Success according to Amazon.com

I had a brave (read: random) moment today. I looked up my book on Amazon.com.

Ta Da! It is actually on there. Wow!

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hmm. You can buy it for a penny (plus shipping). New is going for $6.53.

I didn't even know that my first (and so far only) book had made it to Amazon. I thought it was a great day when I found it on eBay. But Amazon! The holy grail of authorship, right? I made it to Amazon. . . .

uh, my sales rank is #1,317,519

oh.

Once again I'm thinking about what it means to me to be a successful author. How do I (will I) define my success. That I'm published at all? That you can buy the book on eBay or Amazon? That I have a newspaper clipping of a positive book review?

When you define success by the numbers, you can guarantee you're going to fail. There will always be better-selling books ahead of you (in my case, 1,317,518 more). There will always be a book that's made more money, got more air time, made it to the sides of more buses, and sold more copies in Europe. (I did once have a bookseller in England who sold my book). Numbers will rob you of your success if you let them lure you in.

My success has to be the letters and comments I get from people whose lives were changed when they read my book. It's the emails from people who thank me for writing it. It's in the gratitude I receive when I learn how it helped educate a teacher or church leader. The success that will last--that will never fluctuate-- is the personal success in changing lives. You can't always see or measure the people who your writing will impact, but they are the legacy you want, they are the definition of success that will fulfill you.

If you make it to Amazon, fabulous! Look for me near the bottom. I'll be hanging out there writing my own customer review. If no one else will give it a 5 star rating, then I'd better take care of it myself.

(if you'd really like to see my Amazon page, click here.)