Mark Twain famously wrote that "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". Mr. Twain (probably erroneously) attributed the statement to the 19th Century British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli.
According to Wikipedia, there is no evidence of Disraeli ever writing or saying anything of the sort. And it seems that every verifiable quote or near quote of the adage can be traced to a statement dating from after the statesman's death in April 1881.
So, Disraeli never said it and Mark Twain, who popularised the idea in his autobiography of 1907, was mistaken. Having liberated my thought processes from questions of attribution, I now feel relaxed about amending the phrase.
There are -- in fact -- four kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics ... and Amazon Best Seller Rankings.
In my case, consider the list of Amazon Best Sellers in the category of British & Irish Poetry books (as distinct from eBooks). Earlier today, when I looked, my recently published collection Something That Comes Close: Poems by Dougie Herd was Number One. Simultaneously, this first published collection of poems, was number two on the list of Australia & Oceania poetry books.
I am pleased that I wrote and published a book of poems. I like what I've written. I hope people will buy my book (or eBook) and like what they read and give me a good review on the Amazon or Kobo web sites and give my book a 5 STAR rating. But ...
I published my book at lunch time on Tuesday, 11 March 2025. Since then, it has appeared twice at the top of both the British and Australian Poetry Best Sellers lists. That seems to me to be ... implausible. Yesterday, for example, when I had apparently slipped to number two on the list I was, nevertheless, 'out-selling' William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, T. S. Eliot and John Milton. Four of my all-time favourite male poets.
I don't think so, somehow.
Not least because I know from my Amazon publishing dashboard exactly how many copies of my book I've sold. Let me be coy. I will not be retiring off the proceeds of a sixty-page, first-time publishing poetry book.
So, what do I think is going on?
Me topping these lists tells us, I think, that the online market for published hard copy poetry books is small; almost vanishingly small. Even for famous dead white males in the niche market called poetry.
First week support for this novice's first foray into putting his work 'out there' from people who know me has given a 'newbie' boost to my position against the trendline's harsher realities.
Not that such things matter. It's not what motivated me in December last year to pull together my poems, add some new ones, and think about publishing something. I am glad that I did. And when I fall off the cliff which the algorithm predicts lies in wait for my book, I'll still be glad I published it.
Here's the real-world counterweight to me ranking higher than poets whose books have filled shelves in all the houses I've lived for almost half a Century.
In the Kindle store, the eBook version of the book I am irrationally pleased to have written and published, is ranked 1,584,889th of all Kindle books today. Read that and weep, Dougie!
You can buy a copy of Something That Comes Close in paperback or eBook versions here:
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