How many books sold on Amazon?

10 replies
I've tried to find out if there's a way to know how many copies a book on Amazon has sold, but there doesn't seem to be any way. The only thing that I've come across is something about looking at the ranking of a book and then somehow figuring out how many copies it has sold. That doesn't make any sense. Am I missing something? Is there a way to know how many copies a book has sold, either that day, that week, month, year, or ever?
#amazon #books #sold
  • Profile picture of the author Elvis Michael
    Sadly, this is the best you've got (analyzing sales based on rank, as you stated.) But don't dismiss such method, as the sales accuracy is actually pretty darn impressive.

    Here:
    Kindle Sales Rank Calculator - Ranking Your Kindle Book Sales
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny1975
      Originally Posted by Elvis Michael View Post

      Sadly, this is the best you've got (analyzing sales based on rank, as you stated.) But don't dismiss such method, as the sales accuracy is actually pretty darn impressive.

      Here:
      Kindle Sales Rank Calculator - Ranking Your Kindle Book Sales
      Thanks. That's quite simple.
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    • Profile picture of the author donhx
      Originally Posted by Elvis Michael View Post

      Sadly, this is the best you've got (analyzing sales based on rank, as you stated.) But don't dismiss such method, as the sales accuracy is actually pretty darn impressive.

      Here:
      Kindle Sales Rank Calculator - Ranking Your Kindle Book Sales

      I don't think this calculator is very useful. I put in a few of my rankings and saw they were not close. Also, the range is far too wide. "100-300 books per day"? You could guess a stat like that without using the calculator.
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      • Profile picture of the author Elvis Michael
        Originally Posted by donhx View Post

        I'm don't think this calculator is very useful. I put in a few of my rankings and saw they were not close. Also, the range is far too wide. "100-300 books per day"? You could guess a stat like that without using the calculator.
        Yeah I'm noticing some of those estimates (on the link I provided) are a bit broad. I noticed it's hit and miss, depending on the numbers you're punching in. I tend to do the math myself judging by my own personal book rankings and only provide that link to users with no prior experience doing the math manually.
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  • Profile picture of the author Shaf5280
    Interesting question. What are you trying to accomplish by knowing the number of books sold of a title on Amazon? There are top sellers ranked super low less than 6,000 rank but they are selling at below margin prices and there is heavy competition, while a 1-3 million ranking are listed at a higher margin with less competition.
    Anyway, it would still be nice to have an API or some analysis tool that helps book sellers look at trends.
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    • Profile picture of the author Johnny1975
      Originally Posted by Shaf5280 View Post

      Interesting question. What are you trying to accomplish by knowing the number of books sold of a title on Amazon? There are top sellers ranked super low less than 6,000 rank but they are selling at below margin prices and there is heavy competition, while a 1-3 million ranking are listed at a higher margin with less competition.
      Anyway, it would still be nice to have an API or some analysis tool that helps book sellers look at trends.
      I just thought it would be helpful to get an idea. For example, if I see a book that is similar to the one that I'm working on, I can get a rough idea of how well they're doing, so that I can make an educated guess as to how well I might do.
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  • Profile picture of the author donhx
    Knowing how many copies of a book won't help anyone. What's important is why they sold.

    Most of the best-sellers on Amazon reached that level because publishers paid Amazon advertising subsidies, which is common in the publishing industry. New Yorker magazine is filled with snooty literary elitists who hate Amazon, but you can get some insights about Amazon sales from this new article. It's long, but IMers in the ebook market segment can learn something from it. I know I did!

    George Packer: Is Amazon Bad for Books? : The New Yorker
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  • Profile picture of the author Fun to Write
    I think the OP would be better off spending time finding ways to add real value to the book they are currently working on. What information can you provide readers that similar books do not include?

    Read the reviews and look for comments of what people did not like about the book. You can use those comments to your benefit. Focus on giving people what they want so they will be interested in buying your book. Your results may be worse or better than another author. The only way to know for sure is to do great work and publish it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel J
    Amazon sales rank is an extremely useful number, but it only indicates the rank of the book (or product) for that DAY- actually only at that MOMENT (it can change every hour as Amazon's site is constantly refreshed with new data.) I use camelcamelcamel.com for this- this will tell you the item's sales rank over TIME. This is a much better indicator of sales. For instance, a book may have a surge of sales in a week (due to a press release, viral video or whatever) and the rank may increase (number goes down) drastically! This does not mean that is the "average" sale though. I explain more about this HERE
    (part 1 of this post will also help you understand the formula I use which will help you determine approximately WHERE it ranks in the category in relationship to the other books- which will ultimately help you find an approximate number of copies sold on average.

    one more thing that can really help (if you're patient enough and if it's a PHYSICAL book) is to "add the item to your cart." Put in a quantity of 999. If Amazon has less than 999 copies, it will say "sorry, we only have 396 copies available (for example). Refresh the page regularly- at least once a day and subtract the new number from your starting number. This will give you a fairly exact number of sales per day in that time-frame.

    Hope this helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    The only way to get close to it that I know is to either ask someone with a book near the top of a category or get your own book in the top ten. Right now I have a book that's sitting at #9 in a popular category. Sorry, not gonna say which.

    I know how many I'm selling per day and since I've bounced all around the top 20 in this category I have a decent idea of what other books are doing. But that doesn't tell me how many copies have sold. Not even close.

    I'm not so sure it's important though.
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