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is sales velocity that considers the rate of change and timing of the change. For example, sales made<br />
within the last few days will be weighted more heavily than sales from two weeks ago, as retailers<br />
will always want to sell what is hot and moving today. Because bestseller charts usually get readers’<br />
attention, so it is worth considering targeting sales efforts to a specific time in order to make the<br />
spike in sales and appear in the bestseller ranking. Retailers also adjust their algorithm to ensure a<br />
strike between reader satisfaction and profitability. Therefore some retailers might promote a $9.99<br />
ebook instead of a 99-cent ebook that is selling more in terms of quantity.<br />
Amazon’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” is another algorithm that taps<br />
into the purchase history of readers. Positive reviews and recommendations will improve chances of<br />
getting into this contextual connection. Therefore authors can consider partnering with other authors<br />
of the same genre into cross-promoting each other’s books at the same time to get into this algorithm.<br />
While Amazon use purchases as part of their algorithm, other retailers use browsing history as an<br />
indicator of reader preference. Becoming a series writer and releasing more books will also help in<br />
selling more.<br />
Understanding How Ebook Retailers Select Titles to Feature<br />
While publishers pay to get their books displayed face up at prominent positions on the book<br />
shelves of brick and mortar stores, merchandizing managers from ebook retailers use several<br />
methods to identify books that are worth bestowing their promotional boost.<br />
These methods are:<br />
Sales trend, reviews and quality of book cover.<br />
Monitoring national ebook bestseller lists and even competing ebook retailers lists.<br />
Genre-specific bestsellers are also noted.<br />
Monitoring influential book review platforms such as New York Times, national network<br />
talk shows or popular blogs to check out the next buzz.<br />
Asking distributors like Smashwords for recommendation.<br />
Looking at the author’s entire catalog of available titles to generate more follow-up sales of<br />
other titles.<br />
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