As an aside...
An article in either Utne Reader or New Yorker (probably Utne) talked about
how weak rankings on Amazon.com are. A little experiment in which an
author purchased a book here and there resulted in huge jumps in rankings.
I'll try to dig up the article, but it's under piles of other papers (which
are in turn under piles of other papers. You all know the routine!)
Cheers
Dan Malleck
At 08:03 AM 10/17/99 -0400, you wrote:
>I have forwarded this Kettil Bruun Society post by Ron Roizen as perhaps of
>interest to ATHG subscribers. Maybe some of you will explore the position
>on the Amazon rankings of your own books or ones that you regard as
>important.
>
>I live in Ohio, a state which recently has developed an advanced Internet
>database which includes almost all academic and most public libraries. The
>database--called OhioLink--enables users such as myself to place ILL
>directly and get most books at a campus library site within two or three
>days. The relevant feature of OhioLink is that it lets me see how many
>copies of a book there are in institutional libraries in a state with
>almost eleven million people and a disproportionate number of universities
>granting a history Ph.D. degree (and so presumably buying a lot of history
>books). It is chastening to see how few copies there are of so-many of the
>standard titles in the field. Obviously, Amazon represents something
>different, personal book purchases.
>
>
>>From: Ron Roizen <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject: Exploring Amazon.com's sales rankings--regarding a few alcohol
books
>>Sender: Kettil Bruun Society <[log in to unmask]>
>>Approved-by: Ron Roizen <[log in to unmask]>
>>Resent-to: [log in to unmask]
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Reply-to: [log in to unmask]
>>MIME-version: 1.0
>>X-Priority: 3
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>>Original-recipient: rfc822;[log in to unmask]
>>
>>Amazon.com tells you the sales rank of individual books. That's
>>interesting but the figure has has so many biases and problems that it may
>>seem hardly worth assembling the ranks for alcohol books. For one, the
>>hardcover and paperback editions get separate rankings (I've
>>taken the paperback, where available). Some books are old, and the sales
>>are presumably
>>simply a measure of their enduring readerships; some books are so new that
>>their full sales aren't
>>reflected in these early numbers/rankings. To top it off, we don't know
>>of course how
>>many actual sales an Amazon ranking actually corresponds to. My list is
>>far, far, far from
>>complete, too -- and in fact one of the lessons of the exercise is just how
>>very many self-help and recovery books there are out there. Nevertheless,
>>and despite all the pitfalls, here is an informal listing of Amazon sales
>>ranks as of this evening, Oct. 16, 1999. There were some hints at lessons
>>and some vague surprises, I thought. (Ranks/books in parentheses are
>>non-alcohol books thrown in for the sake of comparison.)
>>
>>SALES RANK
>>
>> (3 Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
>> (293 Strunk & White's Elements of Style)
>> (327 Sobel, Longitude)
>> (484 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions)
>> 562 Melody Beattie's Co-dependent No More
>> 1,308 Woititz, Adult Children of Alcoholics
>> (4,639 Foucault, Discipline & Punish)
>> (5,554 Steinbeck, Cannery Row)
>> (6,882 Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents)
>> 13,764 Tate, Alcohol: How to Give It Up and Be Glad You Did
>> 22,024 Twerski, Addictive Thinking : Understanding Self-Deception
>> 33,382 Kurtz, Not God
>> 45,354 Steiner, Games Alcoholics Play
>> 47,741 Subby, Lost in the Shuffle: The Co-Dependent Reality
>> 53,396 Behnke, 90 Days, One Day at a Time (Recovery)
>> 59,320 White's Slaying the Dragon
>> 66,722 Fox, Addiction, Change & Choice : The New View of Alcoholism
>> 69,497 Behr, Prohibition
>> 73,454 Fingarette's Heavy Drinking
>> (74,130 C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite)
>> 84,629 Klein, Cigarettes Are Sublime
>> 87,675 Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book)
>> 88,900 Bufe, AA: Cult or Cure
>> 90,291 The Co-Dependent Parent
>> 95,704 Peele's Diseasing of America
>> 98,230 Marlatt, Addictive Behaviors : Readings on Etiology,
>>Prevention, and Treatment
>> 113,294 Pittman & Anderson, AA: The Way It Began
>> 115,201 Kus, Addiction and Recovery of Gay and Lesbian Persons
>> 123,830 Makela et al., AA As a Mutual-Help Movement
>> 126,260 Cavanaugh, AA to Z : Addictionary to the 12-Step Culture
>> 144,707 Shaw's The Pleasure Police
>> 144,932 Burnham, Bad Habits
>> 146,077 Rorabaugh, The Acoholic Republic
>>(158,744 Rorabaugh, Berkeley At War: The 1960s)
>> 175,830 Wagner's The New Temperance
>> 181,666 Robertson's Getting Better
>> 203,367 Peele, Meaning of Addiction
>> 215,955 O'Reilly, Sobering Tales
>> 250,818 Peele, Love and Addiction
>> 254,019 Valverde, Diseases of the Will
>> 264,638 Gusfield, Contested Meanings
>> 275,280 Lender & Martin, Drinking in America
>> 298,252 Gusfield, Culture of Public Problems
>> 307,346 Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade
>> 386,432 Graham, Vessels of Rage, Engines of Power
>> 422,077 Tucker, Changing Addictive Behavior: Bridging Clinical and PH
>>Strategies
>> 541,666 Edwards et al., Alcohol Policy & the Public Good
>> 569,597 Kyvig, Repealing National Prohibition
>> 614,185 Blocker, American Temperance Movements
>> 619,031 Grant & Litvak, Drinking Patterns and Their Consequences
>> 621,693 Hamm, Shaping the 18th Amendment
>> 677,784 Barrows & Room, Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History
>> 871,391 Peele et al., Resisting 12-Step Coercion
>> 919,374 Skoll, Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk
>> 946,336 Rumbarger, Profits, Power, & Prohibition
>>
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"It is not because things are difficult that we do not try them, it is
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