After my March 26 appearance on “The Sunday Papers with Rick Kogan” (WGN 720 AM Chicago), “To Love Mercy” briefly hit No. 1,042 on the Amazon rankings.

I was overjoyed but my friends were baffled. Most assumed it meant I’d sold 1,042 books.

I wish.

What it means is that, of the more than 4 million books Amazon sells, my novel was selling better than all but 1,041 of them. During about two hours on March 26, at least.

The lower the number on the Amazon-o-Meter, the better. After that Sunday, though, the number began to rise; it hasn’t dipped even close to 1,042 since.

On a very good day — like the day I was on WBEZ-FM, the NPR station in Chicago — the number will drop below 50,000. Yesterday it ranked a respectable 106,080. There have been gloomy days when it descended to 400,000+, Amazon hell.

But now, courtesy of author Katha Pollitt and The New York Times, I have a better idea of what those Amazon numbers mean.

Pollitt wrote an amusing op-ed piece in today’s Times (”Thank You for Hating My Book,” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/opinion/12pollitt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) in which she disclosed that she pushed her new book from 101,333, at 2:25 on June 17, to 6,679 at midnight of that day … by purchasing one book every hour.

She says she was going to do it anyway. “I have free shipping and a lot of relatives.”

Now, let’s see … from 2:25 to midnight is 9 or 10 hours (but I bet Katha bought 10, not 9, books) … so 10 pushes it to 6,679 … maybe 20 pushes it to 5,679 … maybe 30 to 4,679, 40 to 3,679, 50 to 2,679, 60 to 1,679, 70 to … 679? And thus, maybe my 1,042 ranking equates to around 65 books?

Maybe.

And maybe not. Amazon calculates its rankings with an algorithm that, to my understanding, is as secret as the formula for Coke. So authors like me (and Katha) sit up nights hunched over laptops, obsessively gauging their Amazon numbers and wondering what the heck they mean. Instead of writing.

But no more. Now I know. Sorta. Katha, thanks for going where no author has gone before. At a total cost of $256.68.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Politics & Prose on Saturday was a peak experience, an affirmation, a warm bath, a love-fest. Some 65 persons — many friends, some drop-ins too — showed up. P&P sold 36 books. Thanks to scheduler Cleve Corner and bookseller Risa Gross for making me welcome, thanks to Politics & Prose for being a great community institution and supporter of authors and literature, deep thanks to Rob Samuelson for his moving introduction, and a big wet kiss to everyone who was there.