I got an email from Amazon informing me that it now has not only book but author rankings, which are updated hourly. As of 9AM mine was 212,135. That’s a lot higher than any of my book rankings, which are pretty pathetic. I’ve always sensed that a ranking that remains below a million means a book is selling at a pace of about one per month. There are about eight millions books listed there. Since I have five in play, my ranking is higher than most of those who share the bottom of the totem pole and have only one or two books in print or on Kindle. It’s nothing to write home about and probably just a marketing gimmick to get authors to do more promotion.
It was a day of surprises at the floating book shop. The first was being able to open at all. It rained all morning. I couldn't believe it when I left the house at 11AM and saw the sun peeking from the clouds, and the weather got better and better throughout the afternoon. I hadn't seen my first customer in at least a year, since she took on the care of an elderly woman. I've been carrying two westerns, which her husband enjoys, hoping she would come along. She also bought Dan Brown's mega-blockbuster, The DaVinci Code. "You wouldn't believe what I'm reading now," she said in her lovely Caribbean accent. "Fifty Shades..." I said. Her eyes narrowed: "How you know?" I chuckled: "Everybody in the world's reading it." Soon, a young woman approached and said she and her husband were cleaning their apartment and wanted to unload some books. She returned with about 20, most of them out of the mainstream, several geared toward teachers. She teaches at Kingsborough Community College and Mercy College. One book had a homemade cover on it, Sidibe Ibrahima's The Lesbian's Wife. From the looks of it, I figured it was urban lit. Another home attendant, young mother of two boys, bought it, saying: "I don't want my husband to see it, though." I pulled the makeshift cover, which I had folded, from my pocket and handed it to her. She laughed as she took it. It looked like that would be it in terms of sales until the last minute when an elderly woman bought Danielle Steel's No Greater Love, and a young man purchased six books, including, curiously, a Korean Bible. He looked Hispanic. And then the coup de gras, as Marie showed up and bought A Hitch in Twilight as a present for her friend's birthday. She said she was touched by The Sad Song, a story that takes place largely in an abortion clinic that was fire-bombed. She dubbed the book "a keeper." It made my day.
Thanks folks.
Visit Vic's sites:
Vic's Third Novel (Print or Kindle): http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
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