Yesterday one of my writer friends directed me to a snazzy feature available at the Amazon web page for A Different Dream for My Child. Now, I knew the page was the place to buy the book, which you’re all welcome to do if you have some spare dollars burning a hole in your pocket. But I didn’t know that partway down the page were the statistics about how the book was selling. I’m not sure if the information is available to the general public, but somehow it shows up for me. Hmm.
Initially, I thought this feature was just about the coolest thing ever. Especially since my book was #17 in the category of Books > Children’s Books > Religions > Christianity > Devotional. Of course, that was before I realized what you may already have noticed. Different Dream is categorized as a children’s book, which it’s not. But still, I decided, when I discovered that narrow category had over 100 books in it, my baby was holding its own.
And this morning, when I checked the stats again, I was overjoyed to see Different Dream at #12 in its narrow category, and it had cracked the top #100 in the wider category of all Christian devotional books. “How about them apples?” I was thinking as my emotions soared. “Best sellers list, here I come.”
I was pretty smug, dollar signs dancing in my eyes, until I had to go to the page again this afternoon (Okay, so I didn’t have to go to the page; I just wanted to) and saw it had dropped to #27 in its narrow category, which as we know is the wrong category, and my spirits plunged.
By this point I was fed up, tired of my feelings rising and plummeting like those pesky line graphs we made in junior high math class. I hated making them way back when, and now here my innards were, an emotional facsimile of the same, dratted things. Dry, boring statistics I didn’t know existed had invaded and taken control of my life. Eww!
But, no more. From now on, to the best of my ability, I resolve to ignore the Amazon statistics. And I will implement that resolution after checking my stats one last time.
Bummer. #31
