Category Archives: News

Improved Multiple Sale Tracking for Amazon Kindle eBooks

Thanks to author feedback from authors with access to Amazon DTP (Digital Text Platform) and thus real-time sales numbers for Kindle books, I was finally able to add more accurate sales estimates for Kindle Books. This includes tracking up to three sales per hour. For Kindle books selling as frequently as 7 books per day, the accuracy is up to 95% for sales estimates. For Kindle ebooks selling 30 or less per month, accuracy should be closer to 98%.

There is still room for improvement, but previously NovelRank’s accuracy was at 78% for books selling 3 or more per day or more specifically, multi-sale hours. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to retroactively run sales history through the new formulas, so the accuracy is improved as of today moving forward. In all cases, including the future, NovelRank is underestimated book sales estimates on Kindle Edition books. I feel this is a better route that overestimating sales by 5%. Better safe than sorry.

Thanks again for the great feedback from authors to improve the accuracy of NovelRank book sales estimates on Amazon Kindle books.

Update: May 30, 2010 2:01am MDT
The new formula has been retroactively applied to all Kindle books tracked prior to 5/1/2010. You may notice slightly different sales numbers for your Kindle Edition books than you did previously.

Overwhelming and Amazing Author Generosity

When I first asked authors if they would donate a book for a monthly giveaway, I was inspired by donating my own book to a different website’s one year anniversary. I sent out a quick tweet on Twitter, and with a ‘yes’ from 3 authors, I decided, “Good enough, let’s do this!”

I had no idea…

It’s been 2 months since the giveaway was first announced, and I’ve received over 32 books from authors and publishers all over North America and Europe. You probably noticed that this month, two books were being given away. Next month, it may be a new book every 2 weeks. All I know is that as the pool of individuals interested in books from amazing authors and publishers grows larger, I’ll try and get more and more books out to feed their voracious appetites for amazing works printed on simple pages and wrapped in beautiful covers.

Why am I sharing this? Because I picked up a 25 pack of padded bubble mailers today to ensure I could easily continue to provide this promotion for all the generous authors, with the highest of quality and with as much care and attention as each one of these books deserves. I’m glad NovelRank has served you so well over the last 6 months of existence, and I intend to keep it going with your support into 2011 and beyond. I haven’t always been in love with books, and I can’t say I ever give enough time to them, but for the amazing people I’ve written to and heard from because of NovelRank, I couldn’t be more attached.

Simply put, Thank You.

An Apology – 3 Hours of Unavailable Details

Sorry. So very sorry. This is why you don’t write code early in the morning without a good night’s rest.

From 8am MDT till 11am MDT on April 6, 2010, book details pages were unavailable, generating an error message instead. Early this morning, I was fixing a bug to allow for a book I saw come into NovelRank that was only available on Amazon.co.jp. It was something I had never expected would occur, and thus there were a few tweaks that needed to be made so that: a) the book could be added, b) the book detail page could be viewed.

In the process, I didn’t check to ensure I didn’t make any mistakes… or rather, check everywhere, namely the book details page. The bug was fixed because NovelRank user’s sent me an email that I unfortunately did not see till lunchtime at my full time job, so I was unable to correct it till then.

Once again, I’m very sorry, as this affects the reputation of myself and of NovelRank. Thanks for understanding.

Sincerely,
Mario Lurig
Creator, NovelRank.com

User Accounts – Multiple Books on Personal User Page

NovelRank announces the results of 30 hours of development time: User Pages. What are User Pages you ask? They are pages that are created by you, allowing you to track multiple books on a single personal user page you define. This User Page can be accessed, like the rest of NovelRank, by anyone with the link to the page. However, unlike dedicated book details pages, NovelRank will not share the user pages with search engines. You are welcome to share them on your website or to your fans, but NovelRank will not have a ‘list’ available.

The best part of the new feature is that you do not need to make an account with NovelRank. You can actually create your account by logging in through Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, Yahoo!, Windows Live ID, or Google. This is all powered by the technology of RPXnow, which I have integrated into NovelRank. Here are the three easy steps:

Login through your favorite service

Create your account in less than 60 seconds and continue to your User Admininstration page

Add any books you already have added for Amazon Sales Rank tracking by searching for them. Once all the books are added, you can List Books or go right to your User Page

Feel free to bookmark/favorite your user page and from there you can view some vital information or access each book’s detail page directly. The page includes:

Book Title
Book Author(s)
Status (if inactive)
Format (Paperback, Kindle Edition, etc.)
Sales Estimates for current and previous month
Sales Rank and Average Sales Rank

Furthermore, while you can choose your default domain, you can switch domains easily and temporarily on the User Pages, displaying only books you are tracking that are available on that Amazon domain.

What are you waiting for? Create your account now and enjoy the benefits!