Tuesday 2 December 2014

Billy's Zombie Hits Number 3 on Amazon

Amazon's categorisation and ranking system is indisputably the most advanced today, out of all the various online book sellers in the world. They have literally hundreds of different categories, each one with its own "Top 100", further split between free and paid books, and those rankings change every single hour of every single day.
This past Saturday (29 November 2014), Billy's Zombie found itself taking advantage of that complicated system. Take a look at this screenshot, taken on Saturday morning at 09:22 (GMT+2):

(Click the screenshot to enlarge it.)

In case you still can't make it out, it shows that Billy's Zombie was ranked by Amazon, as the third most popular free book in the category for Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Science Fiction, Fantasy & Scary Stories > Scary Stories!
That's a pretty specific (and hence, a relatively small) category, but still, it's quite an amazing achievement. As mentioned, the rankings do change pretty quickly too, but it was able to hold onto the third spot for most of the day on Saturday, and only dropped to fourth place late on Saturday night. By Sunday morning, it had dropped to seventh position in that category, and continues to drop.
Still, it had its "15 minutes of fame", and for that, I am truly grateful, especially to all the people (some of whom may be reading this now) who downloaded it.

Will you help me out?

If you haven't downloaded Billy's Zombie yet, then please would you consider doing so? It's free, so the only thing you stand to lose is a bit of time—although, it's really short, so you'll probably read it in 15 minutes or less, anyway. Perhaps after this blog post, it will begin its climb up the charts all over again, as you, my loyal readers, download it in droves (one can dream, right?).
If you'd like to download it directly from Amazon, click this link.

Care to Review Billy's Zombie?

If you have read it, I would be extremely grateful if you would consider posting a short review, and letting everyone know what you thought. Aside from downloads, reviews from everyday readers like yourselves also play a huge part in Amazon's recommendation engine. They also help other customers decide if it's worth them sacrificing a bit of their time to read it themselves. Oh, and if you do review it, please post a link to your review in the comments below. I like to feature reviews of my books in my monthly newsletter, and I'd be happy to feature yours in the next issue! (Visit my Past Newsletters page, if you want to catch up on past issues, or sign-up to receive future ones.)

Is That Category Right?

By the way, there was a little bit of controversy in my family, about whether Billy's Zombie was categorised correctly. As you saw, it's listed under Amazon as a children's book, and as you'll see if you visit the Amazon book page, it has an "age restriction" of 10 to 18 years. My 22-year-old brother read it, and promptly said to me "This is not a children's book!" because it features a bit of gore, where at one point someone's eyeballs pop and the zombie's thumbs are driven through his skull into his brain.
On the other hand, my mother, a junior Primary School teacher, said that she can easily see her own students reading it.
I'd love to hear your opinion on the matter. If you've read it, do you think it's in the correct category? If so, is the age limit appropriate? If not, what category would you put it under?
Please let me know in the comments below.














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