Amazon Book Sales Calculator: Discover how many sales a book makes

How to Use the Amazon Book Sales Calculator

Due to using Publisher Rocket's proprietary information, this Amazon book sales calculator estimates how many copies a book sells based on its Amazon Best Seller Rank (BSR).

All you have to do is find the Best Seller Rank of any book or ebook on Amazon, and place that number in the calculator, and select what format, and then calculate. From there, it will access to ever updating information of Publisher Rocket's database, and let you know how many sales that book made that day.

So, to recap, the steps to using the Book and Ebook Sales calculator is:

1. Enter in the book's BSR
2. Select the book’s format (Kindle ebook, paperback, or hardcover)
3. Choose the Amazon marketplace (US, UK, Canada, etc.)

Once entered, the calculator estimates both daily and monthly sales volume for that specific format and marketplace.

You can also use the Advanced feature, where you can enter in the price of the book, pages, royalty rate, size, etc, and it will tell you how much money that book is making, instead of just the number of units sold.

How to Find a Book’s Best Seller Rank (BSR)

Amazon Best Seller Rank is a relative ranking that compares how well a book is selling against other books in the same format and marketplace.

• #1 means it is currently selling more than any other book in that category and format
• Higher numbers indicate fewer recent sales
• Rankings are updated frequently, often hourly

Because BSR is relative, the number of sales required to reach a certain rank can change from day to day.

To locate a book’s Best Seller Rank, first go to that book's Amazon sales page and select the format of the book you want to analyze.

Once you've done that, then scroll down to the product details section of the book. This is where Amazon will list things like the ASIN of the book, publisher information and other interesting tid bits about the book itself.

It's key to note that you'll want to take the “Best Sellers Rank” number and not the Category numbers that are under it. The category number is just the ranking of the book in that particular category. So, if a book is ranked #920 in a category, then it is the 920th best selling book in that category…not in the Amazon store.

So, be sure to use the Best Seller Rank, since that is what the KDP sales calculator was designed for.

So, to recap the steps:

1. Go to the book’s product page on Amazon
2. Select the format you want to learn about
3. Scroll to the Product Details section
4. Copy the “Best Sellers Rank”

And with that, you now have the ability to find the bestseller rank for any book on Amazon.

How the Most Accurate Amazon Book Sales Calculator Works

I created this calculator over 10 years ago and at that time, it was the first ever KDP sales calculator out there. Before then, author had no idea whether books were making sales. Instead they had to guess whether or not a book was succeeding.

However, at that time, I created a tracker that would monitor the changes in BSR in certain books. Through my connections with major publishing companies, they reported to me their actual daily sales of each of their books. Using the BSR I tracked, and juxtaposing it with real data on their actual sales, I was able to create an algorithm that could give a strong estimate of book sales based on any BSR.

However, doing this, I could only update my calculations every quarter when I got sales reports. Being that BSRs are relative to sales at that time, this meant that there was a lot of chance for inaccuracy.

A couple of years later, after building Publisher Rocket, I now had a full engine that is constantly monitoring Amazon, all its books, and changes in the market. I then set up to have my algorithm in this calculator update immediately upon changes.

It is because of this system that I can say that this is the MOST accurate and up-to-date Book Sales calculator out there.

Since my original calculator creation, other calculators have popped up. And while I strongly feel the first many just pulled data from mine, and recreated a tool, the rest don't have the same level of accuracy or constant updates like this one does thanks to the power of Publisher Rocket.

Over time, I've also been able to add different formats (being the first to ever create an audible sales calculator as well), and all the different marketplaces in Amazon.

And finally, over the past years, I've made major changes to this ebook sales tool adding more features, and capabilities and will continue to do so.

What Affects Amazon Best Seller Rank?

The funny things about BSR is that there are actually three ways the BSR of a book is changed or influenced.

• Book purchases
• Kindle Unlimited downloads (for enrolled titles)
• Limited engagement signals in very low-sales ranges

As my data shows, the purchase of a book is the largest influencer. However, surprisingly (and I believe I was the first ever to report this), a KU download…not a read, also influences this. However, my data shows that a KU download is only 0.7 as influencive as a book sale.

The last one is click engagement. However, this is only for the grouping on books on Amazon that haven't made a sale in a long time. When you start to get to a BSR or 500,000 and greater, these are books that haven't made any sales in DAYS. Because there is no sales data from 500k to 23M, Amazon will move or change the ABSR of a book if someone just clicks on the book or engages it in their store. However, this only affects books with no sales. Once you get to the point in the BSR calculation where says influence, clicks no longer do.

And finally, sales history plays a part. Back in the day, the BSR would update immediately if there was a major sales spike. However, Amazon saw that authors were gaming the system by making sales spike pushses. So, they updated their A9 algorithm to give more credence to historic sales, and consistent sales, over large sales spikes.

It is because of this that books that have consistent sales have BSRs that update faster, than those that don't. And if a giant sales spike occurs, you might not see too much movement of a book's BSR.

How Authors Use Amazon Sales Rank Data Strategically

The Sales Rank data is an amazing opportunity for authors to pull back the curtain of Amazon and actually see what is happening. I have had many authors approach me telling me that they make lots of money wit htheir books, but when I check their book's BSR, I find that that isn't the case. It might have been in the past, but their current sales are flat.

But there are a lot more ways of using Amazon book sales data to your benefit other than just checking the legitimacy of scammers out there.

First, it can be a part of your process to finding the best keywords for your book. It is important that the phrases you choose to put in your 7 KDP keyword boxes are ones that not only people type in, but are keywords that drive shoppers to make purchases. And if books that show up for that keyword aren't making sales (because you checked their BSR and thus sales numbers), then you have a good understanding that that keyword isn't profitable.

It's also beneficial when you are looking at what Categories you want to rank for. In order to be a bestseller, you need to sell more books than any other book in that Category. So, when looking at categories, check to see how many sales you'd need to make in order to beat the number one book. Then choose the categories that are relevant but give you the best chance to get that bestseller tag.

Using this kind of data is so key to helping you get your book discovered by shoppers, that I wrote an excellent book you can download and read for free. In it, it explains what makes Amazon tick and why they choose one book over another to show their shoppers. Using this inforation and the data here, you can help increase your sales.

Frequently Asked Questions About Amazon Book Sales and BSR