Does anyone know anything about Amazon sales rankings?

[LadyGlencoraPalliser]

My lovely DH has just had his first book published - not fiction or anything exciting like that but he is a clever boy and I am proud of him . Anyway it came out on Thursday and had an Amazon sales ranking of 55,000 or so. Today it is 15, 469 (approx). Does anyone know how that translates into copies sold, or how you move up and down the rankings?
Book is here if anyone wants to see it.

It is already listed as used ones being sold.

Yes, I saw that Fab. I clicked on the links and they actually seem to be new ones being sold by secondhand dealers - but why?

Hi,
The rankings fluctuate a lot and sometimes seem quite odd to me.
Try not to get obsessed! I guess he'll get some decent advertising in the Guardian which is a bonus and should help with sales.

Agree that the 'used' ones aren't always used.

Don't expect to make a fortune. He might well find he makes much more from extra journo work on the back of it than he does from royalties.

The copy that is being sold cheaply, and supposedly used, is from a seller called Ammobox. I googled it and found this blog which makes interesting reading.

Grammerpolicesic - you are totally correct. Nice big ad in the main section of The Guardian today . But, as you suggest, he is viewing it as a loss leader; we worked out that if it doesn't sell many copies he will have done it for a rate of approx £20 per 1,000 ! But great for his profile.

Yep, it's definitely about the cachet not the cash.

OK....I think I just worked out his advance....assuming it was about 50k words.

With an advance like that he does actually have a chance of earning it out and then getting more as it was pretty low.