Amazon publishing may have another hit on its hands.
When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde was published in April but only hit the ebook best-sellers list last week, debuting at No. 5. The book had been priced at $2.99 in April but a price decrease in early July to $0.99 and then several days of being given away for free seems to have catapulted the title up the ranks.
The book also benefited from several Amazon promotions, including a banner ad on the Kindle landing page on July 1, an editor’s pick promotion on the Kindle landing page on July 9 and a widget ad on the Kindle landing page on July 20. Clearly, discounting combined with promotion helped make this book a best-seller.
The feat is all the more impressive as the title only seems to be available through the Kindle store, making it harder for it to rank highly in the DBW Ebook Best-Seller list methodology.
Amazon made its first big splash on the best-seller list this year with The Poisoned Pilgram, a Hangman’s Daughter book by Oliver Pötzsch. It hit No. 2 on the list in late March.
Meanwhile, at a very different price point, J.K. Rowling’s The Cuckoo’s Calling is still No. 1. And Penguin Random House has 11 titles on the list, giving it nearly 50% of all best-sellers this week.
Related: Ebook Publisher Power Rankings
Ebook Pricing
Ebook pricing seems to have settled somewhat in the past few weeks between $7.00 and $8.00. This week, the average price of a best-selling ebook is $7.59, up from $7.31 a week ago but down from $7.82 the week before that.
Ebook best-sellers from the week ending 7/28:
– Top Selling Ebooks: $10 and above
– Top Selling Ebooks: $8.00 – $9.99
– Top Selling Ebooks: $3.00 – $7.99
– Top Selling Ebooks: $0.00 – $2.99
Top 25 Ebook Best-Sellers
Week Ending 7/28/13
| Rank* | Title | Author | Publisher | Price** | Change |
| 1 (1) | The Cuckoo’s Calling | Robert Galbraith; J. K. Rowling | Hachette | $ 9.99 | – |
| 2 (2) | Inferno: A Novel (Robert Langdon) | Dan Brown | Penguin Random House | $ 12.99 | – |
| 3 (5) | When I Found You | Catherine Ryan Hyde | Amazon | $ 0.99 | +2 |
| 4 (3) | The English Girl: A Novel (Gabriel Allon) | Daniel Silva | HarperCollins | $ 11.99 | -1 |
| 5 (4) | Second Honeymoon | James Patterson; Howard Roughan | Hachette | $ 9.99 | -1 |
| 6 (9) | Divergent | Veronica Roth | HarperCollins | $ 3.77 | +3 |
| 7 (7) | The Fault in Our Stars | John Green | Penguin Random House | $ 3.99 | – |
| 8 (6) | And the Mountains Echoed: A Novel | Khaled Hosseini | Penguin Random House | $ 10.99 | -2 |
| 9 (8) | Gone Girl: A Novel | Gillian Flynn | Penguin Random House | $ 12.99 | -1 |
| 10 (15) | Insurgent (Divergent) | Veronica Roth | HarperCollins | $ 6.99 | +5 |
| 11 (14) | The Witness | Sandra Brown | Hachette | $ 1.99 | +3 |
| 12 (10) | Entwined with You (Crossfire Trilogy Series #3) | Sylvia Day | Penguin Random House | $ 8.89 | -2 |
| 13 (n/a) | The Silent Wife: A Novel | A. S. A. Harrison | Penguin Random House | $ 8.89 | New |
| 14 (12) | Hidden Order: A Thriller | Brad Thor | Simon & Schuster | $ 11.99 | -2 |
| 15 (17) | Ender’s Game: 1 (The Ender Quintet) | Orson Scott Card | Macmillan | $ 3.88 | +2 |
| 16 (13) | Bombshell: An FBI Thriller #17 | Coulter, Catherine | Penguin Random House | $ 9.99 | -3 |
| 17 (11) | The Billionaire’s Obsession: The Complete Collection Boxed Set (Mine For Tonight, Mine For Now, Mine Forever, Mine Completely) | J. S. Scott | Self-published | $ 2.99 | -6 |
| 18 (20) | Bad Monkey | Carl Hiaasen | Penguin Random House | $ 12.99 | +2 |
| 19 (19) | Fifty Shades Freed: Book Three Of The Fifty Shades Trilogy | E. L. James | Penguin Random House | $ 9.99 | – |
| 20 (18) | The Hit (Will Robie) | David Baldacci | Hachette | $ 7.99 | -2 |
| 21 (n/a) | Lost and Found in Cedar Cove (Short Story) (Kindle Single) | Debbie Macomber | Penguin Random House | $ 0.99 | New |
| 22 (24) | The Light Between Oceans: A Novel | ML Stedman | Simon & Schuster | $ 4.99 | +2 |
| 23 (n/a) | First Sight: A Novel | Danielle Steel | Penguin Random House | $ 13.99 | New |
| 24 (n/a) | Left Drowning | Jessica Park | Amazon | $ 3.99 | New |
| 25 (21) | Frigid | J Lynn | Self-published | $ 1.50 | -4 |
* Previous week’s list rank in parentheses. ** Price reflects minimum price across all retailers throughout the week. Price may vary between retailers and may change throughout the week. Contact Iobyte Solutions for more information on ebook pricing. Methodology available here.