Who among us hasn’t Googled ourselves, our companies, or our beloved pet projects? And, of course, what shows up in the search results isn’t always predictable, right?
So imagine my surprise to learn, after typing Chained Birds into the search engine, that somehow, my book, which doesn’t come out until November 12, 2024, has already found its way onto multiple Amazon True Crime Hot New Releases book lists. How can this be?
I did a mini deep dive into Amazon’s Hot New Releases (HNR) and discovered my book’s placement is both ordinary and unusual. Here’s what I learned …
According to Berrett-Koehler Publishers, roughly 3-3.5 million books are now published each year in the U.S. This figure includes corporate and specialty books, children’s books, educational textbooks, and about 2.5 million self-published books. Traditional publishers contribute between 500,000-1 million of those titles. That’s a hell of a lot of new books vying for readers’ attention.
One of my favorite book critics and bloggers, Maris Kreizman, said earlier this year that there are just too many damned books in the world, and it’s overwhelming for consumers. I agree.
Why are Amazon’s Hot New Releases lists even worth discussing?
Amazon dominates the book market, accounting for over half of all U.S. book sales (source), and thousands of new books are uploaded to Amazon every day. And just like your downtown indie bookstore or local Barnes & Noble, Amazon has found a way to help its readers find these new books using genre, categories, and subcategories. And just like a bookstore will display newly released books, Amazon curates Hot New Releases lists across its genres and categories to announce upcoming titles.
There are over 10,000 Amazon book genre categories. Some are sparsely populated: think Parenting–>Adoption. Others are so popular, that even their narrow categories (think Romance–>Contemporary Romance) have tens of thousands of competing titles.
True Crime is the 18th most popular nonfiction book genre on Amazon, which actually sits within the #1 most popular nonfiction genre, Memoir & Autobiography, according to this recent Self-Publishing School article. So, in essence, True Crime is both a genre and category, which in turn has 11 subcategories of its own, including Murder & Mayhem, Organized Crime, Mass Murder, Serial Killers, and others.
Generally, Amazon offers placement on its HNR lists to new books within their first 30 days of release. The HNR lists rank the top 100 titles per genre/category/sub-category using Amazon’s top-secret algorithms. This initial boost is Amazon’s way of trying to get a new book in front of the eyes of its likely readers who search for a particular genre/category. But we know, with the hordes of books landing on Amazon daily, that this boost is not possible for all newly published books – especially on a list of only 100 rankings.
Supposedly, some of the same ingredients that propel a book to Amazon best-seller status, also impact its landing on their Hot New Releases lists. According to The Grammar Factory Publishing Company, this includes Performance:
Performance is simply how your book performs once the relevant audience sees it. When Amazon returns a list of books in response to a search query about your topic, do shoppers click on your book’s link, or do they go elsewhere?
If they click on your book, do they send a free sample to their Kindle? Do they add it to their cart? Or (ideally) do they buy it?
Most of the books on these HNR lists are new releases, as you would guess, with an assortment of reader reviews and print/audio excerpts to read or hear. But some titles on the HNRs, like mine, have a publishing date in the near future, and have no reviews or excerpts to preview or listen to. (Amazon doesn’t allow reader reviews nor content previews to post before publishing day, so I posted my own previews on this blog.)
Essentially, Amazon True Crime searchers and readers have either pre-ordered or registered their interest in Chained Birds based on its cover and description, and possibly the Kindle-version sale price of $2.99 (which will increase on publication day). And maybe because my subtitle, A True Crime Memoir, literally has the True Crime genre spelled out in its name, has also helped. It certainly hasn’t hurt.
I grabbed screenshots of Chained Birds’ placement on a handful of True Crime HNR lists this past week. The reason I can say multiple lists is not just because Chained Birds lives within the main True Crime genre and two subcategories (Murder & Mayhem and Organized Crime), but also because Amazon produces HNR lists for Kindle-only (electronic/eBook) versions in addition to its HNRs for ALL BOOKS (print, eBook, audiobook).
To complicate things even further, different versions of a new title can appear on the same list, such as Chained Birds’ #63 eBook and #65 audiobook placement on the HNR for all True Crime Kindle eBooks.
These lists and rankings change every hour. Over this past week, Chained Birds has ranked as high as #11 on the all-books True Crime-Organized Crime HNR list to a low of #74 on the True Crime-Murder & Mayhem HNR, only to disappear from that list and then reappear at #80.
As fun as all of this has been for me, as a debut author, to see my book appear in these rankings, true bragging rights really only belong to the top three books per genre/category/subcategory.
A top three ranking means not only first-page exposure in an Amazon search but also getting highlighted on the front page of that genre/category/subcategory in the right-hand corner. And, of course, that also comes with the coveted orange ranking badge that will appear on your book page.
And guess what? No one tells you your book has ranked on any Amazon list, not even if you land at #1 somewhere! This is why fanatical authors, agents, or PR reps obsessively refresh Amazon’s HNR and Best Sellers lists to grab screenshots for the ranking proof that might be fleeting since the lists change every hour.
Placing and holding a high-level Amazon book ranking, whether on a Hot New Releases or Best Sellers list in some genre or category/subcategory, means your book is selling well. Badges and screenshots provide social proof that it’s resonating with readers, which in turn helps generate media and social influencer attention. This can result in more book sales and continued or climbing ranks on these important Amazon consumer books lists. The whole phenomenon is a lovely cycle of energy and momentum for as long as it lasts.
Anecdotal evidence suggests Chained Birds will still get this Hot New Releases boost 30 days after pub day of November 12, 2024, allowing True Crime fans who are hungry enough to check out the list to learn about my book. But, like with all of Amazon’s super-secret algorithms, who knows if I’ll really get this extra month of exposure? We’ll see.
In the meantime, I’ve captured screenshot proof of some of Chained Birds‘ rankings (when I happened to be looking, because who can devote the time to constant refresh and angst?), including some screenshots from Oct. 17-18, 2024 when my book mysteriously hit #1 in Criminal Law. Look, Ma! I got a badge! And it lasted two days 😂
Carla Conti is a true crime journalist, storyteller, and prison reform advocate. Her debut book, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir, will be published by WildBlue Press on November 12, 2024.
