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ONE OR TWO COPIES SOLD

An Amazon-aware author emails:

Hardly anyone realises how few copies one needs to sell to get anywhere on Amazon. You only need to sell 150-200 copies to crack the Top 100 - most Amazon turnover is not 100 people buying the latest Stephen King, it’s 100 people buying 100 different books they might not find at their local bookshop. Hence Loewenstein’s jump from 500,000 to 80,000 might literally mean one or two copies getting sold. Trust me, I should know ...

If you only need sell 200 copies to hit the Top 100, how few copies must best-selling author Antony have moved to be down at 529,447?

Posted by Tim B. on 05/18/2007 at 10:40 AM
  1. Once you sink that low, people are mailing copies back to you… postage due.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 05 18 at 10:44 AM • permalink

  2. I notice that Ant’s book is linked to Dhimmi Carter’s stinker, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”.  Wotta surprise.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 05 18 at 11:11 AM • permalink

  3. Does Amazon have some sort of tenure for books?

    Once on for sale, always on no matter how poorly the sales?

    Posted by Grimmy on 2007 05 18 at 11:17 AM • permalink

  4. So our speculation that Ant bought a couple of copies of his vanity book might have been true?

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 05 18 at 11:37 AM • permalink

  5. Watch Ant’s ranking skyrocket to 72,867 after he reads this.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2007 05 18 at 11:47 AM • permalink

  6. Maybe he is selling by the page now.  That would answer Tim’s question.

    Posted by yojimbo on 2007 05 18 at 12:00 PM • permalink

  7. how few copies must best-selling author Antony have moved to be down at 529,447

    The favoured term in technical circles for such an impossibly miniscule amount would be “fuck all”

    Posted by bondo on 2007 05 18 at 12:08 PM • permalink

  8. By my calculation 529,440 is one person buying the preface and one person buying the dust jacket.  Maybe I’m having some rounding problems to account for the differernce.

    Posted by yojimbo on 2007 05 18 at 12:38 PM • permalink

  9. I think Bondo and Yojimbo are on the right mathematical trail. Come to think of it, has anybody ever seen an actual, physical copy of this book?

    Posted by paco on 2007 05 18 at 12:56 PM • permalink

  10. So… get another bet going?  What’s the prize this time?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 05 18 at 01:33 PM • permalink

  11. It would almost be worth it to ask for a copy at the new Borders’ being built down the road from me.  Just so they’d get a couple of copies and watch them rot. (I would be willing to visit periodically and report on the condition of the books.)  OTOH, that might rocket it up all the way to 50,000 if they got them from Amazon.

    Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 05 18 at 02:33 PM • permalink

  12. #9
    I’ve seen one.  It’s strange they haven’t been able to shift it, despite the use of biodegradable ink and hypo-allergenic two ply paper.

    Posted by lotocoti on 2007 05 18 at 06:20 PM • permalink

  13. Currently #553,904.

    Loved the “customer reviews”!!!

    Posted by nofixedabode on 2007 05 18 at 06:31 PM • permalink

  14. The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered by Clive James

    The book of my enemy has been remaindered
    And I rejoice.
    It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
    Beneath the yoke.
    What avail him now his awards and prizes,
    The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
    His individual new voice?
    Knocked into the middle of next week
    His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys
    The sinker, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
    The Edsels of the world of moveable type,
    The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
    The unbudgeable turkeys.

    Posted by kae on 2007 05 18 at 06:39 PM • permalink

  15. #7

    Quantity?

    fuck all

    Gee, THAT many?

    Posted by kae on 2007 05 18 at 06:41 PM • permalink

  16. #14 hit the link for the other stanzas. It’s good.

    Posted by kae on 2007 05 18 at 06:43 PM • permalink

  17. #6

    Maybe he is selling by the page now.

    Sheryl Crow might be interested…

    - Australians who Reject Antony Loewenstein -

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2007 05 18 at 07:34 PM • permalink

  18. #17: Gold!

    Posted by paco on 2007 05 18 at 08:02 PM • permalink

  19. If you only need sell 200 copies to hit the Top 100, how few copies must best-selling author Antony have moved to be down at 529,447?

    500,000 to 80,000 to 500,000. Ant will launch a witchhunt to find which of his now former friends returned their copy as “goods not correctly described”.

    “The author inferred he knew what he was talking about,” the disgruntled customer would have written. Amazon onviously agreed, gave back his money and returned Ant to the bottom of the best seller list - or the top of the worst-seller list, depending on your perspective.

    Posted by Contrail on 2007 05 18 at 08:05 PM • permalink

  20. Latest review

    A Dishonest and Spiteful Book Badly Written


    A very poor book indeed. Badly researched and one sided to the point of bigotry. Full of factual errors and a contempt for truth which would be difficult to find in the worst propaganda. A dishonest book very badly written. One wonders how it got published as it would not pass muster as an undergraduate honours thesis in any respectable university. There are many fine balanced books about this complex issue. Don’t waste your time and money on this one.

    It appears that there is now a whole industry of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, even antisemitic books and other media products written by people who make a point of claiming Jewish descent. Such people seem to have little difficulty finding helpful and supportive publishers, irrespective of the quality or merit of their work, especially of course when the publisher is not under normal commercial constraints. This book is an example of this genre of Middle East “scholarship” and a product of this industry. The book’s publisher is an Australian university press that has spent an enormous amount of time and money on editing and publicity to little effect. The publisher is of course funded by public money. It appears oblivious to the damage it does to its, and the university’s, academic and intellectual reputation.

    It seems that with some people, it is hate, not love, that is blind.

    Loewenstein is not a journalist and it is dishonest for him to claim he is. He worked for a Sydney newspaper a number of years ago as a junior assistant on a blog but was soon fired.

    geoffff
    18 May 2007

    Posted by geoff on 2007 05 18 at 10:48 PM • permalink

  21. Paco - I have indeed seen a copy of it in a bookshop deep behind the Latte Curtain in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Melbourne.  I stuck a copy of America Alone by Imperialist reactionary running dog Mark Steyn in front of it.

    Posted by bondo on 2007 05 19 at 01:11 AM • permalink

  22. Paco,

    I have seen it. I also laughed hysterically a month later when I returned to that store, a pretty popular city store, and I saw all ten copies ever ordered still sitting on the shelf.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 05 19 at 01:44 AM • permalink

  23. #572,845 and sinking

    I will not rest until it reaches 600,000.

    Posted by geoff on 2007 05 19 at 02:00 AM • permalink

  24. I should also point out that there are several popular pinko bookstores in inner Melbourne now stocking America Alone.  Not that it does me any good, I had to buy off of Amazon around Christmas time as it was a present for my dad and it was nowhere to be seen, Melbourne or Brisbane.  You can now find it wedged between some wistful communist/islamist love stories and books about evil zionist jew pigs eating the eyeballs of Palestinian children in satanic rituals.

    Posted by bondo on 2007 05 19 at 02:03 AM • permalink

  25. I should also point out that there are several popular pinko bookstores in inner Melbourne now stocking America Alone

    Someone’s got to actually pay the bills…

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2007 05 19 at 07:11 AM • permalink

  26. It’s now at 577,526.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 05 19 at 09:18 AM • permalink

  27. #76,454

    He bought a couple more!  This is hysterical!

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 05 19 at 02:57 PM • permalink

  28. I thought that the whole purpose of the recent thread and competition was to goad Ant or some other stroker into buying a copy or two of the dud?

    As such it was a marvellous sucess

    Posted by Pickles on 2007 05 19 at 10:46 PM • permalink

  29. Jeez!
    Went to check out Ant’s book reviews and got a good belly laugh that Amazon are recommending that we can save a bit of cash by purchasing together Ant’s book and Jimmy Carter’s Palestine. Peace not Apartheid

    Posted by Hank Reardon on 2007 05 20 at 01:03 AM • permalink

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