That is complex. It depends on how well the book performs in terms of sales and the book category.
Today, I’ll talk about regular rankings, that is, all-time to date for book performance.
My book is a memoir and history.
Everyone can check a book sales performance (if there are enough sales for Amazon to build statistics). On the page where you can buy the book, scroll down the page, and you may see something like this (Canadian Amazon site): see below. 

The Amazon algorithm considers the number of copies sold, how recently, and the sales amount. I think the rank jumps significantly after some good sales. I remember on “Amazon.ca,” I was #1 one day after just 3 sales on the Canadian Amazon site, one eBook and two prints. It was in the “Romanian History” section. Not many buy books in Canada about someone’s memoirs in Communist Romania. But still, a few days later, with no more sales,  I was #28 in the same category.

​On the American site, I was #71 in Romanian History with 436 sales (419 eBook and 17 print)
Americans seem to be more interested in European history than Canadians, even considering they are 8-9 times more people.

 
I have also attached the book on performance in the UK. It seems they are the most avid readers of the history of Romania, considering how many history books were ahead of mine (I was not on the list for Romanian history), and I had similar sales in the UK to those in Canada.

​Conclusion: if someone said they were #1 on Amazon, you should ask them the category at least. If they said it was #1 in romance (for example), it means a lot, while in a category with fewer readers, high positions could be reached fast.
Another remark: looking at rankings for many books, I observed that readers enjoy more books about sex than philosophy, history, and politics. Uffff.

​I published THESE LIVES in March 2023.
Total sales as of today: 503 copies, out of which 39 are print and 464 are eBooks.
I did not do serious marketing until about 4 months ago. I saw sales increase as a result. The best for me is Amazon ads, and I will explain how this worked for me in a new post. 

​There is another way to look at your book value on Amazon. I am talking about the pages read on Kindle Unlimited since I have my book in that store. In my calculation, Amazon pays around 1 USD for 200 pages read in Kindle Unlimited.
Those paying subscriptions can read any number of books they want from the store. They often read a few pages, dump the book, and go for another. So, how many subscribers read my whole book? I would say around half of them. Considering their habits, as described by other bloggers, I think it is an achievement.
How do I estimate how many went through my whole book? I do not talk about those who bought copies since there are no statistics, but Amazon subscribers to Kindle Unlimited.
It happens occasionally, maybe a few weeks apart, to see 10 to 50 pages read (Amazon calls it KENP). Then, I looked the following days, and if I saw that number increase like somebody was reading, and if in a few days, a week or so, the number of pages matched my book, I concluded the guy read it all. Of course, this could be misleading since another reader jumped in and read only part of it. My conclusion is that about half do read the whole book. The total pages on KENP to the day: 5910. Below is the list of Kindle Unlimited reads. Obviously, the guy from India reading only 20 pages gave up after the first 2 chapters. In Australia, if there was only one reader, he/she went through half of it. But I stick to my estimation; half of them read it all. Well, only Amazon knows the truth.

​Note: The books downloaded by subscribers do not show up in sales, there are separate statistics.
In my next post, I will go through ranking. There are many angles to look at it, and I find it fascinating.
 

  In this post, I will describe the launch of my book THESE LIVES (memoir book).
    My editor was enthusiastic about the book, and I can discern between courtesy enthusiasm and a real one. She even helped me (for free) look for an agent. It didn’t work out, but I had some replies that were very close calls, mostly saying that they do not specialize in the book genre - but had a debate within the team to consider it.
So, I decided to spend some money on launching my book because what I had was encouraging. I also paid three professional reviews (Kirkus, Indie Reader, and Reedsy Discovery), which were very encouraging.
     I remembered some bad times with a previous book when I signed up with Xlibris. I paid an initial sum for which they evaluated the book and suggested a book cover. The evaluation showed that they did not read the content, but they read a few pages here and there, and the cover design was a picture on Shutterstock. By chance, I found it on Shutterstock by looking for some keywords to match the book’s narrative. I canceled the agreement and lost the money.
So, there is no way I would fall into the trap of vanity publishers, better self-publish, and pay for services I need.
After some research, I decided on Reedsy for cover design and marketing. I am not making publicity for Reedsy; I just tell my audience what happened.
    It was expensive, about USD 1000 for marketing and £960 for cover design and formatting. I did not need the formatting, but I wanted to go full steam and not regret it later. I do not regret the payment since I reached #1 (eBook) and #3(Print) for Amazon New Releases for the Romanian History section. 

   
I am a self-published author. Now, because I am retired, I have more time for marketing. I tried companies offering to help at a reasonable price (a few hundred), then ads on Facebook, X, and Amazon. For me, the best results were with Amazon Ads in the Sponsored Products program. It makes sense since they have all the necessary statistics.

   If your book is in Kindle Unlimited, then Amazon knows how many books are downloaded and how many pages are read. Amazon knows if there are many downloads for a book, but the reader only goes a few pages or a few chapters and then jumps to the end to find the conclusion - the book has a good presentation (cover design, an appealing summary or synopsis) but poor content. If there are few downloads for other books, but most readers go through it all, it is the other way around - a poor presentation but good content. I talked about Kindle Unlimited since those paying subscriptions are picky but the best barometer to judge a book’s quality. Besides, the author can find those statistics by watching the KENP frequently on his/her Amazon Author pages, not with Amazon’s precision, but still might have a clue.

    It is similar to eBooks, but those buying it read the book, and their potential reviews might indicate their assessment. Of course, reviews from friends and most paid “readers reviews” should not count for an honest evaluation if an author wants to be truthful to himself.

    What follows are my best guesses about how Amazon works.

    Amazon wants to make money from selling books. And if they advertise good books, the fan base increases. But they want to take advertising money from all authors paying for ads. I think it is different from how Amazon treats excellent and bad authors.

    But how does Amazon evaluate a book? I already explained the statistics they have on eBooks. Reviews always matter; Amazon tries to discern between honest and “friendly” reviews. I am not sure how successful it is with this, but those with tons of reviews stand forward. My take is that a few reviews (and all good) do not matter much.
    
    The beginning is hard for an author, but Amazon gives you a chance until it places your book on the right shelf, from outstanding books down to disastrous ones. The Amazon “New Releases” program might help authors start well. I will not make any recommendations here since many articles about the process exist. I would only mention that I had no clue how to do it, so I paid Reedsy to help me, and it was a good choice. 
​
    Is it fair that Amazon became such a powerhouse that anybody else is dwarfed? Well, they have the chance to regulate a Wild West book market.

    I will explain more about my experience as an author in the next post.