible to tell. But, if that was the only problem with that number, it wouldn't be terrible. The real problem is that the number never stays still for more than a few hours, and it swings about more wildly than a monkey on prozac.

The truth of the matter is that you become forced to check amazon.com hourly to see what your number is. We started around 240,000 (again, who has any idea what this means!), than moved up and down and up and down and up and down. We would be at 140,000 one day, than later that day we would be at 120,000, than all the way down to 79,000, than suddenly back up to 212,000. All in the space of one day. And then, horror of all horrors, was the moment that I realized they were tracking the book seperately for hard cover and paperback editions. Why would they do that to me! Are they out of the same pool, or different pools? Are the two versions of my one book competing against each other? If we had gone without the hard cover, would we be competing with Twilight, Hunger Games and 50 Shades of Grey right now? Or are we competing against a self-published cook book from an old woman named Marge who lives in northern Alaska, and having two books is helping us out? Oh yeah, take that Marge! I have found myself shouting at that number (now numbers) for them to give me some sort of understanding, some guidance on how I should feel about them, but they are maddeningly unresponsive. Perhaps this is why I never really liked math. Or women named Marge.

And all you can do is watch and see your emotions go up and down like a roller coaster that has flown off the track. When the number goes down, you think yeah! We are on fire - the world is going to love our book!!! At that moment I want to call all the people who have bought my book and personally thank them for making me a true American success story. Scotish mansions and tropical islands here we come! When the number bounces back up, you freak out. Oh no, what happened! Did we do something wrong? Are we failures? Are we on the fast track to living under a bridge and fighting with a man named Hobo Joe over a rusted out can of beans? Probably not, but still, the thought enters your mind. And I want to call all my friends and family (and random people in the phonebook) who I know have not bought my book and beg them for a reason why. Why! In reality, all that really happened is that we sold two books in the morning, than perhaps none in the afternoon, while thousands of other titles each sold one or two copies later that day. To a new author, with high anxiety and little information to go on, and even knowing that it is completely meaningless, you can't stop looking at that number. It is like an addiction of the worst kind! And the number just sits there mocking you, daring you to refresh your browser. You find yourself secretly thinking that Desomond on Lost had it easy. He only had to push the button every 108 minutes, and couldn't push it any earlier. I have to push the button every 1.08 minutes. I also have found that I have to do this alone, for some reason, because I have found myself more than once saying "big bucks, big bucks, no wammies!" as I refresh the page, bracing myself for the joy or heartache. Yeah, best to not let the kids see that one.

And, just to prove that I cannot control my new refreshing fetish, I just checked right now, and we are at about 203,000 for paperback, 114,000 for hardcover. A few days ago, we were at 79,000 in paperback and 22,000 for hardcover. Tomorrow, who knows? And in a week or two we will have the ebook come out and we will have a new drug for our addiction. I will have three numbers to check. If you see me on the street later this year, wearing my bathrobe, my fingernails unclipped and my feet in very large kleenex boxes, muttering to myself about book ratings and radioactive mice, just walk on by. You'll know I'm a new author, and you'll know I sell my book on amazon.com. Don't pity me, I jumped into this boat of my own free will, and I'm so glad amazon.com is helping sell Hade's Gambit. I just wish I could get my old life back. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go check out my numbers again.