Questions for Kate: Amazon rankings

An occasional column for when someone asks me an interesting question. Email me your question. Question: Should I get a friend to buy 10 copies of my book to boost my Amazon rankings? From: a non-fiction author It’s a well-known fact that Amazon rankings can be manipulated. Overnight your book can be escalated up the rankings by a few well-timed purchases. If the objective of this exercise to boost your author-ego by making you seem like a more important author because you have a higher Amazon-ranking today than yesterday, then why not? And of course it’s great to have another ten copies on your royalty statement / retail audit data - if your friend is paying. But rankings-chasing really isn’t worth much on its own. What it could be worth doing is encouraging a few friends to buy from Amazon rather than elsewhere to encourage Amazon to keep your book in stock – and therefore have a 24-hour delivery time.