My List Obsession

Before I published with Amazon, lists really meant very little in my life - unless it was a list of tasks to get finished (I like to make those at work) or a shopping list ( I tend to go to the shop with a mental list and then come home without the items I went to buy in the first place.) Now, however, I find I am consumed by lists.  I know I shouldn't be, I know that my writing, and people's enjoyment of it, is not validated by a position on a list but rather by their lovely interactions with me. Still, I find myself wanting to be higher on the list every day.

It all began with Perhaps... Perhaps.  About this time last year, some crazy people bought it on Amazon and then it began to get recommended. Within days of that, it started to shoot up the Bestseller list.  I don't know how that happened but I do know that I was on holiday in Italy at the time and received an extremely large data bill because I took to checking my place on the list almost by the hour. The book reached the lofty heights of #245 but not content with this, I began checking the stats of a fellow author who had a book out at the same time.  Selfishly, I prayed that she didn't get higher than I had which is rather tragic really as her book was very good (I'd read it.)

It didn't stop there either.  The knock on effect happened with my other stories and I found that I was checking them too, not to mention my blog stats, my Facebook Page insights and my Twitter followers.  I even got so crazy as to make a resolution to reach 1000 followers by a certain date.  I nearly got there.  I also nearly got divorced. Big G threatened to leave me to my followers because I talked to them too much and not to him.  You get the picture. 

With the house building and moving stress, things seemed to settle down and then one day a couple of months ago Big G said to me "You haven't told me what place you are on the list for a few days. Have the books stopped selling?"

Bad move.

Innocently, I checked my Amazon.co.uk page only to find that The Taming of the Bastard had taken off and I'd missed the whole thing! (It reached #215 at its peak - I'm very proud of that). The obsession has begun all over again! I found I was on a few lists over a Goodreads.  One part of me is trying not to obsess over them - no one will ever read them, I say - and the other part is telling me to get everyone to vote for me as a validation that I'm not the loser kid anymore (Hang on, I don't think I was, was I?) So maybe I'm just wanting to get to the top of those lists because it means more exposure? Or maybe I just want to win and beat that freakin' Twilight book? One thing is for sure... if I applied as much energy to looking after myself as I do to looking at the damn lists I wouldn't be on yet another diet!

Who knows :)

If you want to be a part of my list obsession you're more than welcome to add yourself! 

xoxo