This is one of the coolest features I’ve seen yet! Amazon’s Author Central 
platform now includes book sales data as reported by Book Scan. While this data doesn’t capture ALL book sales (most information is collected from book store sales and Amazon sales), it does provide a really interesting window for an author to FINALLY have some insight into sales trends.
For example, you can see trends by geography. As an author of five books myself, I thought it was fascinating to learn that my books have been selling well in Atlanta, Chicago and New York (note that I’m from Sacramento).
This information would also come in handy from a marketing perspective to track the results of your marketing efforts. For example, if you had a radio interview in Chicago, you would be able to see if there was a spike in book sales as a result.
And in case you’re not already participating in the Author Central program, you should be! It’s free and Amazon will allow you to update your author bio, import your blog’s RSS feed, view the reviews written for your books and more.
This is a cool feature, though it seems crazy that these sales figures at Amazon do not include Kindle sales. Gotta go use a non-amazon tool to track that. (BTW, I love your “comments rule” section)
As many times as I have been in my Author Central account I never noticed this feature before. Shame on me. I will be looking into it as soon as I get done typing this.
Using a map as a way to trace sales is interesting. Since I write non-fiction it will probably be helpful to better identify my target audience so I can shape future content to serve those readers – always easier to sell a second and third book to the same reader than it is to sell the first book to a reader who has never heard of you.
So true, Kevin! Sales of the second book are easier than the first–provided the first was a hit! ; )
This much-needed tool is welcome, since often the author has been the LAST to know how his book is selling. It would be nice if it also included Kindle sales, since Amazon has access to those figures. Perhaps there’s an issue with geography, since one can’t easily find out where the e-mail address originates.