Talk About Bounce!

Bounce, n., a positive collateral effect arising from attention elsewhere, as in a sudden rise in traffic on a website following an article about it, or a sudden rise in sales of a product resulting from a positive review.

Talk about bounce—our friend Kirk Tuck, first introduced to denizens of the web back in 2001 when he wrote a long and thoughtful review of the Leica M6 on Photo.net, has written a book, published by the longtime photo how-to specialist Amherst Media, called Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography. (I have the book sitting here waiting patiently in my review queue.) Well, the other day, it was positively reviewed on Strobist.com by another friend, David Hobby, and directly afterward, Kirk reports, it shot up to #22 on Amazon's best-seller list.

Note: that's not #22 on Amazon's photography bestseller list. That's the main list, as in, all the books Amazon sells.

Now that's impressive.

Granted, the bounce—well, that degree of bounce—didn't last long. When I looked this morning, Minimalist Lighting was #200 and falling, although that's still pretty impressive for a photography title.

You may or may not be aware that Amazon's real-time bestseller rankings are almost a focus of obsession with many authors. I know writers who check the status of their book sales like some investors keep tabs on the stock market. And there are novelists who would kill for #200 for any length of time, much less #22. For instance, #22 this morning is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the sophomore effort and first novel by Dominican-American author Junot Diaz that just won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

In any event, I think we can dub David the Oprah Winfrey of photography books.

______________________

Mike

Comments

[David A. Goldfarb]

Even #200 is certainly impressive. I just checked a book for which I wrote the introduction that came out at the end of March, and at the moment it's #2 in Polish Fiction, which amounts to #87,360 on the main list. Well, I don't get any royalties for an introduction anyway...

[Miserere]

I'm off to check how much the book bounces now that you've introduced it to us. I mean, just the fact that it's worthy of lying on your desk is quite the accolade, isn't it? :-)

Funnily enough, I've been wanting a book like this for a while, but just never bothered to research for it. I like flash photography when you can't tell a flash was used (a bit like how I like photography most when I cannot tell what camera/lens was used), and this title seems to fit that bill. And hey, if it's good enough for The Strobist, it should be more than good enough for little me.

I do look forward to your review, Mike.

[Mike]

I heard a talk by someone who explained that he had arranged for his friends to purchase around 500 copies of his book at the appropriate time of the dawn to ensure that he could print off the listing of his book as bestseller!!

Mike

[kirk tuck]

Dear Mike,
Thanks for the bounce mention. Interestingly enough the book has pretty much sold out. The publisher is printing the second edition and the actual publication date for the first book isn't officially until tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy it. And I look forward to your review. Thanks to everyone!!!!!

Kirk