Writer Sanctum
Corporate Sector => What are Amazon doing now? [Public] => Topic started by: TimothyEllis on December 21, 2018, 08:32:13 PM
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It appears also-boughts are back.
Not sure why, but suddenly after months of none at all, they are now back on all my books. (As far as I've checked.)
Thank you Amazon. About bloody time though!
Makes me wonder if Amazon had so many complaints, they were forced to do something about it, or if they indeed found removing them was damaging sales dramatically. We will probably never know.
But, :banana:
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I never stopped seeing them in the first place. They never left, I think this was always based on your region.
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I never stopped seeing them in the first place. They never left, I think this was always based on your region.
Very likely, but for those of us affected, it was very annoying.
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I'd guess it was a combination of complaints and declining sales. We have a lot of anecdotal evidence that some people used also boughts quite vigorously. Such people would be inclined both to complain and to buy less if the also boughts disappeared.
At least we know that Amazon responds to something, whether its own data, complaints, or both. That's at little bit of insurance against something really crazy happening.
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It would have been better for everyone--Amazon, authors, readers--if they'd never allowed sponsored books at all, or at least kept them below and perhaps smaller than the real also-boughts.
Some may see this as heresy for even suggesting it, but frankly, if Amazon wanted to make more money off KDP, they'd do better by (say) lowering the royalty rate to 65%, or charging a "per-month, per-book" fee to be on KDP--if that would keep the neutral recommendation engine in place over the pay-to-be-seen. The heavier the influence of ads, the more of a Wild West it becomes and the less the customer benefits, IMO.
"Money changes everything." --Cyndi Lauper/Tom Gray
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As a reader, I never buy a book because it's sponsored or otherwise advertised on Amazon. I occasionally buy from an also bought. Also never search Amazon for a book to buy, or look at rankings etc. It might be pervasive but it doesn't compare with a real book shop for general browsing.
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Finally!
I've been missing the ability to check on them for AMS keywords - and just to be able to satisfy my curiosity in seeing what else folks buy after/with my stuff.
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I started seeing also-boughts again a couple of days ago. Only the one book, which was released in the middle of the also-bought fiasco and never had the chance to aquire any, still hasn't got any also-boughts.