At 4:35 p.m. Eastern on December 2, 2011, HUNTER passed thriller master Michael Connelly’s new release, The Drop, to replace it in the # 5 spot on the Kindle Bestseller List. Repeat: HUNTER is now the fifth best-selling item in the Kindle Store — fiction, nonfiction, games, the works.
But more intensely meaningful for me is that in passing Connelly’s latest blockbuster, HUNTER became the #1 Kindle Bestseller in “Mystery & Thrillers.” That’s been my favorite genre since childhood. To have the bestselling mystery/thriller ebook in America is simply mind-boggling to me.
Folks, I’m as happy as I’ve ever been in my entire writing career. This is a milestone I’ll always treasure.
UPDATE, 12/3/11, 1:25 p.m. — One other realization. At #5, I’m now the #1 male author on Kindle. Only two ladies, Suzanne Collins (with her “Hunger Games” fantasy trilogy) and romance author Catherine Bybee are selling faster than I am right now. Now, that’s another milestone that thrills me.
UPDATE, 12/3/11, 9 p.m. — HUNTER has just surpassed Suzanne Collins’s Mockingjay, the latest in her hugely popular “Hunger Games” trilogy, to become the # 4 bestselling title on Kindle.
UPDATE, 12/5/11, 11 a.m. — Having hit the #4 Kindle bestseller slot, and #1 in the “Mysteries & Thrillers” category, HUNTER appears to have topped out in sales ranking, at least for the moment. The special Kindle promotion ended Saturday night. I’m gratified, though, that even without that push, HUNTER has remained on the bestseller list, sliding a bit to #8 as of Monday morning 12/5, but still selling strongly enough to be ahead of the latest books by Stephen King, James Patterson, and Janet Evanovich.
Nearly 27,000 copies have been sold since the Kindle promotion began. And — most encouraging — it has sold about 2,500 more copies since the promotion ended just over a day ago, at the higher $3.99 price. Its prominence on the bestseller list, and also on a host of genre and subgenre bestseller lists, guarantees that strong sales will continue for some time.
UPDATE, 12/8/11, 12:01 a.m. — The first week of December is now done, and here are the mind-boggling results:
Total sales (ebooks and print), first week of December alone, 12/1 through 12/7/11 (midnight till midnight, Eastern time):
19,279.
Total sales from beginning of the Amazon promotion on 11/27 to the end of the month 11/30 (midnight Eastern):
12,178.
Total sales since the promotional period began, to the present (11/27 – 12/7):
31,457.
Total sales, November 1 – December 7:
32,141.
Un-believable!
Photo (c) by Debbie Scott
