Moving on up (the sales list)

I don’t often view the best-seller lists. I did when my first book was published in 2012. It was kind of fun checking the charts every few hours to see how many thousand spots my book had risen or fallen. I’m a stats guy (a former sportswriter).

Now, I look maybe once a week or so. Curiosity mostly.

So, it was pure coincidence that I checked the Amazon author sales site yesterday and saw my first book, “Murder in Wauwatosa: The Mysterious Death of Buddy Schumacher,” had risen to perhaps the highest it has ever been on the paid Kindle list. The charts only go back to March 2016, but I don’t remember it being any higher than this. The photo I posted says it ranked 8,576th at that time. It actually got as high as 8,174th by the end of the day on November 18.

That number might not sound impressive, but it’s in the top 1 percent of all titles listed on the site. Also, “Murder in Wauwatosa” ranked in the top six in three different categories. I thought being No. 6 in the History of Midwestern U.S. was pretty cool. One of the other top-six books, No. 3 “Devil in the White City,” is sitting on my shelf waiting for me to read. I’ve been told it’s really good.

The New York Times best-seller list is probably the most well known, but you can find them on Barnes & Noble and other places for both print and e-book (Kindle, Nook, etc.). Our local bookstore (Viewpoint Books) releases a weekly best-seller list for its sales. I’ve been on that one numerous times and have been No. 1 a few times with my second book, “Wicked Columbus, Indiana.”