One more way for authors to go nuts . . .


Writers have something new to obsess about: Amazon.com had launched a new metric (at least, I guess it's a metric): Author Rank.

The rating purports to measure authors against others, using overall sales. Or at least I think that's what the explanation amazon has posted means. There's an overall rank, and different breakouts, including Kindle and what will soon be called legacy"book-delivery-systems. And then there are subcategories as well.

It updates every hour. So now writers don't have to fret about missing royalty sheets or unanswered phone calls from their agents; they can freak about how far they're falling behind Sylvia Day and E.L. James, numbers 1 and 2 respectively as I'm writing this.

As if we're not neurotic enough.

For the record: As I'm writing this, I'm number 14 in History. Number 18 in biography and memoir. (Better in Kindle.) Fiction? Number 225 in fiction, thrillers, etc. And my grand, overall author of all time rating:  303. But trending downward, I'm afraid, and no doubt very quickly.