You may know this already, but don’t assume that Amazon shows you the same page it shows to others. It can be very personalized.
If you sign up for a second Amazon account and sign on there, you’ll see different suggestions in books, etc., than you see on your principal account.
This is not some evil Amazon scheming. The folks in Seattle know what many other vendors know – pay attention to what someone purchases and use that information to present that person with more of the types of things in which she/he is interested in order to increase sales.
I don’t think this will affect the Amazon sales ranks of particular books, but it will affect which bestseller lists from which Amazon picks books and other products to show you.
As far as Amazon Publishing is concerned, my impression is that they do a very good job picking and promoting books many Amazon readers will like. Generally speaking, the APub authors with whom I have spoken are happy with their experience.
APub has far more detailed and sophisticated information about sales activity and related trends plus the demographics and alsoboughts driving them than any traditional publisher will ever have. Bookscan is in the dark ages by comparison.
APub also goes where the Manhattan Mafia won’t: outside the US for non-english international best sellers. Through AmazonCrossing, they are the number one publisher of translated books in the US and it isn’t even close.
In fact, several of the titles featured in First reads this year are translations.
Then Amazon must think I have a thing for shirtless men on covers.
Seems to me this is really sexist. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE
My recommendation is an equal proportion of covers with topless women.
The top 6 on the paid chart will be released in a couple of weeks?
Is Jeff Bezos pulling my beard?
Just proof that even his system can be gamed …
Though they have ‘fixed’ a few things. I have one very poorly selling ebook (one or two a month) and before I could see a single sale jump it from 1.2 million to 30-40 thousand in the ranks, now the ‘jump’ of a new sale is much smaller and fades much faster.
No.
Its a Prime Perk, being able to buy (up to six preselected) books a month early.
Works the same as pre-orders: the ranking gets updated when the book is bought, not when it’s released.
It’s no different than subscribers receiving a half hour advance notice of lightning deals or getting a discount on video games.
(See my comment above for how and why.)
I barely consider these lists anymore because I don’t consider them any more valid than the NYT lists. As usual, the first five paid books are all Amazon imprints. There may be more, but those are all I checked.
So are you saying they aren’t using the same algorithm with their books as they are with everyone else’s? This isn’t an accurate list of what Amazon sells the most of using the same radioactivity algorithm they use to determine popularity in a given hour throughout the rest of the site?
Every month, Amazon offers a free book from a list of their imprints’ books. There are usually one or two from each main genre.
They appear to count the downloads of those free books as “sales,” thus giving those books very high rankings.
They do and they are.
Remember, discounted book sales still count as sales (even $0.99 books and bundles) and the Prime perk books are free to subscribers who choose to download them (not everybody does) but they are *not* free to Amazon Prime.
Apub is paid for those books and so are the authors. The amount paid out is proportional to the number of copies of each of the books downloaded. More, Prime subscribers get to buy at a discount (with their own money) other titles in the monthly offering or *print* versions of the same books.
Obviously, APub authors in those monthly promos don’t discuss numbers but the payout for the first xxxx number of copies is substantial. I’ve not heard of any author feeling cheated.
Amazon has a policy that each separate unit is responsible for their own profit and loss statement. Units that fail to deliver consistent, positive numbers go the way of Diapers.com. That applies to Prime (which runs modestly in the black) as well as the APub imprints.
While this promo puts non-APub authors at a disadvantage, it mostly works to counterbalance the ongoing boycott of all APub titles at other bookstores led by B&N and endorsed by the ABA in 2012.
Note that, contrary to B&N’s claims, Amazon books are available to all comers via Ingram. Both print and digital. If you ask, B&N will “special order” at full lst price and weeks later any APub title you choose.
Meanwhile, the Kindle First read program was launched almost two years after the boycott, in november 2013.
The boycott is almost certainly one of the main reasons why the AmazonBooks b&m stores exist.
It’s not fun being on the outside looking in, but realistically, what was Amazon to do, let B&N bully them out of the business? That’s not the Bezos way, is it? Besides, they owe a certain responsibility to the authors they signed. As things stand, the marketing money and effort that APub would be spending on a wide campaign (absent the boycott) is being spent on Amazon.com and AmazonBooks.
Things might change if B&N folds and the boycott goes with it but I doubt it. ABA looks the other way when other publishers sell direct and when it comes to B&N’s Sterling Publishing arm but since Amazon is eeevile…
You may know this already, but don’t assume that Amazon shows you the same page it shows to others. It can be very personalized.
If you sign up for a second Amazon account and sign on there, you’ll see different suggestions in books, etc., than you see on your principal account.
This is not some evil Amazon scheming. The folks in Seattle know what many other vendors know – pay attention to what someone purchases and use that information to present that person with more of the types of things in which she/he is interested in order to increase sales.
I don’t think this will affect the Amazon sales ranks of particular books, but it will affect which bestseller lists from which Amazon picks books and other products to show you.
As far as Amazon Publishing is concerned, my impression is that they do a very good job picking and promoting books many Amazon readers will like. Generally speaking, the APub authors with whom I have spoken are happy with their experience.
APub has far more detailed and sophisticated information about sales activity and related trends plus the demographics and alsoboughts driving them than any traditional publisher will ever have. Bookscan is in the dark ages by comparison.
APub also goes where the Manhattan Mafia won’t: outside the US for non-english international best sellers. Through AmazonCrossing, they are the number one publisher of translated books in the US and it isn’t even close.
In fact, several of the titles featured in First reads this year are translations.
Then Amazon must think I have a thing for shirtless men on covers.
Seems to me this is really sexist. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE
My recommendation is an equal proportion of covers with topless women.
The top 6 on the paid chart will be released in a couple of weeks?
Is Jeff Bezos pulling my beard?
Just proof that even his system can be gamed …
Though they have ‘fixed’ a few things. I have one very poorly selling ebook (one or two a month) and before I could see a single sale jump it from 1.2 million to 30-40 thousand in the ranks, now the ‘jump’ of a new sale is much smaller and fades much faster.
No.
Its a Prime Perk, being able to buy (up to six preselected) books a month early.
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/firstreads
Works the same as pre-orders: the ranking gets updated when the book is bought, not when it’s released.
It’s no different than subscribers receiving a half hour advance notice of lightning deals or getting a discount on video games.
(See my comment above for how and why.)
I barely consider these lists anymore because I don’t consider them any more valid than the NYT lists. As usual, the first five paid books are all Amazon imprints. There may be more, but those are all I checked.
So are you saying they aren’t using the same algorithm with their books as they are with everyone else’s? This isn’t an accurate list of what Amazon sells the most of using the same radioactivity algorithm they use to determine popularity in a given hour throughout the rest of the site?
Every month, Amazon offers a free book from a list of their imprints’ books. There are usually one or two from each main genre.
They appear to count the downloads of those free books as “sales,” thus giving those books very high rankings.
They do and they are.
Remember, discounted book sales still count as sales (even $0.99 books and bundles) and the Prime perk books are free to subscribers who choose to download them (not everybody does) but they are *not* free to Amazon Prime.
Apub is paid for those books and so are the authors. The amount paid out is proportional to the number of copies of each of the books downloaded. More, Prime subscribers get to buy at a discount (with their own money) other titles in the monthly offering or *print* versions of the same books.
Obviously, APub authors in those monthly promos don’t discuss numbers but the payout for the first xxxx number of copies is substantial. I’ve not heard of any author feeling cheated.
Amazon has a policy that each separate unit is responsible for their own profit and loss statement. Units that fail to deliver consistent, positive numbers go the way of Diapers.com. That applies to Prime (which runs modestly in the black) as well as the APub imprints.
While this promo puts non-APub authors at a disadvantage, it mostly works to counterbalance the ongoing boycott of all APub titles at other bookstores led by B&N and endorsed by the ABA in 2012.
https://thenextweb.com/media/2012/02/09/the-anti-amazon-revolt-continues-as-the-aba-boycotts-its-books/
Note that, contrary to B&N’s claims, Amazon books are available to all comers via Ingram. Both print and digital. If you ask, B&N will “special order” at full lst price and weeks later any APub title you choose.
Meanwhile, the Kindle First read program was launched almost two years after the boycott, in november 2013.
The boycott is almost certainly one of the main reasons why the AmazonBooks b&m stores exist.
It’s not fun being on the outside looking in, but realistically, what was Amazon to do, let B&N bully them out of the business? That’s not the Bezos way, is it? Besides, they owe a certain responsibility to the authors they signed. As things stand, the marketing money and effort that APub would be spending on a wide campaign (absent the boycott) is being spent on Amazon.com and AmazonBooks.
Things might change if B&N folds and the boycott goes with it but I doubt it. ABA looks the other way when other publishers sell direct and when it comes to B&N’s Sterling Publishing arm but since Amazon is eeevile…
Most of them are Amazon imprints.
uh, and… ?
My reaction exactly.