Lynn Schooler: After The Blue Bear was first released, I was checking in at Amazon on a regular basis. During the early part of the publicity campaign, it was a lot of fun to watch it creep up into the low double digits. But then it dropped way back down into the thousands with frightening rapidity. After that, I stopped watching. As far as trying to figure out what best drives sales, I'll leave that up to the people in the marketing department at HarperCollins and Ecco.
Maria Rosa Menocal: I do not monitor them closely although I do look and ask from time to time. Amazon's rankings are way too volatile to be significant over the long haul, it seems to me, and it can be exhilarating to see your ranking go from 500 to 50 in a day but of course it will do the exact opposite trajectory perhaps the next day, most likely.
Tony Perrottet: Embarrassingly, I do check Amazon religiously --- I never thought I would, but it's an addiction now. The figures seem to jump whenever I do a radio interview or a newspaper review or story appears --- logically enough, I guess. As far as I can tell, the New York Times review back in June was definitely the best driver followed by NPR radio interviews, which provoke minor spasms of sales. But to be honest, I have no idea what all those numbers mean in terms of actual books sold!
Emma Sweeney: No.
