My cozy mystery, Sweet Ginger Poison is on several Kindle Bestseller lists: #4 in Women Sleuths, #6 in Mystery, #28 in Suspense. The chart below is screenshot of the sales info from my Amazon Author Central account. (Click for a larger view.)
Three of my other books have also been on bestseller lists. Naked Frame is the most consistent seller of the three.
So how do I do it? Out of the 750,000 books in the Kindle store, what did I do to get my books ranked so highly? I don’t exactly know. I mean, there’s no secret, guaranteed formula.
But I can tell you the things I did for each book:
- Wrote the best book I could.
- Created an attractive cover that looks good even when it’s tiny.
- Wrote a good description, including some quotes from fans.
- Set a fair price. (I think $0.99 is a good price for the size books I write)
I also…
- Give away a lot of my writing on my website.
- Stay in touch with fans on Facebook.
- Publish a free email newsletter. Each issue contains a new flash fiction short story that’s not available anywhere else.
- Comment on author and publishing blogs when I have something to add to the conversation.
- Tweet. (I just set up a Twitter account.)
The things I can’t control, which are the magic ingredient in the recipe of bestsellerdom:
- People who post a great review.
- People who blog or tweet about your book.
- People who tell everybody they know about your book, both online andoffline.
Did you notice the common factor in the list of things you can’t control? That’s right. It’s PEOPLE. It they love your book, nothing can stop it from shooting up the bestseller list. So, bottom line: do everything you can to help the book succeed. But in the end, you’d better hope readers love your book—or it’s going nowhere. 
Via Robert Burton Robinson’s blog
