Hey Everyone!
It's Monday again, which means time for Meredith's Monday Musings! Today's topic is: The Green Eyed Monster!
Everyone knows what the green eyed monster is right? It's the feeling of jealousy within yourself. I think that everyone has experienced it a time or two in their lives, especially when being an author.
When I first became an author, Melody Parks helped me out a bunch. One night we were talking, and she said, "I'm going to give you the most important piece of advice I can give you about being an author...only compete with yourself, because the second that you start comparing your books with another author's books, you're going to get jealous and angry and that will take away the fun of being an author."
She was so right! I had my first book come out and I believe it's overall ranking got as low as 2,000 on Amazon. I was like, "Okay, I'm going to try and get my next book's overall ranking lower than 2,000." My second book came out and I got my overall ranking down to 979! I was so proud of myself!
Well, my third book came out and my overall ranking only got as low as 5,000. I was upset. Other age play books had come out during my release and they had gotten overall rankings lower than 5,000. I was a little jealous that their books did better than mine because I knew that my books were just as good as theirs. Then the quote that Melody told me at the beginning of my author journey came back to me. I realized that I was being silly.
No two authors are the same. We each have our own strengths and weaknesses. And to compare two books will only bring out the green eye monster in ourselves and no one benefits from that.
Thinking about all of that when my third book didn't do as great as my first two, I decided that from now on, I was only going to compete with myself and support all authors! No matter what publishing company an author published with, or what sub-genre of romance an author wrote for, I was going to promote everyone. Because I want to help everyone succeed and make our little author community a fun and loving one.
There's no room for the green eye monster in this community!! :-)
That's it. I hope that y'all have a fantastic week!!
The best thing you can do for your peace of mind is ignore other authors' rankings.
ReplyDeleteهوروش بند
DeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to second and amplify what Cara said: rankings should not only be ignored, they should be treated for what they are -- effectively meaningless.
ReplyDeleteBestseller ranking (the ranking you see on a book's listing page) is a measure of sales and velocity, updated hourly. That's it.
Rankings do not beget sales -- they are a reflection of them. Worse, rankings are so volatile in today's environment as to be almost useless vis-a-vis providing you any valuable, actionable data.
They're pretty much just an interesting bit of information on a book listing page now:)
(Great post though, Meredith:)
Great post, Meredith. I need to stop checking my ranking numbers. When I first started writing I worried about whether or not I'd be accepted. My dream was to write a romance and get it published. Some family members told me, 'No way. You'll never get published. Don't get your hopes up.' But I did get published and it was an awesome feeling. Still is. I never knew about rankings when I first started out. Checking rankings all the time only adds more pressure and takes the fun out of writing. I know cause I'm guilty of it. Getting upset over negative reviews doesn't help either. Been there too. I honestly wish all my author friends many sales. Thanks for this post. It helped me a lot <3 Hugs, Mary
ReplyDeleteUgh. Yes. I don't have as much time to write as most of my friends, and I'll be honest that some of my friends are better authors. But I've written and published 7 books! And people buy them! I need to remember that when I look at their numbers. (I need to stop looking at their numbers!) LOL. We need each other.
ReplyDeleteUgh. Yes. I don't have as much time to write as most of my friends, and I'll be honest that some of my friends are better authors. But I've written and published 7 books! And people buy them! I need to remember that when I look at their numbers. (I need to stop looking at their numbers!) LOL. We need each other.
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