I'm a week behind on my Amazon 100 Ranking analysis (I captured the screen shots but had not posted the results. So I'm going to do last week's first then this week.
To see the full list see this post on kindle boards.
- 18% of the Top 100 changed (61% Debuts, 39% returning to list
- No major price changes (One book from $7.51 > $7.58, One from $9.99 > $7.99, One from $13.99 to $12.99)
- One indie price change from $0.99 - $2.99 (The List by J. A. Konrath)
- One Small Press and priced at $4.79 - (Wild Sight by Loucinda McGary)
- Quite a few price changes for games so that now all of them are $0.99
- Games occupying a substantially higher % of list - 15%
- #4 (Lincoln Lawyer) is being helped by movie
- John Locke continues to dominate 7 titles in top 50 (#3, #6, #8, #10, #21, #25, #46
- Amanda Hocking still has 7 titles but her rankings have slipped dramatically (#19, #26, #27, #61, #70, #73, #78)
- Still No indie author greater than $2.99
- 4 books are now priced $14.99
- 57% are under $5 and 43% are over $5 - Major shift (but mostly due to games
- 74% books (Fiction/NonFiction/Shorts) 26% - Games, Applications, Periodicals
- Books: 86% Fiction, 11% Non Fiction, 3% shorts)
- Number of Fiction titles down significantly
- Number of $0.99 for indies up significantly
The types of items on the Top 100 break down as follows:
- Shorts 2% (up from 1%)
- News 3% (Steady)
- Games 16% (up from SIGNIFICANTLY FROM 4%)
- Magazines 7% (down from 9%)
- Non Fiction 8% (down from 10%)
- Fiction 64% (down SIGNIFICANTLY from 73%)
Looking at just fiction titles (64 titles):
- 1 - Small Press (1.6%)
- 30 - Indie Authors (46.9%) - 22 at $0.99 (73%), 8 at $2.99 (27%)
- 33 Traditional Authors (51.5%) (0 - $0.99, 15 - $5-$9.99 (45%), 18 over $10 (55%)
Other information about indies:
- 15 - Indie Authors 4 of which have multiple titles (Steady from 15)
- 47% of Indie books came from 2 authors (14/30) John Locke (7), Amanda Hocking (7)
The price distributions are as follows (64 titles):
- 34% $1.00 or less (22) (Up from 32%)
- 13% $1.01 - $2.99 (8) (Down from 14%)
- 3% $3 - $5 (2) (Steady from 3%)
- 22% $5.01 - $10 (14) (Down from 30%)
- 28% Over $10 (18) (Up from 26%)
Dividing into three groups we see:
- Low ($2.99 or Less) 30 47% (Up from 41%)
- Med ($3.00 - $8.99) 11 17% (Down from 22%)
- High ($9.99 and up) 23 36% (Down from 37%)
- Under $5 32 50% (Up from 40%)
- Over $5 32 50% (Down from 60%)
10 comments:
Wow. Robin, this is your best breakdown yet. Thanks!
Even though this is still something of a snapshot, some trends seem to be emerging. I am reaching my own tentative conclusions about what we're seeing in pricing trends -- both descriptive (what is happening) and prescriptive (how an indie writer should price his own work, in response). But I'd like to hear your own opinions about that.
--Robert Bidinotto
RobertTheWriter.com
Thanks for this.
Robin,
Thanks for doing these numbers. :)
I think you can understand I'm fascinated by the 'ebook numbers.' ;)
I find the 18% (call it ~20%) 'churn' in the top 100 interesting. I wonder if that will be a 'typical churn.'
I also wonder why non-fiction does so much better in print than ebook? I wonder if non-fiction writers are holding out for paper? Perhaps in hopes of being published (university professors) and thus the high ebook prices discouraging the non-fiction genres?
Yea... a lot of questions that won't be answered tonight. ;)
Thanks again!
Neil
@Robert - I'm going to do this for a few more weeks then be able to see the "bigger picture and comment more. The secret is consistent data week to week.
@wannabuy - I have the 3/26/2011 and the churn was much smaller - the last two weeks had been 18% but for 3/26/ it was half that - it is something I'm going to watch more.
As for non-fiction -- its interesting I'm going "way back" - to the begining of Amazon numbers and non-fic used to dominate the top 100 - believe it or not. I'll list that data at some point. I think a lot has to do with formatting (for educational books)but you make a good point as well.
Next month and the month after might be interesting because a lot of the YA paranormal books are coming out. Most of them are the next book in a series from some of the most popular authors (Clare, Black, Stiefvater, Bryan, Grafton) just to name a few off the top of my head. This ought to dramatically change the flavor of the numbers.
Just a heads up.
Julia Scott
Robin does your data include the new Android apps thing they are doing? If so this might be where all these games are coming from. I noticed they are giving away Angry Birds for a short period of time. ( a very popular game for mobile devices )
@Bad Monkey - no apps for the Android are totally different. The games on this list are things that run on the Kindle - they've been around for a long time but only recently a bunch of them lowered their price to $0.99 and so they climbed on the list.
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