Author Central and NovelRank Sales Rank Tracking Comparison

On December 10th, Amazon announced a new set of features available for free through Author Central: BookScan sales and historical sales rank data. Naturally, since at first glance these seem to be a similar feature set to what NovelRank offers, I took a look (along with thousands of other authors). After careful analysis, I decided to write this post and help inform current and future NovelRank users about the key differences and benefits. I’ve always said, if there is a 10,000 lb elephant in the room, put the spotlight on it.

First, a few quick links. If you want to read some FAQs about Author Central Sales Info, login to your Author Central Account, or learn more about BookScan, then take a look and then come back here. Otherwise, let me refresh your mind on a few key points.

BookScan data represents Nielsen tracking of 75% of book sales through retail and online providers, as identified through the Amazon provided graphic to the right. Strangely, Amazon is not supplying their actual sales data to their suppliers (i.e. authors), but rather a 3rd party’s data. Granted, it offers a broader scope, but Amazon still is not providing actual data (like it does with Kindle sales for self-publishers through the digital text platform). BookScan data does not track Kindle sales, and thus authors cannot get this data through Author Central.

The sales rank tracking provided is a daily history of sales rank, collected at 11am PST (7am GMT). It goes back as far as October of 2009 or when you joined Author Central, if that date is after October of 2009. This matches NovelRank’s oldest tracking, as it launched in Oct 2009 as well. However, within 24 hours, Sales Rank can fluctuate dramatically providing valuable hourly sales data analysis.

None-the-less, I think there is some great information here, but I’m still happy to have NovelRank. Below is a breakdown of the strengths of each of these services.

Author Central Strengths

BookScan data includes retail sailes
Geographical data offers touring authors useful data
Sales Rank history is available without prior request (as long as you had an Author Central account)
100% reliable sales rank collection from the source

Author Central Weaknesses

No sales data for Kindle ebooks
Sales data only available for the most recent 4 weeks
Only available for Amazon.com (no international support yet)
Limited to your own books (no competitor or research tracking)
Sales Rank recorded only once per day
Data updated weekly (not real-time)

NovelRank Strengths

Hourly Sales Rank tracking
Support for Amazon UK, Canada, Germany, France, and Japan
Ability to track books by others; for competitor or book development research
Support for Kindle books on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Historical sales estimates available beyond recent weeks
Downloadable sales and Sales Rank history (CSV)
RSS feeds, widgets, and other integrations

NovelRank Weaknesses

Sales estimates are not 100% accurate
Sales estimates are based on only Amazon sales
No geographical sales data
Sales Rank data only available from when tracking was initiated

I’m excited for the benefits to authors that Amazon is providing, but I’m still thrilled to be offering this free service, NovelRank, to authors and publishers across the world with more specific needs. If you continue to enjoy this service, remember to consider a donation to support it.

A Quick Survey to Improve my Next Book

I usually try and keep my personal writing out of the NovelRank blog, but in this case I could use as many opinions as possible. Luckily, the task is really simple! I’ve put together a survey that presents 10 random conversation starters (questions) from my upcoming book, and all I need you to do is rate them on a 1 to 9 scale. Simple. It should take less than 5 minutes to complete!

Of course, if you can pass the survey along to others, that would be great too. If not, thanks for even reading this far. The compiled feedback from everyone will allow me to put out the absolute best ebook possible. Thanks in advance!

The survey: CLOSED

Update: Dec 7, 2010

Thanks for everyone’s help! I found my top and bottom and I’m all set to publish (announcement in the near future)!

NovelRank’s ‘Inactive’ Status and How to Activate a Book Again

Ever gone to look at your book’s listing and seen the status as inactive? You’ll find it as a hyperlink on both the book’s details page as well as on a user page. This seems to confuse a lot of people, so I wanted to explain it in a post, in the hopes that those looking for answers will find this post.

How does a book become inactive?

There are two ways a book becomes inactive. The first one is the most common, completely automated, and Amazon’s fault. Basically, out of the thousands of requests NovelRank makes to Amazon each hour for sales rank data, sometimes Amazon fails to return a sales rank for a book, and does not display an error message, just a ‘blank’ for the sales rank. Other times, it will report an error that the book is no longer accessible through Amazon’s API. While sometimes this is absolutely true (and thus would happen every hour), there are many times everything is fine again the next hour.
When this happens, NovelRank increases the inactive counter for that book (unique for each domain) by one. When the inactive counter reaches three, the book shows up as inactive on NovelRank.

The second way that a book becomes inactive is that nobody has looked at that book in 3 months. That means that nobody is viewing it via an RSS feed, the book’s details page, a user page, a sales rank widget, or through a mobile application for a total of 3 months. At that time, NovelRank inactivates it. If it is still inactive after 6 total months of being ignored, it may be removed from the system to make space for other books.
To give you an idea of how user’s access their book’s information, here are the statistics for how a book was last viewed for books viewed in the last 3 months:

Total	Method
16315	Details page (novelrank.com/asin/ or novelrank.com/title/)
3161	User Pages (novelrank.com/user/)
1384	Added for tracking but never viewed elsewhere
1148	RSS feeds
46	Embedded using the sales rank widget

How do I reactivate a book?

It’s really easy, and it even happens to my book (it happens about once a year)! As you can see from the images above, I’ve circled in red the link that is present when a book is inactive. Simply click that link, which will bring you to the sales rank tracking page, with your book’s ASIN already present in the box. Simply click the track button (check ‘additional domains’ if necessary), and the system will reactivate your book and check to see if it is available on any new domains!

Do you find NovelRank useful? Consider making a donation to support this free website.

December Giveaway: Time Flies Like Cow & The Pot Thief

The December giveaway has two great books for your holiday season:

“The Pot Thief” by J. Michael Orenduff
“Time Flies Like Cow” by Geoffroy Birtz

Time Flies Like Cow

This is a copy of Time Flies Like Cow by Geoffroy Birtz, an often humorous prose following the narrator on a day out, driving around completing errands.

Prompted by what is observed, the narrator reflects on the nature of various concepts. The ponderings cover a myriad of subjects, from the economy to education, from quantum physics to social concerns. Each one approached with a unique and insightful perspective.

If you would like your chance of winning this book, add your email address to the form below. You’ll be notified by email if you are the winner, and you will also be opting into a follow-up email to let you know when the next book in the giveaway becomes available.

This giveaway is closed. Check out the current giveaway.

Share the Book Giveaway with Others:
Share or or http://www.novelrank.com/book-giveaway (will always be current)

The Pot Thief

This signed book, The Pot Thief: Who Studied Pythagoras by J. Michael Orenduff, is the 2007 winner of the Dark Oak mystery contest.

When a shady character offers him $25,000 to steal a thousand-year-old pot from the Valle del Rio Museum, Hubert Schuze knows he should turn it down. His pot digging may be illegal, but it s a big step from that to robbery. But he figures it can t hurt just to visit the museum and assay his chances. He figured wrong. After deciding the museum is impregnable, he returns to his shop to find a BLM agent who accuses him of stealing the rare pot. Theft charges escalate to murder, and Hubert must solve the crime to clear himself. His powerful deductive skills and weak nerves are put to the test as he creates a hoax to get the pot out of the museum and solves both the first murder and a second one whose victim turns out to be the person Schuze thought was murdered to begin with!

Share the Book Giveaway with Others:
Share or or http://www.novelrank.com/book-giveaway (will always be current)

The Rules
Any email address that is not valid will not be accepted. Any email to a temporary mailbox service (e.g. mailinator.com) will be disqualified and may be publicly mocked. Unless otherwise stated, only one book can be won by any single email address. Multiple entries for a single book will not be accepted (you can enter to win each book if different books are offered in a given month). The winner will be randomly drawn no later than the 3rd of the following month and contacted via email to receive shipping information. Winners who fail to respond to the email within 72 hours will forfeit their win to another random winner.