Want to be an Amazon bestseller?
According to a recent study by Publishers Weekly, you need to sell approximately 300 print books on Amazon in a single day to crack the top 5 bestsellers.
How would this correspond to ebooks? Good question. Since Amazon sells roughly 20% more ebooks than print, you may need to sell about 360 Kindle books per day to crack the top 5 bestsellers. (Reminder, not talking about niche categories here, where the top 5 can be achieved with just a few to a few dozen sales per day.)
(Save 83% Bestselling Keywords on Amazon)
Of course, these are rough estimates based on cross-referencing other sites that use, er… rough estimates, but still a nice ballpark number to shoot for.
Next question–how on Earth does one sell 360 ebooks in a single day and maintain that? If I had the answer, this post would not have been written. Blogging, activity in social media and writing a book that readers love and recommend is a good place to start. How about that for an answer.
Want to comment?
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How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks 
March 20, 2013 at 9:32 am
Hi Brother JM,
If you could simply buy 300 of my DANCIN, SCHMANCIN with the SCARS; Finding the Humor No Matter What! (the best satirical survival book ever on Amazon or anywhere, according to Anon,) ASAP then this could work out. Have Fun, Jan Marshall http://www.amazon.com/Dancin–Scars-Finding-Matter/dp/0988514605/
March 20, 2013 at 10:39 am
…on my way to Amazon, happy to help out 🙂
March 20, 2013 at 2:37 pm
Back in March of last year–one year ago tomorrow, actually–I sold exactly 360 books in a 24 hour period. About 250 of those sales came from a single book, all in the U.S. It peeked at #293 on the bestseller list.
It’s a little painful to think another 150 sales might have put me at the top of the list. I’ve heard the Top 20 bestseller page is like a bog. Once you’re in it, you have a chance of getting stuck there for a while.
March 20, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Was that sold as in paid for, or the free KDP Select giveaway days?
March 20, 2013 at 2:43 pm
Paid. It was my peak sales day after coming off a free promo in which I gave away 20,000 downloads, split between two books.
Sold a total of 1,400 books that week, with a best day of 360 sales.
March 20, 2013 at 2:50 pm
…sweeeeet
March 20, 2013 at 2:51 pm
Feels like a long time ago now. Haha. But the future lies ahead!
March 20, 2013 at 5:21 pm
It’s a lot more than 360. I’ve sold as many as 600-700 in one day before and only been as high as 175 on the Kindle list. I estimate you need to sell in the low thousands (maybe around 1000) to hit the top 100. Who knows about the top 5, but it could be several thousand e-books a day.
I’m a computer programmer as well as an author, and it’s pretty clear that the Amazon ranking involves a bucketing scheme. Some percent of the ranking is based on “last hour” some on “last day” some on “last week” and “last month” There may be a lot of buckets going into it. Selling a ton in one day can propel you pretty high but it’s easier to stay high with consistent “slightly lower” sales. If I have a big day from a promotion I’ll notice big drops at exactly 1 week and 1 month.
Andy Gavin http://andy-gavin-author.com
March 20, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Perhaps if you sold 360 per day for a month… that might be top 5 results. Who knows? Thanks for the input, Andy.