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Amazon Sales Rank Toolset A Theorem Concerning God

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Amazon Sales Rank Tools

by
Robert G. Brown
Duke University Physics Department
Durham, NC 27708-0305
Copyright Robert G. Brown, 2024


Abstract

An Amazon Sales Rank Tools

Version 0.1.0

Robert G. Brown (rgb)

This is a distribution site for a simple, perl based toolset for tracking Amazon Sales Rank for initially books only -- the current key item indicator is the book's ISBN number -- but eventually this will be broadened to other kinds of content sold via Amazon.

The tool's operation is quite simple. Unpack the tarball into a suitable directory. Make sure that you've installed its dependencies: perl, gd and gd-devel, perl-GD and perl-GDGraph.noarch and elinks. Enter the directory and enter:


amazon_sales_rank -i ISBN

on the command line (inside, say, an xterm). You will need internet access on the system

It should connect to amazon, download and parse your book's page, and extract its sales rank. It will write this out into a table and begin to generate a png image of its graph as a function of sample time. Leave the tool running. Every hour it will reconnect with Amazon and update the sales rank (Amazon updates sales ranks only once an hour so there is no point in sampling any more often).

That's all there is to it! You can view the sales rank png with any graphical viewer, e.g. gthumb, xv, or you can edit the amazon_sales_rank.html file provided to make it point to the path of the png and open this page in your favorite browser. It will then automagically update every hour to show you the entire graph to date. The raw data is collected in the amazon_sales_rank_table.isbn file that appears in the working directory, and this can be imported to a spreadsheet or other tools for further processing. This table is preloaded should you need to stop the tool and restart it -- you don't lose the points you already have if you must shut the tool down for a time.

This is a VERY PRELIMINARY release of the tool. It does the very minimum needed to track ASR for your book and display it as a reasonably formatted graph and save it in a reasonably formatted table. Future releases will be a bit slicker, and will probably automate things a lot more. Right now it is recommended that only linux-savvy people attempt to use it, but come back in a few months and you should find a drop in, plug-and play tool that installs in the actual operating system and that runs automatically to generate reports in much the same way that webalize does now.

Submit bug reports, feature requests etc. to

rgb at phy dot duke dot edu

Also, consider visiting the site of my book: The Book of Lilith. If you honor me and the work put into developing this tool by electing to purchase a copy, I think you'll be glad you did!



Contents

Document TypeSize (K)Last Modified
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.1-0.noarch.rpm 20
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.1-0.src.rpm 47
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.2-0.noarch.rpm 21
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.2-0.src.rpm 129
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.3-0.noarch.rpm 21
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.3-0.src.rpm 257
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.4-0.noarch.rpm 21
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.4-0.src.rpm 636
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.1.0.tgz 45
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.2.0.tgz 127
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.3.0.tgz 255
06/27/24
asr-tools/asr-tools-0.4.0.tgz 635
06/27/24
License Info

The documents linked from this page are all provided under a modified Gnu License appropriate for the document type (OPL for text, GPL for software/source). Please read the relevant license(s) before redistributing the document(s) in any form -- an explicit agreement with the author is required for certain kinds of for-profit redistributions. In all cases the license makes the documents generally available for unlimited personal use and non-profit distributions (for example, linking or posting copies on a website, distributing paper copies to a class for free or at cost).

The author cherishes feedback. If you like or dislike the document(s) and would like to say so, wish to redistribute a version in any medium to be sold at a profit, would like to contribute or comment on material, or just want to say hi, feel free to contact the author

Home Top Flashcard Program DieHarder Program Benchmaster Program Jove (editor) Program The C Book The Tao of Programming Your Brain: a User's Manual (draft) CVS Mini Howto
C project template PVM project template LaTeX project template HOWTO project template Latex Manual (online) random_pvm demo/template The yum HOWTO (draft) Yum Article Contact About
Amazon Sales Rank Toolset A Theorem Concerning God

This page is maintained by Robert G. Brown: rgb@phy.duke.edu