Sunday, March 24, 2013

For One Brief Moment...

Last Monday was the release of "Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light" in my Shadow Spinner serialization.
Maybe some of you picked it up? I think you must have, because it was the best release day I've had for any of the parts so far. But not only that, I had the biggest download day I've ever had. By far.

"Part Two: The Kitchen Table" lead the downloads and peaked at #14 on Amazon's list of free downloads on the science fiction, fantasy, and magic list (unless it went higher at some point that I didn't notice). I had 6 of the top 20 spots. But...
That's not the best part!
See, it wasn't just my best day for free downloads, it was my best day for paid downloads. By far. I mean, I got months' worth of paid downloads last week, and something happened that I would never have suspected.

"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
which was not free last week, kept climbing the charts. The paid charts. My stuff spikes up into the top 100,000 fairly frequently, but I'm more used to them hovering in the 500,000 range. At any rate, I noticed when it was in the top 100,000, but I didn't think much of it. It stayed that way for a long time, too, because Amazon didn't update their stats in a timely manner, last week. Generally, it's every hour or so, but, last Monday, it took them 6-8 hours to do an update. I was watching the downloads climb, but, still, I hadn't given any thought to the ranking. Until it finally updated, that is, and it shot onto the paid sci-fi, fantasy, and magic chart at #96. I was in the top 3000 on the sales chart. And the downloads kept happening. And, then, I was in the top 2000 and, later, just over 1000. I landed at #72 on the paid s/f/m list. That was pretty cool!

But, see, right above me on  the chart, at #69, was The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I just sort of blinked. Because, well, see, I was right there on the chart with him. What? It was pretty unbelievable.

And that's how I left it when I went to bed.

But that's not the best part!

Because, when I got up on Tuesday morning, I found that there had been more downloads, and "The Man with No Eyes" was sitting at #68 on the list, just above The Graveyard Book, which was still at #69. That! THAT was unbelievable. Surreal. I wanted a screen shot of it, but, see, I'd tried that when I was below Gaiman on the list, and I couldn't get it to work. Well, the computer was saying it was happening, but, when I tried to open the screen shots, I just got a page with the Amazon logo at the top; the rest was blank, so I knew that wasn't going to happen.

When I told my wife about the list, she said, "Take a screen shot!" And I told her I couldn't get it to work. I'm blaming Windows 8. My wife, though, was able to do some kind of screen capture from work and sent it to me... but my computer won't open it. Of course.

However! She did print it out, so, next to me here at my computer, I have the printed page of where, for one brief moment, I was higher on the chart than Neil Gaiman.

Yeah, I still don't believe it, either.

25 comments:

  1. Fantastic! I'd definitely keep that permanently hung up over my writing space. Glad she was able to capture it.

    Shannon at The Warrior Muse

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  2. Yes, you should definitely frame that. Congratulations!!!

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  3. Take a screen shot! Funny. Congratulations. Awesome when that stuff happens, isn't it? Believe me, I have lots of screen shots of my books' rankings.

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  4. That is GREAT. You beat Neil Gaiman! Wow.

    I don't even know what to say. That's phenomenal. Very impressive.

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  5. Absolutely wonderful, congratulations. I can imagine how excited you were.

    JO ON FOOD, MY TRAVELS AND A SCENT OF CHOCOLATE

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  6. Huzzah! I have no idea how Amazon rankings work and I suspect Amazon doesn't either.

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  7. Oh yeah and don't you have one of them camera phones you could have used to take a picture of it? I don't but mostly I just use my phone to play solitaire anyway.

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  8. Congratulations!! I would have that framed and hanging next to my desk and then a mini in my back pocket. I love that your wife got it working for you - she rocks!!

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  9. Hey, congratulations! That's awesome! I still have the screenshot of when we reached #4 in Women's Fiction. It was quickly taken down (some fluke?) but I have the screenshot, oh yes I do.

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  10. Congratulations Andrew! That's awesome, you should be very proud! You should hang that shot somewhere in your house. BTW, I hate Windows 8!! I'm kind of getting used to it now, but in my opinion, it's horrible!!

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  11. That's so awesome, Andrew! Congratulations, my friend. Enjoy the wonderful moment.

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  12. Mass response (because it would kind of silly to just go down the list saying "thank you" to every one on it):
    Thanks!
    I probably won't actually frame it, but I do have it sitting here next to me.

    PT: Yeah, I can't figure it out, either. I've quit trying, actually.

    I don't actually have a phone, so no camera there. I do have a camera, but, d'oh!, it didn't occur to me to use that to try and take a pic of the screen. Now, I'll have to test if I can do that for next time. (See, I'm throwing in that "next time" there.)

    Elsie: My wife does rock!

    ABftS: LOL! That's awesome. Which book got ranked on the Women's Fiction list?

    Eve: I HATE Win8. Loathe it. I've had it, now, something like 6 months and I'm not more used to it than after the first week, and I still haven't figured out how to do some things that I used regularly on XP. It's a stupid OS.

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  13. I want the photographic proof!!

    And I think Gaiman tweeted something this weekend about being outranked by some guy named Leon. He was most upset. :p Ha!

    Seriously, congratulations. What a feeling!

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  14. See now you can take a picture of the paper with your camera and load that online to keep.

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  15. L.G.: LOL
    heh
    Check back tomorrow.

    PT: I did!

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  16. Great job. I'm sure your computer was conspiring against you. Congratulations on your moment. It's an impressive feat.

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  17. Jeanne: My computer is -always- conspiring against me.

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  18. Hey, I'm just blowing through while I have a moment - but AWESOME! It's about time.

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  19. Rusty: As long as it wasn't a fluke...

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