TaleCatcher - Bill’s Warhol Moment

Bill’s Warhol Moment

Bill’s best ranking on Barnes & Noble.com was about 35,000 and that only for a day. He then plunged to an ignominious 130,000 and struggled back to hold steady at 70,000. Of course, he’d not yet started serious marketing, but that petty detail didn’t lessen the anxiety.

His novel was first posted to Amazon.com on Thursday, 20 February. On Monday, Amazon presented Bill with his first ranking: 1,779,363. Bill loved it, since he saw other books ranked over 2,000,000. He was confident that the three books he, brother Bob, and brother John bought on Friday had pulled them under the dread 2,000,000 level. He checked the rankings of people he knew: 25,000 for one and 60,000 for another. Sigh. Too much to hope for, especially since he knew Amazon rankings to be tougher than Barnes & Noble. What’s the best that could be achieved with a self-published, techie-seeming novel? Bill guessed maybe 30,000.

Irene and Bill
at Bill’s graduation
from UConn

Irene and Bill at Bill’s graduation from UConn

The top-500 experience
lacked only a proud mother
to share it

On Monday morning at 10:00, Dan Caterinicchia of Federal Computer Week called to interview Bill about the book. The interview ended at 10:20 and Dan posted the story on the FCW web site at 1:20 pm—three hours later. News travels fast. The next morning, InfoSec News included the story among the news feed they distribute to people interested in information security. Well. By the time Bill got out of morning business meetings and checked Amazon, word had gotten out about the news story and colleagues had forwarded the news to the cybersecurity list in Bill’s company—the first Bill’s hundreds of cybersecurity coworkers had been informed of his night-time activities. At noon Bill checked amazon.com and gave a shout of astonishment at his rating--5,660! This could not be possible.

He leaped onto email and told everyone he knew, especially lists. He thought he’d reached a lifetime peak, but by 2:00 pm his ranking had plunged through the looking glass to 2,408! The whirlwind continued: 3:00 pm--1,143. Bill suddenly whopped himself upside the head. He should game the system and buy. He went online and bought twenty copies. Seconds after the transaction, he received a note from brother Bob, who said he’d just bought ten copies. Brother John chipped in for twenty. It occurred to Bill that amazon.com had come up with an extremely clever marketing tool in these hourly rankings, one that can drive authors to extreme measures.

Bill lost it at this point, broadcasting out to family and a few friends: “Have Your Friends Buy Now!” Of course, he’d already pumped that well dry, but he had to do something. The great breakthrough came at 5:00 pm. Bill had figured out that Amazon changed its rankings on the hour. He checked to see if the family purchases had caused a surge and saw the ranking—967! Unbelievable.

The evening passed with a check every hour: 6:00 pm, 838! 7:00 pm, 663!! The seeming low (high?) mark came at 8:00 pm, with a rank of 661. With the U.S. watching TV for the evening and the rest of the world still buying, Bill suspected that to have been the pinnacle. The 9:00 pm rank held at 661. By that time Bill and Jill were printing each ranking on color paper, in order to have a permanent record. By 10:00 pm the worm finally turned, with a rank of 732.

The next day began with a shock: 544! “Go baby!” Bill yelled. “Go for the big 500.” An hour later, the number dipped to 541. Bill feared the surge had faded, until 10:00 am on Wednesday the 26th, when the number came up 488!! After that the numbers slowly climbed to 525, 582, and on, but that didn’t matter. For one hour, No Outward Sign was one of the 500 best-selling books on amazon.com. The puny detail that the moment of glory lasted only an hour would subsequently be relegated to small print.

Bill has no idea yet what this translates to in actual numbers of books sold. That will be made clear in several months when he receives his royalty statements. Frankly, he’d almost rather not know. He’d rather just savor the satisfaction that he was one of the 500 best-selling authors on amazon.com. (See, the small print has already disappeared.) From a first-day 1,779,363 to 488 in a little over a day. Whew.