How much is a review on Slashdot worth?

Our book, The Design of Sites, was recently reviewed on Slashdot. I actually disagree with the reviewer on several points, in particular that patterns need to be "an elusive insight or 'trick of the trade'", but the main point I want to write about today is how much a review is worth.

About once a day, I check how our book is doing on Amazon.com. Ever since our second edition came out in December 2006, it's been hovering around 2500-4000 in terms of overall sales rank. Checking this morning, our book is at #388. Assuming that Amazon's sales follow a Zipf curve (or is it power law or Pareto? I can never remember), this means a heavy increase in sales.

The problem, though, is that Amazon doesn't reveal what their rankings actually mean, and I only see how many books we sell in 6-month periods, so it's hard to say more with any precision.



Comments

jas0nh0ng said…
Update, we're up to #261 on Amazon
1:29 PM
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