Like many other first time authors, I got addicted to checking the Amazon.com sales rank of J2EE Security for Servlets, EJBs and Web Services at least once a day, after its publication last week.
The first time I looked at on Sep. 11, the rank was 1,353,488. It stayed there for few days and then moved down to 1,267,672 on Sep. 15. I felt good -- at least the book was moving. But then the next day, it suddenly dropped down (for good) to 99,326. I was overjoyed, for my author friends tell me that a rank below 100,000 is quite good for a technical book. I actually called up Veena and sent mail to my editor and few friends.
SO it was bit of an anti-climax when next day I found the rank to be 1,267,672. It stayed there till today morning. But when I checked it in the evening, I was bit surprized (in a good way) to find the rank to be 84,358.
But how do we explain this sudden jumps? Is it becuase the sales are taking place in spurts? Or is it because Amazon's calculations get swayed too much by slaes last hour? Or is it just that all servers are not synchronized?