First Time in the Rodeo

So my book got listed on Amazon some time last week, and that was pretty exciting:



When I went back to look at it on Friday night, I scrolled down and saw that it was ranked #66 in Parenting Humor books. Ahead of books that were already published, by famous people, with actual cover designs, and everything. Crazy, I know.

I checked several hours later, and it had gone up to #55. At this rate, I would be in the top 20 by Saturday morning. I woke up, and raced to the computer, eager to accept my new status as "beloved family humorist." Roll over, Erma Bombeck.

(Who probably did, God rest her soul.)

I scrolled down to the Product Details, and alas, it was all over. A rating in the hundreds of thousands for popularity overall, and not even ranked in Parenting Humor titles. I clicked backwards through the listings, wondering how far into obscurity I had fallen. Far enough to soon get tired of clicking past my betters. Dang.

I had flown too close to the sun.

Then this morning, it was back up, to #55 in its category, and was in the top 60,000 of all books on Amazon. By lunch, it was down again, out of the top 100,000 and ranked #79 for Parenting Humor.



What I've decided is that the Amazon rankings are twitchier than a polygraph and nowhere near as truthy. And however high or low the numbers on the bottom of the page may get, what's most thrilling to me are three little words up top.