Tag Archives: lulu

LLBookReview.com Interviews NovelRank Creator

Book Stack I was thrilled when Shannon with LLBookReview.com contacted me to do an interview about myself and especially NovelRank. I was happy to answer the questions and hope I was at least mildly entertaining in the process. The entire interview about NovelRank can be found on their site.

About LLBookReview
LLBookReview provides independent reviews of self-published books. Originally formed to benefit Lulu.com published books, they have expanded to accept books published through numerous self-publishing companies across the web.

Lulu.com Books on Amazon: 6 Month Analysis of Sales Rank

The following research is based upon a source of 506 Lulu.com published books. The books were selected based upon Amazon presenting over 1000 books ranked by their current Sales Rank on May 23, 2009. This list was then reordered for the top 500 books at that moment in time. Since then, 6 additional Lulu.com books were independently added for a total of 506 books. It’s also important to note that every book must have sold at least 1 copy on Amazon to be given a Sales Rank. This is an analysis of the 6 months of data from June 2009 through November 2009.

Statistics: Lulu.com Published Books on Amazon.com

Average Sales Rank: 836,811
Standard Deviation: 817,044
Best Ever Sales Rank: 1,811 Guild Leadership by Jeon Rezvani
Worst Ever Sales Rank: 5,024,215 Discovering a Lost Heritage: The Catholic Origins of America by Adam S. Miller
Best Seller: 384 copies – Forty Years a Speculator by Fred Carach
Average Number of Sales per Month: 7.5

On Average, a sale occurs every 4 days for a Lulu.com book.

Be aware that these statistics are only for Amazon.com, not for sales that occur on Lulu.com, which most authors would prefer due to higher author revenue (241% in my book’s case). That sales data however is locked to only the author’s account, and while Lulu offers sales rank information, it falls into the same category as Barnes & Noble in usefulness: not updated frequently enough and not accessible enough to allow for tracking by NovelRank.

If you are a Lulu author who used the Published by Lulu.com option when purchasing/given your ISBN and your book is found on Amazon, chances are that your book already exists in the NovelRank database. ~~Grab your Amazon.com link and enter it into~~ Search for your book on the Sales Rank Tracking page (updated January 24, 2010). Alternatively, you can see a list of all tracked books with Lulu.com as the publisher.

NovelRank Launches Sales Rank Tracking

NovelRank and its creator are proud to announce the official launch of NovelRank, a free website for Amazon sales rank tracking. NovelRank offers authors the opportunity to get real-time feedback about their promotion efforts towards book sales on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca (Canada), and Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom). While direct sales through author’s websites and self-publishing websites such as Lulu, CreateSpace, BookSurge, Lightning Source, AuthorHouse, and others offer immediate sales data, book sales data through distribution sources such as Amazon is typically delayed many months.

Many readers purchase through Amazon.com, the leading online bookseller, after seeing coverage in the media, on the web, and on social networking websites, leading to increased book sales for the author. Without real-time sales rank tracking through NovelRank, authors are left guessing if there was a positive effect from the book’s coverage, not knowing where to spend their time and resources in the continued promotion of their paperback, hardcover, or audio book. NovelRank takes it a step farther by offering estimated sales data based on changes in Amazon sales rank.

As a completely free to use and ad-free website, NovelRank provides a risk-free option for authors publishing their first, second, or seventh book. Authors with large publishing agencies promoting their books also find the tool useful, since royalty information and sales information is typically delayed or unavailable from their publisher. There are no required logins or accounts, and a full suite of useful methods for sales rank tracking through the use of RSS feeds, spreadsheet downloads, sales rank widget, and direct website access.

Created by an author, for authors, NovelRank‘s goals are to provide the best resource on the web for authors wanting to turn their passion into profits through sales rank tracking and estimated book sales data. A full list of current and future features are available on the NovelRank website.

Get started today by tracking your book!