WTF is up with US ranks?

[TimothyEllis]

It's 21 hours since my release, and the rank in the US store hasn't moved.

116k rank still from the pre-orders.

So no top 100 listings yet.

KU is 50% down.

Sales are well down.

WTF is Amazon doing?

Last release the ranks kicked in at 14 hours. Now it's 21 and still no rank change?

That's INSANE!

I think I'm abandoning pre-orders after this next one. There's no longer any advantage to doing them.

The last no pre-order release I saw a few days ago didn't have that sort of lag on rank.

Why is pre-orders being penalized like this?

Edit: Half hour later: First rank change. Now 76k, and the 3 categories are now all 3 digits. 

[TimothyEllis]

Now at 24 hours, and no change in the 76k rank.

I put in a protest with KDP Help and got told nothing was wrong.

The Help screen now says this:

Rankings are updated hourly but may take 24–48 hours to appear.

I don't know when that changed, and it certainly isn't the case on UK and AUS stores, but now in the US store they are apparently enforcing that.

My guess at this stage is, if a book has an existing rank and it spikes for any reason, the rank change is put off for a minimum of a day now. And they are not excluding pre-orders going live.

Only books just released are getting ranks in real time now.

Everything else is screwed.

[TimothyEllis]

Just after 24 hours from the email notification, it changed to 21k.

The whole thing reeks of sabotage day one launch plans.

Although it's probably aimed at sabotaging Bookbub feature days.

Not happy Jan!
(moldy oldy, but so perfect for the moment.)

[TimothyEllis]

32 hours after release, and the book is down to 10k now.

It's still nowhere near what the debut rank should have been 18 hours ago.

This is just bizarre!

Edit: Nathan Lowell just told me his last release took 36 hours to get down to it's best rank.

So it appears to be all releases, not just pre-orders.

[Bill Hiatt]

I suspect the problem may be that Amazon has been skimping on its infrastructure. (Odd, considering its ownership of AWS.) Its network has become inefficient at making rank updates in the face of an ever growing pile of books.

Maybe Amazon is trying to undermine BookBub. That part wouldn't surprise me. But in the current situation, Amazon is also losing money itself. After all, the more we sell, the more it makes. Impeding visibility reduces its profit as well as ours. That seems like a really high price to pay to sabotage BookBub.

Of course, it's also a high price to pay to save a little money on network updates, but Amazon has a history of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

Consider how slow AMS updates can be. We know Amazon wants us to buy AMS ads. Getting more immediate feedback would encourage people to spend more because they could make more intelligent decisions faster, so a little bigger ad spend wouldn't seem as risky.

How big an impact waiting 24-48 hours might have depends a little on how Amazon handles those updates. My gripe in the past when things seemed slow was that sometimes, the peak of one of my books never appeared. In other words, Amazon appeared to skip over the point that would have given me maximum visibility and updated to current time, at which point the book was already declining again. But if every shift was covered by waiting 24 hours to appear, that would defer the visibility benefit, but still get it. Or am I misunderstanding the situation.

[TimothyEllis]

But if every shift was covered by waiting 24 hours to appear, that would defer the visibility benefit, but still get it. Or am I misunderstanding the situation.

I'm waiting to see if that actually happens.

My release should see the book get as low as the 2k range.

If it does, we know the whole thing has simply been shifted.

But if not, then we know it's worse than that.

[Bill Hiatt]

Delay would certainly be better than nothing. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[TimothyEllis]

Delay would certainly be better than nothing. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

My worry is the best rank will happen over 3 hours from now, after I go to bed, so i won't see it. All I'll see in the morning is already falling ranks.

I might have to go to bed late. 3.25 hours from now will be 36 hours from the release email arriving. If the best rank hasn't turned up by then, I'll most likely miss it. I hate missing best ranks on my book launches.

[TimothyEllis]

Nathan Lowell just confirmed his last book had a 1250 rank inside 24 hours.

My guess is, a cold launched book gets a rank still at 14 hours.

Any book with an existing rank, gets pushed out to 32 hours, and dragged screaming to 48.

*sigh*

[alhawke]

You guys know this happened to me two months ago with my Bookbub. Cost me sales, but I still sold. Ranking took 2-3 days which made my book not pass the top 1000 after selling 800 copies in the US Amazon store.

Oh, and it's not just BookBub. You guys probably know I'm quite aggressive with promos everywhere. Same thing happens with WrittenWord Media promos too. And, of course, new releases. What are they doing? Holding their steady selling titles? Maybe? But now lowering new releases? 
Oddest thing is I've found books that sell one or two copies that have languished for a while will suddenly rank immediately. So there's some punishment for large sale blitzs for sure.

So , yeah, makes me happy to be selling wide. Amazon will lose authors in time, I'd think. The negatives seem to keep mounting over the years. I think ranking should be measured as ranking. If a book sells, it should go up in the ranking. But that's just me. Amazon is a strong force now but I find B&N closely back on their tail for Indie writers (btw, to play devil's advocate for Zon, I found an old post ten years ago about Hugh Howey complaining over B&N ranking. So  ).

Despite all this, I hope Timothy that your new book still recovers and sells well.

[TimothyEllis]

Despite all this, I hope Timothy that your new book still recovers and sells well.

Thanks.

I'm hoping for average.

Nathan Lowell's release is hanging in there at 250 in the US store at the end of the first week. Took 3 days to get there, but it's holding. So it can still be done.

He's got three of them in top 20 Space Opera at the moment. But that's the power of a huge fan base and a steady release strategy. He doesn't pre-order, and doesn't email out until after day 1.

I think we all need to totally rethink launch strategies now.

[TimothyEllis]

Despite all this, I hope Timothy that your new book still recovers and sells well.

I just checked again.

My normal this year has been around 2000 for each launch.

The latest rank just started going backwards in the 10k range.

So no, not going to do well unless there's a pickup tomorrow.

This is what I feared. By the time the rank actually kicks in, you've lost all momentum, never got what the book deserved, and you start falling into the abyss faster.

Now I'm worried. My income this year has been sliding, and it feels like the breaks were just removed at the top of the abyss. Gut reaction. Better go to bed and sleep it off.

[alhawke]

Add the fact that August is ugly for sales, at least for me. That's something to consider for your launch.

I've had to ratchet up ad bids x3 this week and I'm getting very little bites so far this month. It's beyond quiet and my largest market is the US. Not to mention, I've had languishing sales internationally for the past few months on Amazon.

Amazon's new changes aren't helping either.

[TimothyEllis]

The improvement did continue, now in the 5k range.

I'm not expecting any better though.

The AUS rank improved a bit as well, after first falling.

The day 2 trend from last release is continuing though. Instead of a strong day 2, it's well down. Reads are down, and sales not there at all.

I guess this is the new reality. No day 1 boost, and no tail.

[TimothyEllis]

Now 54 hours from release, and still improving slightly at 3.5k, and now with #16 in Space Opera SF.

That's around the worst level of my expectations. But taking 50 hours longer to get there than it used to take? 

[Bill Hiatt]

That just about fits the 24-48 hour window stated by KDP for long long updates might be delayed. So the opening day boost might be expected around day 3.

You know what else is slow? Ad updates, even though there's no particular warning message at the moment. When I was checking ad performance this morning, I noticed that the number of sales attributed to ads in July has suddenly come close to tripling (now accounting for 87% of the sales in July). That's still less than half of what I got the previous month (or the previous July, for that matter). But it shifted a few days after the end of the month, and I didn't get that many sales at the very end, so it really reflects the addition of data from much earlier in the month.

Amazon doesn't gain by making its own ad system look less reliable. So that, at least, we can attribute to something else, like being too stingy with server capacity or something. That could mean the lagging ranks is due, not necessarily to conscious policy, but to a failure to expand the infrastructure to reflect increasing demand.

That's not great, either, but it may suggest that the problem could eventually be solved.

[TimothyEllis]

So that, at least, we can attribute to something else, like being too stingy with server capacity or something. That could mean the lagging ranks is due, not necessarily to conscious policy, but to a failure to expand the infrastructure to reflect increasing demand.

That's not great, either, but it may suggest that the problem could eventually be solved.

Except that the Help screen now says 24-48 hours.

I interpret that as the problem is known, and they made it a feature instead of a bug. Why fix it when you can just tell everyone the slow down is normal?

[Bill Hiatt]

On the other hand, they also say book updates can take up to 72 hours, but they usually don't, at least in my experience.

If, as I suspect, the pattern you're talking about reduces sales, they may still take a look at it, message or not.

[TimothyEllis]

On the other hand, they also say book updates can take up to 72 hours, but they usually don't, at least in my experience.

If, as I suspect, the pattern you're talking about reduces sales, they may still take a look at it, message or not.

I hope so.

Part of having this in public is so Amazon's bots and moles can see it. If that triggers a review, then good.

[Bill Hiatt]

Yes, that would be good.

Amazon's true interest doesn't lie with throttling indie sales. If anything, the opposite is true. I can see a possible motivation to push us toward buying more ads, but if our sales decline to a fraction of what they were, we won't have as much revenue to do that, so it's a delicate balance. People like me, who aren't dependent on writing income and buy some ads now, could just as easily bail out completely if the environment becomes too hostile to organic growth. (That's one reason I stopped buying FB ads.) People who do make a living may be more tempted to go wide, taking themselves out of KU in the process. And indies are the backbone of KU.

Enlightened self-interest seems to require Amazon not to kill off organic growth. In the long run, they'll lose more than they make.

[alhawke]

With the old way a book ranked after 6-8 hrs. It added momentum over time and improved ranking and sales. As we see, the new way doesn't have the algos start up until 2-3 days after a release. This levels off ranking and sales. On the other hand, it protects books that are already published. Regardless, Amazon is losing promo sales. This isn't a bug. They know it. It's planned, for better or worse, imo, I suspect to protect older books and their ad system (ads which could be bringing in more revenue than Indie book sales). All other retailers are continuing to simply rank your book after it sells, which I feel is honest and personally preferred. But, as always, Amazon can do whatever they want to your book. That's the agreement you make with them selling your stuff (which is why some authors are selling on their own or elsewhere).

I think we all need to totally rethink launch strategies now.

One option would be for promo companies, and your launch, to scatter book pitches over three days. Bookbub, for instance, could send 1/3 of their emails out one day, 1/3 the next, and 1/3 on the last. The trouble would be random selection but computers are brainy enough for it. Hello Books had this idea and promote your book over the weekend. As far as new releases, it'd probably be best to mail out 1/3,1/3,1/3 if you have the energy for it. I'd be curious to see if any of you try something like this. Whatever the case, the days of sales blitzs with super high ranking on Amazon might be over.

[TimothyEllis]

Oddly, the rank is still improving, now 3.2k.

Not by a lot, but I was expecting it to be falling off by now.

Whatever they changed, it wasn't just pushing the reporting interval. It seems like the whole algorithm got tweaked.

It almost looks like someone decided to 'flatten the curve', remove all sales spikes completely, and even them out over a week. Just guessing though.

[Bill Hiatt]

As I recall, Amazon starting preferring steady sales to spikes some time ago. This could just be an extension of that same pattern.

It's been some time since I tried to do a big blitz right on release day. Instead, I spread promos out over a month or so. The next I do that, which may be October, I'll let you know if it still works. At the time I started doing that, it worked better than the one-day blitz.

There's no question Amazon makes money on ads. But if the figure I've seen recently is true (1/3 of all book sales on Amazon are indie), indie sales are a noticeable chunk of their income as well. I recall that before vanishing behind a paywall, Data Guy said the majority of Amazon's sales in science fiction, fantasy, and romance were indie. killing sales in an effort to push more advertising also requires a delicate balance, as I noted before. Too much push against organic growth may cause authors to bail out and cultivate other sales venues, neither of which helps Amazon.

[TimothyEllis]

New release today from a pre-order, and the first rank change in the US store was somewhere around 8-9 hours.

Came down from 171k to 23k.

So whatever the problem was last time seems to have been addressed to some extent.

But I'm put right off pre-orders now. Next 2 books at least will be released cold.

[Bill Hiatt]

I'm glad there's some sign of improvement. We can always use a little good news.

[alhawke]

New release today from a pre-order, and the first rank change in the US store was somewhere around 8-9 hours.

Glad to see it was fixed for you!

But why was it broken? If it's back to the way it was it must have been a glitch.

The damage is done for my June Bookbub promo and for your prior release. It's why I can't trust one retailer, no matter how powerful that retailer is. Amazon seems to be bent on changing things every month, unfortunately usually to our detriment.

[Bill Hiatt]

But probably not even on purpose. I don't know which is worse--the idea that Amazon is trying to screw us, or the idea that it keeps doing it accidentally.

In the long run, Amazon would profit more by making it possible for indies to flourish. A continuously changing operation that can't be relied upon isn't the way to do that. As A.L. Hawke points out, it will drive people wide--if it doesn't drive them out of publishing completely.

Of course, it's the same thing with Facebook. The other day, I was looking at long-term trends and how much engagement my posts used to have vs. what the same kind of material has now. In that case, the object is unquestionably to force more ad purchases. I used to buy advertising from FB, but I just won't throw money into a system that is essentially picking my pocket (and doesn't do much for sales, anyway). Big businesses can handle the new environment, but FB used to be a great place for small business and isn't anymore. In the long run, that change also will be counterproductive. The little guy will find other promotional strategies rather than pouring more and more money into FB.

[TimothyEllis]

But probably not even on purpose. I don't know which is worse--the idea that Amazon is trying to screw us, or the idea that it keeps doing it accidentally.

In the long run, Amazon would profit more by making it possible for indies to flourish. A continuously changing operation that can't be relied upon isn't the way to do that. As A.L. Hawke points out, it will drive people wide--if it doesn't drive them out of publishing completely.

I'm more convinced than ever that all Amazon cares about now is Ad revenue. They're deliberately sabotaging sales in order to force everyone to use their ad system. Except as far as I'm concerned, AMS is just gambling.

What will drive authors wide is the low KU payout.

[Bill Hiatt]

But the only way for Amazon to make ad revenue from indies is not to wipe them all out or drive them all away. The current trend is doing both.

Sure, Amazon could snare some suckers who just started publishing, but these people won't last in the current climate. And many of them won't have big ad budgets, anyway.

If you're right, Amazon's business model makes no sense in that respect.

[TimothyEllis]

If you're right, Amazon's business model makes no sense in that respect.

It does if Amazon, or just KDP, is being run by advertising people, and not sales management.

Just the removal of the also-bought slider was a huge blow to my income. And you only do that if advertising which replaced it is more important than sales.

[Bill Hiatt]

It's hard to know without exact figures. We don't know how much Amazon makes on indie book sales or an indie book advertising. But there is a connection between the two that Amazon will have to acknowledge sooner or later.

If Amazon ads moved book sales in a profitable way, we wouldn't care as much about other options. It's precisely because it's hard to make those ads profitable that we want other ways to boost our sales. But that would suggest we'd be selling more if Amazon hadn't strangled other paths to visibility. So Amazon may be gaining money in one way but losing money in another. Without exact figures, we can't know whether Amazon is making a net gain.

But a lot of people must have been spending quite a bit on Amazon ads even before Amazon tried to sabotage alternatives. So the real question is whether Amazon is getting enough of an increase in ad revenue to compensate for loss of royalties.

We don't know that answer, but here is what Amazon's overall revenue breakdown looked like in 2022 (in billions, from Four-Week MBA):
Online Sales: 220
Third-Party Resellers: 117.71
AWS: 80
Advertising: 37.74
Subscriptions: 35.22
Physical Stores: 18.96
Other: 4.25
https://fourweekmba.com/amazon-revenue-breakdown/

Obviously, onlines and third-party resellers include a lot more than just indie books or even books in general, and advertising includes far more than just KDP advertising, but retails sales still dwarf advertising. So it might not be illogical to conclude that Amazon makes more on book sales than on book ads. Cutting sales to increase ad revenues might not therefore be the most brilliant strategy imaginable.

That's not to say that Amazon might not be doing exactly that, but it probably isn't the smartest business decision.

Oh, here's a little more specific data from https://wordsrated.com/amazon-publishing-statistics/ I'm not sure how accurate the figures are because the source says only ebooks with ISBNs are included in some of the stats.

According to this article, books sales are 10% of Amazon's profit (at about 28 billion, which doesn't match the figures above). Amazon sells 300 million print books per year and 487 million ebooks per year. Indies make up about a third of the ebook sales. A comparable figure isn't give for print. When KDP opened, Amazon had only a little over 5% of self-published books (which is odd, but I guess that counts vanity press titles). Now it has 91.5% of indie books. It also has big chunks of the total book sales in the US and UK and is the largest single bookseller in the world.

Amazon likes these figures and worked hard to get into a dominant position. Doubtless, it would like to get more ad revenue as well. But is it really willing to become less dominant in sales to do that? Does it really want more indie authors to get discouraged and give up, or to get discouraged with Amazon and go wide? Losing indie authors costs both sale revenue and ad revenue. Having more authors go wide could spell the end of KU.

So yeah, Amazon makes money on ads. But it doesn't seem as if it makes enough money on book ads alone to compensate for potential revenue loss in book sales caused by trying to force people to buy more ads.

 


 

[TimothyEllis]

Now I'm wondering what else Amazon changed.

A fan just told me my books no longer pop up asking for a rating when you finish them.

And they no longer recommend the next book in the series.

This has been the case for the last 3 books apparently.

[R. C.]

I can add this, not sure it is related or relevant, but it is interesting.

Prior to a couple of weeks ago, I almost never saw Kindle/Amazon Book ads in my social feeds. I didn't change preferences, or anything I am aware of that would alter the feed content.

Now, every session of interaction with a social (Twitter, Threads, Insta.) does not pass without several Kindle/Amazon Book/Audible ads.

Something changed and my guess it is 'Zon trying to show they are marketing heavily to mitigate the pending legal issues.

R.C.

[Bill Hiatt]

Now I'm wondering what else Amazon changed.

A fan just told me my books no longer pop up asking for a rating when you finish them.

And they no longer recommend the next book in the series.

This has been the case for the last 3 books apparently.

Given how Amazon loves to have large number of ratings, the first part seems as if it must be a glitch. Remember, Amazon loved ratings so much that it decided to include them on the product page. So it seems unlikely that it wants to curtail those numbers. There seems to be something about thinking the higher numbers are a subliminal way of reminding customers of just how many people are shopping and buying on Amazon.

[TimothyEllis]

Okay, this is weird.

I've a short currently releasing. Out in the AUS and UK stores, but not yet in the US.

BUT, the US store is currently showing the book as #2 in a category, even though it hasn't released yet.

The other stores have not seen any real movement of ranks yet, but the US store has.

The difference is the US ranks changed to one hour categories, but the other 2 have not.

But why would they change when the book isn't out yet?

Don't get me wrong, I'll take the #2 and the #1NR for a win, but it is a bit confusing.

[Bill Hiatt]

I take it you didn't do a preorder, or you wouldn't be asking the question.

That provides some support for the notion that recent ranking issues have been glitches rather than deliberate policy. If they were deliberate, you'd expect them to all fit a pattern, which this doesn't.

I just had a new release a couple of days ago, bought a copy, and the ranking appeared within 24 hours. It was not quite as good as such rankings have been in the past, but that could easily be explained by the increasing number of books.

[TimothyEllis]

I take it you didn't do a preorder, or you wouldn't be asking the question.

It was a pre-order, and a longish one, of about 2 months.

So it had rank, but not the categories which showed up today. The standard categories were swapped out for the short read ones.

And the other stores haven't changed to short read categories at all.

[Bill Hiatt]

Oh, I see. I misunderstood. So the issue is the category change, not the ranking change.

Amazon moves in mysterious ways.

[TimothyEllis]

Oh, I see. I misunderstood. So the issue is the category change, not the ranking change.

More both changing before the book even went live.

[alhawke]

But why would they change when the book isn't out yet?

Did you just add the manuscript on preorder? If you did, Amazon finally counted the pages and changed to the short story category, which rose your rank. If it has nothing to do with when you submitted the manuscript, it could just be due to when Amazon finally counted the length.

No matter what categories we select, Amazon determines short story categories after length. But I thought it did this after publication, not during preorder.

[TimothyEllis]

No matter what categories we select, Amazon determines short story categories after length. But I thought it did this after publication, not during preorder.

I did too. But apparently that has changed now.

[Bill Hiatt]

It's probably better for it to do that as soon as possible. It's particularly nice if it moves you to a category where you rank higher.

[LilyBLily]

I just redid the categories for my recently released novella. I did not see any way to enter it into a short read category. Where did you find it?

I looked again for another book. There's no way to even call it a paranormal romance. What the heck is up with Amazon's categories?

[TimothyEllis]

I just redid the categories for my recently released novella. I did not see any way to enter it into a short read category. Where did you find it?

You don't. They get assigned when the page count shows the book fits into them. Used to be after release, but now seems to be when the manuscript is uploaded.

I looked again for another book. There's no way to even call it a paranormal romance. What the heck is up with Amazon's categories?

I think someone tried to make them simpler.

And as usual, totally messed it all up.

[Bill Hiatt]

Yeah, I noticed when I was setting up my new release that there is no longer a way to select urban as a subcategory of fantasy. (though epic is still there).

It would have been better for someone to actually ask authors what categories were needed within each genre than just making wild guesses.

[TimothyEllis]

there is no longer a way to select urban as a subcategory of fantasy.

I just found it.

If you click on Fantasy after selecting it, a second box of subcategories appears. Urban and paranormal is there.

Seems like if there were too many for the box, they put the extras in a separate drop down. Like Military is now in the Sci-Fi drop down.

[Bill Hiatt]

Oh! I'll have to look again. I saw the second dropdown, but I didn't see urban or paranormal.

Or maybe they were added after I created the book. I thought I had looked very carefully at all of the possibilities offered.

[PaulineMRoss]

Resurrecting this thread to say: a book that I set free on Wednesday (a full 48 hours ago) is still not registering with a free rank. It had a Bookbub yesterday and the paid rank is doing quite well, thanks to people downloading through KU rather than the free version, but it's still very, very peculiar. Amazon is so broken.

[TimothyEllis]

Resurrecting this thread to say: a book that I set free on Wednesday (a full 48 hours ago) is still not registering with a free rank. It had a Bookbub yesterday and the paid rank is doing quite well, thanks to people downloading through KU rather than the free version, but it's still very, very peculiar. Amazon is so broken.

That's a contradiction.

The book is either a paid rank or a free rank. Never both.

The only thing I can think of is the KU reads is exceeding the free downloads in a way that kept the book being in paid the whole time.

Care to post the free downloads and pages read numbers?

I've not heard of this happening before. Usually with a free download, the book goes to the free ranks, and KU doesn't matter or change that.

So either something has changed on the rank end, or the KU is doing much better than the free is.

[PaulineMRoss]

Resurrecting this thread to say: a book that I set free on Wednesday (a full 48 hours ago) is still not registering with a free rank. It had a Bookbub yesterday and the paid rank is doing quite well, thanks to people downloading through KU rather than the free version, but it's still very, very peculiar. Amazon is so broken.

That's a contradiction.

The book is either a paid rank or a free rank. Never both.

The only thing I can think of is the KU reads is exceeding the free downloads in a way that kept the book being in paid the whole time.

Care to post the free downloads and pages read numbers?

I've not heard of this happening before. Usually with a free download, the book goes to the free ranks, and KU doesn't matter or change that.

So either something has changed on the rank end, or the KU is doing much better than the free is.

It's showing as a paid rank NOT a free rank, despite some 9K free downloads. It's had a few thousand page reads more than usual, too. Normally when a book goes free, it pops up in the free rankings within a few hours, but this is two days now. It started at 88K before it was free, and now it's sitting at a paid ranking of 5K. This is just the US site; the UK site switched to the free ranking as usual. It's currently #10 free in the UK store.

It's all very peculiar.