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.

[TimothyEllis]

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.

Are you sure it ever went free in the US store at all? Double checked the price on it?

[PaulineMRoss]

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.

Are you sure it ever went free in the US store at all? Double checked the price on it?

Yes, it's definitely free, yet it's showing as 5K in the paid rank. You can check for yourself here: https://www.amazon.com/Sons-Marquess-Collection-Mary-Kingswood-ebook/dp/B07Q2YHQLN/

[TimothyEllis]

That's definitely weird.

Considering the rank in the UK store, you should be flagging that as an error in the US store, and see what the response is.

That's definitely wrong.

[alhawke]

The US AND Canada store shows paid ranking only. UK and Australia has a free ranking.
This is awful. I hope it corrects for you.

[PaulineMRoss]

The US AND Canada store shows paid ranking only. UK and Australia has a free ranking.
This is awful. I hope it corrects for you.

Canada too? That's interesting. I imagine by the time it sorts itself out, the book will be back to its regular price!

[TimothyEllis]

How long has the book been free?

Is it possible the lag in the paid ranks they put in is also affecting the transfer to free and back?

That would be a really unfortunate side effect.

[PaulineMRoss]

How long has the book been free?

Is it possible the lag in the paid ranks they put in is also affecting the transfer to free and back?

That would be a really unfortunate side effect.

The book's been free for two and a half days now. The last time I had a Bookbub for a free book, in May, everything worked fine (or as fine as Amazon gets these days).

[TimothyEllis]

The book's been free for two and a half days now. The last time I had a Bookbub for a free book, in May, everything worked fine (or as fine as Amazon gets these days).

Definitely needs a KDP bug report then.

[alhawke]

Is it possible the lag in the paid ranks they put in is also affecting the transfer to free and back?

I think that would explain it. The delay is 48-72hrs which should mean that Pauline's book should rank under free later today. Even still, this damages the power of the promotion.

[LilyBLily]

I "bought" it via your newsletter. I'd already read it all in KU, so I hoped I was helping with ranking. Apparently not. Bummer.

Granted that a BookBub ad at free is far less expensive than one at 99 cents (and probably easier to land, too), maybe getting even a small amount of cash for a hugely discounted book (for those who don't know, it contains three novels) would move the Amazon needle faster.

Or maybe Amazon truly is broken and all the data goes into a black hole.   

[PaulineMRoss]

I "bought" it via your newsletter. I'd already read it all in KU, so I hoped I was helping with ranking. Apparently not. Bummer.

Granted that a BookBub ad at free is far less expensive than one at 99 cents (and probably easier to land, too), maybe getting even a small amount of cash for a hugely discounted book (for those who don't know, it contains three novels) would move the Amazon needle faster.

Or maybe Amazon truly is broken and all the data goes into a black hole.

Thank you for downloading it! Actually, a Bookbub for a $0.99 book is about 50% more expensive than for a free one, but I don't know which is easier to land. I only do free ones now because it shifts a lot more books and I get the profit from KU and read-through.

The rank is now up to 4K paid! I don't think it's ever going to get a free rank.

[PaulineMRoss]

Aaaaand, it's just got a free rank! That's a full 72 hours after the price changed to free. Of course, since the Bookbub deluge of downloads is well and truly over,  it's only 7K in the free lists (a Bookbub free book typically gets into the top 20 overall, and #1 in all my categories).

Oh, Amazon, you do test our patience sometimes.

[TimothyEllis]

Oh, Amazon, you do test our patience sometimes.

Not about patience.

Obviously a war going on with Bookbub.

But you should now see that rank improve over the next day as the downloads kick in through the delay.

Keep us informed.

[PaulineMRoss]

Oh, Amazon, you do test our patience sometimes.

Not about patience.

Obviously a war going on with Bookbub.

But you should now see that rank improve over the next day as the downloads kick in through the delay.

Keep us informed.

I will. I've found someone else with the same problem, so it's not just me or a glitch in the matrix, it really is something Amazon is doing (intentionally or otherwise).

[PaulineMRoss]

You were right, Tim - it is improving. Four hours after it achieved a free rank, it's moved from 7K to #802, and #4 and #15 in my best categories. So making progress.

[TimothyEllis]

You were right, Tim - it is improving. Four hours after it achieved a free rank, it's moved from 7K to #802, and #4 and #15 in my best categories. So making progress.

 

[alhawke]

Glad it's improving! This happened with a 99c BookBub, paid, a few months ago and I didn't break the top 100. It hit the worst rankings I've ever had with a BookBub in the US. But that wasn't only due to ranking problems, it was due to Amazon's category changes. So Amazon has not been Indie friendly to me this year. Now we know it effects paid and free

[PaulineMRoss]

Now up to #488 free rank, and #2 and #11 in my best categories. But it's clear the whole transition between paid and free is totally broken - in one category, 7 of the top 20 free books are not free at all (or no longer free, perhaps). Amazon is so big on the customer experience, but that's a terrible customer experience, if a third of the books in the free lists aren't free at all. I can imagine some very angry people.

[PaulineMRoss]

Now up to #22 in the free ranks, and #1 and #2 in my two best categories. The #1 book had a Bookbub last Tuesday, the day before mine. Yesterday's Bookbub is not even showing in the free ranks yet. It's all so messed up. I'll let you know when I've hit peak free rank.

[JackT]

A similar thing happened to me last week. I had a free Bookbub on a standalone crime novel, which I put into KDP for three months.

I began the five free days the day before the Bookbub. When the email went out on Day 2 the book was still listed on the paid charts.

On Day 3 it was still there in the US (at a rank of about 13k) but had switched in the UK to free and came in at #1.

On Day 4 the US site finally switched to free and hit #2 (on something like 15k US downloads).

On Day 5 it dropped a few places on both sites, but was still well in the top 10. Then, when the price came back on on Day 6, it remained free in the US for half a day. It continued to be listed as #1 in various free categories, even though it now had a price tag. However, when you clicked through from the product page to the actual bestseller lists, it was nowhere to be seen, either in free or paid. It finally reverted to paid that afternoon and things have behaved normally since.

So: 72 hours in the US to switch to free, half a day to switch back.

[PaulineMRoss]

So: 72 hours in the US to switch to free, half a day to switch back.

I'm hoping for something like this - a quick switch back to the paid ranks. It does seem to be a widespread problem, unfortunately. I just can't work out whether it's intentional (in which case, why?) or whether it's just a side-effect of some other change.

[Bill Hiatt]

I can understand (though not approve of) slow ranking changes that might dilute the effect of a Bookbub. But I can't see a logical reason for Amazon being slow to switch a free book back to the paid list after it is no longer free. That may indeed be a side effect of something else or a glitch Amazon hasn't noticed yet.

[alhawke]

I'm hoping for something like this - a quick switch back to the paid ranks.

Switching back quick would be nice.

It's not just BookBub. I've tracked a book that sold seven copies over the past 48hrs and there's been no change in US ranking. US ranking is delayed by 48-72 hrs. The reason? Could be a glitch. But it seems to be a way to dilute the effect of large sales. This supports older titles while hurting new releases and sale blitzes.

It's interesting that it affect certain countries. I recall Canada freezing a year ago--again, glitz or testing??

[TimothyEllis]

It's not just BookBub. I've tracked a book that sold seven copies over the past 48hrs and there's been no change in US ranking. US ranking is delayed by 48-72 hrs. The reason? Could be a glitch.

It's not a glitch.

It's deliberate in the US store, and now apparently in the Can store as well.

[PaulineMRoss]

An update: a full 24 hours after the book reverted back to full price, it still shows at #14 in the free rankings. Sigh.

[Anarchist]

An update: a full 24 hours after the book reverted back to full price, it still shows at #14 in the free rankings. Sigh.

It appears the same thing has happened to many other books, including James Scott Bell's Romeo's Way.

[PaulineMRoss]

A further update: 48 hours since the price reverted to full price and it still has a free rank (which is being updated regularly - it's drifted down to #22 now).

[Bill Hiatt]

I still don't see a rational reason for this. Maybe when Amazon slowed ranking changes, it inadvertently created a delay in this kind of change as well.

[TimothyEllis]

I'm currently waiting for a new pre-order to list.

It's been over 24 hours now.

Normally it takes 1.5 hours. Or 5-6 hours for a new series book 1. This one is stand alone though, for now, as I'm not sure which series it fits into yet.

[alhawke]

I'm running a Halloween sale of one of my witch books starting today, but I dropped the price last week. So I've been monitoring ranking. Last week it took >72 hrs for ranking to update paid in the US.

We need to think of new ways to promote books with book promotions.

I still don't see a rational reason for this. Maybe when Amazon slowed ranking changes, it inadvertently created a delay in this kind of change as well.

The way I see it, the new system damages one day sale blitzes (free and 99c). Who does that effect? BookBub. So suspicions can run wild here. But it also props up old books while damaging new releases. That's something perhaps Amazon has not thought out. Or maybe there's so many books that they don't care? Or maybe it's a new system some IT wizard came up with on Amazon and they never thought out how it could effect writers?

For us, outside of Bookbub promos, still playing with the timing may help. Book sales before my promo might help ranking somewhat before the real promo begins today. Spreading out promotions might work somewhat? But I'm not sure. Interestingly, all this seems to only be affecting Canada and US, as far as I know.

[skeletor]

I'm currently waiting for a new pre-order to list.

It's been over 24 hours now.

Normally it takes 1.5 hours. Or 5-6 hours for a new series book 1. This one is stand alone though, for now, as I'm not sure which series it fits into yet.

Everything has been taking longer on KDP for me. I, too, remember uploading a new book and having it go live within hours. My last two have probably taken 24+ hours. It's a drag.

[LilyBLily]

With Amazon, time of day means a different crew. I've had pretty good luck with late night postings that got updated very fast. Early morning, not so much.

Yes, I know we're assuming that all these rank delays are the results of algorithms gone wild, but there may be some human oversight, too.

I've never understood why Amazon wanted to bankrupt the discount newsletters; they bring many new customers to the store.

[Lorri Moulton]

It took almost three days for a price change (not free) that usually takes a few hours.  Maybe their doing something with their systems. I'm leaving everything "as is" for a while. 

[PaulineMRoss]

Hallelujah! It finally went back to a paid rank, a full FOUR DAYS after the price reverted to full price. Astonishing. The rank is 15K which isn't terrible, considering it was 88K before the promotion. I still have no clue why this would happen, why it doesn't happen to everyone, and what (if any) benefit there is for anybody in this situation. Certainly not the customer, who gets free books in the paid ranks, and full price books in the free ranks. A real case of caveat emptor!

[Bill Hiatt]

I'm running a Halloween sale of one of my witch books starting today, but I dropped the price last week. So I've been monitoring ranking. Last week it took >72 hrs for ranking to update paid in the US.

We need to think of new ways to promote books with book promotions.

I still don't see a rational reason for this. Maybe when Amazon slowed ranking changes, it inadvertently created a delay in this kind of change as well.

The way I see it, the new system damages one day sale blitzes (free and 99c). Who does that effect? BookBub. So suspicions can run wild here. But it also props up old books while damaging new releases. That's something perhaps Amazon has not thought out. Or maybe there's so many books that they don't care? Or maybe it's a new system some IT wizard came up with on Amazon and they never thought out how it could effect writers?

For us, outside of Bookbub promos, still playing with the timing may help. Book sales before my promo might help ranking somewhat before the real promo begins today. Spreading out promotions might work somewhat? But I'm not sure. Interestingly, all this seems to only be affecting Canada and US, as far as I know.

Spreading out promos has been better for some time.

Slowing ranking changes could easily be intended to affect BookBub. Though why Amazon cares what BookBub does is a mystery to me. People used to theorize that Amazon was trying to drive BookBub's value down so that it could buy it for a bargain price and run it itself, but that theory was floated so long ago that I think if it were true, Amazon would have made a move by now.

Of course, Amazon may just want people to take what they spend on Bookbubs and spend it on AMS. That theory does make sense. But if the authors here are any indication, the strategy is often having the opposite effect, making authors less willing to give money to Amazon on the assumption that Amazon is trying to screw them. Another theory that could be true is that Amazon didn't want an external company to have so much influence over its top 100 lists. That's possible but difficult to verify or refute without more data.

If Amazon wants to build AMS revenues, the best way to do that would be to find ways to boost the effectiveness of AMS, which seems to have declined over the years. I've seen anomalies related to odd ad placement that could occasionally be the result of people picking unwise ad targets, but it happens too often for that to be the only explanation. And when Amazon keeps showing me the same ad(s) for like a month, that seems ineffective. Do people uninterested on the first 28 views suddenly decide on the 29th appearance that the book they've been uninterested in is suddenly interesting? Some of the ads shown to me aren't even in genres I've ever looked at or bought. What a waste of ad real estate!

Here's another troubling thing. The slowing down of the flip from free to paid rankings doesn't seem as if it does anything except frustrate customers. It doesn't serve the same alleged purpose that slowing rankings does. That at least seems to be an indication of a bug rather than a feature, as does the sometimes weird ad placements. The same is true of slower book processing (though my last one in mid-September was up in hours, so I'm not sure how widespread that issue is).

Some of what Amazon does may be due to strategy, but the varying nature of the problems indicates to me that at least some of them are more likely neglect than strategy. Amazon tends not to notice things very fast unless there are a lot of customer complaints. Vendor complaints are less effective, but again, Amazon is more responsive to large numbers than small ones. How much human oversight there is in the retail division could well be questioned.

[TimothyEllis]

Here's another troubling thing. The slowing down of the flip from free to paid rankings doesn't seem as if it does anything except frustrate customers. It doesn't serve the same alleged purpose that slowing rankings does. That at least seems to be an indication of a bug rather than a feature,

Actually that's explainable in IT terms.

No-one ever thinks out their ideas properly anymore. No-one ever explores the effects of something beyond the limited focus of the original idea.

So a good idea for one thing, is never thought through to see what else it will affect.

So whatever they put in the slow down in ranks for, no-one bothered thinking what that would do to interface between paid and free.

That's just sloppy design work. And we see that everywhere these days.

[alhawke]

I'm running a Halloween blitz. I reported to you guys that ranking was slow before the promo. I've since sold over 100 books and The Hawthorne Witch remains in the 300k rank in the US . Canada hasn't budged either. So, from experience now from others and last week, I should have a sudden huge blip in ranking. Perhaps, for me, this won't be so bad as it will put the books on the charts a day or two before Halloween when Amazon finally gets around to honoring the ranking. That wasn't planned but I might plan it in the future.

What all this does is it hurts the multiplying effect of promos. In the past, a book being advertised and ranking would have the multiplier effect of ranking. This has now been taken away.

A couple more ideas as to why this is happening: could give time for Amazon to catch AI junk books and take them down? It could better match their new KDP result page which is super slow?

Hallelujah! It finally went back to a paid rank, a full FOUR DAYS after the price reverted to full price. Astonishing.

Not transferring a free book to paid on time is just plain stupid. It's bad for customers searching books. I hope they do something about this.

[Bill Hiatt]

They will do something about it--if customers complain. Fingers crossed.

I hadn't considered trying to stop AI books as a possible motive. Given that the ones posted on Amazon--at least, the ones outed as AI--have generally been disasters and given Amazon bad press. So I could see making a move against them. However, what they are doing isn't probably the best approach, since it catches a large number of real authors in the crossfire.

[TimothyEllis]

More inconsistency....

My today release just had most of the pre-order money put in the 27th instead of the 28th.

That's a day early for crediting the money. And not all of it, but about 2/3. Which means it's not just AUS and UK money, which is what they used to do.

After months with everything going late, now they're early? WTF?

[alhawke]

Fourth day of sales (>72hrs) and the book remains invisible in ranking in the US and Canada  . No movement. Might not ever show my sale??

[TimothyEllis]

Fourth day of sales (>72hrs) and the book remains invisible in ranking in the US and Canada  . No movement. Might not ever show my sale??

And yet, my pre-order release just had a within 24 hours update of the rank, and that was almost back to normal.

So maybe they've been playing around with the targeting of the rank slowdown, and now it only is going after promos.

Just guessing tho.

[alhawke]

And yet, my pre-order release just had a within 24 hours update of the rank, and that was almost back to normal.

But was that update in the US or Canada? Australia sales are showing up like normal for my books.

[TimothyEllis]

And yet, my pre-order release just had a within 24 hours update of the rank, and that was almost back to normal.

But was that update in the US or Canada? Australia sales are showing up like normal for my books.

US.

I don't monitor Canada ranks. There's no point.

I check US, UK, and AUS. AUS comes out first, then UK, then US, but the US was definitely inside a day this time.

[alhawke]

So... why is the US and Canada punishing book sale promotions (this was not BookBub btw)? Book promotions have been around for decades even before ebooks. I'm not clear the agenda. I am corresponding with Amazon. They claimed that they see nothing wrong. That response actually upset me more because there clearly is something wrong when you compare international markets.

The problem is Amazon is costing me brand recognition and further sales. I simply can't focus on advertising in their market in the future if it leads to a dead end. I truly mean this. If Amazon wants to punish promotions they will succeed with, at least, this author in stopping future sale promotions in their market. I will focus elsewhere. I'm forced to. How is that helping them with sales with their bottom line?

A glitch? I kinda doubt it cause it's been going on now for months.

But the troublesome--very troublesome thing--here guys is that the majority of sales from promotions occur in the Amazon US market. This puts our marketing at a bit of an impasse, you might say. This is why this is very significant for us. If you pull the rug out from under the main marketing force for publishing, where do we go next for visibility as authors?

[alhawke]

Here's Hawthorne Witch US sales by KDP reports. It currently is at 202,664 in the US market 
Right. Well, I got nowhere talking to customer service, just the usual Amazon category procedures. Should be expected, I suppose. I know ranking is never considered something for KDP contact customer service.

Maybe the 200k ranking represents the 2 sales so far today? I mean, if it's delayed and I rank later today, that's better than not showing at all and I'll take it better than nothing. I hope I at least get ranking from all the sales later today. But it's been 4 days which will cost it some. (btw, ranking in the US is also effecting every book in my series).

Timothy, if your preorder showed within a 8hrs--that's awesome that it's registering for you--but that means that large sale promos, free from Pauline^^, 99c from me, are being rank-blocked at the moment.

[Bill Hiatt]

The longer problems go on, the less likely they are to be a glitch, but to really know what was going on, we'd have to have more data than we are ever likely to see.

It used to be that if you kept responding to customer service emails that your issue wasn't resolved, you eventually got to someone who actually knew something. Is that no longer the case? I haven't tried in a while. But a person (or a bot) who says everything looks normal clearly doesn't know anything.

On the specific issue of how long something can be broken before Amazon fixes it, it took years to create a sensible system for series pages. Remember the days when Amazon had to manually create a whole new page to add a new title? That went on for a long time and cost Amazon (and us) a lot of sales before someone woke up and fixed it.

Although Amazon has improved AMS reporting in a number of ways, it still doesn't seem to have figured out a way to have those update in a timely fashion, either.

I could probably think of other things that Amazon has let sit for a long time before doing anything. Consequently, I'm not going to give up on them quite yet.

[alhawke]

I ran into a dead end from emailing. They're not meant to deal with ranking, I figure.

I'm not giving up on Amazon either, but I might be focusing on other arenas. If marketing there doesn't work anymore, why keep focusing on promoting with Amazon? The trouble is, at the moment, all promo companies focus on Amazon readers.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether these changes are temporary or permanent.

[TimothyEllis]

Timothy, if your preorder showed within a 8hrs--that's awesome that it's registering for you--but that means that large sale promos, free from Pauline^^, 99c from me, are being rank-blocked at the moment.

The current pre-order took most of a day to appear. A lot longer than normal.

The release saw ranks change in about the same time scale, as in somewhere around 24 hours after going live.

I hadn't put those 2 things together though.

So slow than it used to be, but faster than it has been.  For both.

And yes, it's looking very much like any sort of non-AMS promo is being targeted to eliminate rank spikes.

The other thought I had, was you may have missed the rank spike itself. Between 2 times you looked, the initial sales spike may have happened, and then been replaced by the the lower sales level a few hours later. Just guessing though.

[alhawke]

The other thought I had, was you may have missed the rank spike itself. Between 2 times you looked, the initial sales spike may have happened, and then been replaced by the the lower sales level a few hours later. Just guessing though.

I'm too compulsive for that. 

If I were to take a conservative estimate, based on other past promos, the total rank should be somewhere between 20-40k in the US store at the moment. It certainly is not "161,263" with all those sales (the current ranking). Actually, more concerning, 161,263 matches closer to 6 sales today. In fact, ranking started moving again just this morning after a 3 day freeze. Did Amazon literally not rank my book at all last week during the main sale? 

Looking at my other titles in series, they're all hovering around 400k right now. This is also too high and I've seen it immobile over the past few days. Internationally, again, ranking was fine in Australia and UK; Canada is still immobile.

It was slow three months ago as well with my BookBub. There ranking was eventually seen and the book ranked at the top 1000; but it would have been in the top 100. Think twice about running a promo right now. Whatever's going on, your book might not be counted in ranking.

Another thought: How important is ranking? I'll guess maybe 10-20% extra sales from the top 3 charts, now lost??--not a lot, but still significant. But it also helps with future algos for your book search.

[TimothyEllis]

Another thought: How important is ranking?

The actual rank? Not very.

But that rank helps get you on the top 100 charts for categories, and for me now, that's my only visibility.

As soon as I drop off the major category charts, my income drops like a rock, and as soon as it drops off the last one, my income tanks completely. Then it bottom line's it until the next release.

With the book I didn't pre-order, that all happened way faster because it didn't get the initial rank boost.

But, yeah. The rank is very important now, especially if you don't do any advertising, and only have a small to medium list.

[Bill Hiatt]

The other thought I had, was you may have missed the rank spike itself. Between 2 times you looked, the initial sales spike may have happened, and then been replaced by the the lower sales level a few hours later. Just guessing though.

I'm too compulsive for that. 

If I were to take a conservative estimate, based on other past promos, the total rank should be somewhere between 20-40k in the US store at the moment. It certainly is not "161,263" with all those sales (the current ranking). Actually, more concerning, 161,263 matches closer to 6 sales today. In fact, ranking started moving again just this morning after a 3 day freeze. Did Amazon literally not rank my book at all last week during the main sale? 

Looking at my other titles in series, they're all hovering around 400k right now. This is also too high and I've seen it immobile over the past few days. Internationally, again, ranking was fine in Australia and UK; Canada is still immobile.

It was slow three months ago as well with my BookBub. There ranking was eventually seen and the book ranked at the top 1000; but it would have been in the top 100. Think twice about running a promo right now. Whatever's going on, your book might not be counted in ranking.

Another thought: How important is ranking? I'll guess maybe 10-20% extra sales from the top 3 charts, now lost??--not a lot, but still significant. But it also helps with future algos for your book search.

One word of caution in interpreting today's rankings based on previous experience: we don't know how many books are involved or what other authors are doing. The slowness to update is clearly a real issue. Where the book ends up may not be. I'm just speculating, because as usual, we have no ****ing data, but it's reasonable to assume that more and more books are being published. Depending on how many of those authors have money to spend on AMS ads and other promotional strategies, the competition for those top ranking spots may be fierce.

Amazon has been using that "over one million" language for years. Certainly, there are far more books in KDP by now. We don't know how many authors are making major sales pushes at any given time nor how effective they are. But those numbers could easily be far greater than they have been in the past.

Of course, people also drop out all the time, but the segment of authors heavily investing in advertising is the one that would make a difference for our purposes.

Also worth considering is what's going with the factory method of production--several authors under one penname. There used to be a lot of conversation about that, but I haven't heard much recently. Because such author collectives can release more rapidly than most of us, what's left of algorithmic boosts would be sucked up potentially by those collectives.

[TimothyEllis]

Amazon has been using that "over one million" language for years. Certainly, there are far more books in KDP by now.

1 mill in KU.

Last time I did the math on total books in KDP, it came out around the 48-50 million mark. And that was before low content began. (2 or 3 years ago now)

I've seen paid books with a 15 million rank, and I've seen free books with a 15 million rank as well.

That's 30 million plus to start with, without counting the books which never had a rank, or lost it.

It's probably way past 75 million now.

[Bill Hiatt]

Now that you mention it, I remember you posting some of this analysis before.

To give you an idea how out of the loop internet sources are, I found one that claims Amazon has published 1.4 million books through KDP.

[TimothyEllis]

To give you an idea how out of the loop internet sources are, I found one that claims Amazon has published 1.4 million books through KDP.

 

Someone who obviously never gets off the top 100 lists. And never ever hits anything off an ad slider.

[Lorri Moulton]

In some of the author Facebook groups, people are saying average of 4 days for rankings to show.  It's been that way for at least a few weeks. 

[TimothyEllis]

In some of the author Facebook groups, people are saying average of 4 days for rankings to show.  It's been that way for at least a few weeks.

Are they mentioning genres?

What about cold launch, pre-order, or promo?

[alhawke]

In some of the author Facebook groups, people are saying average of 4 days for rankings to show.  It's been that way for at least a few weeks.

Nope. Not for me. I'm at six days (just look on the prior page at the stats). You guys can clearly see my sales have not been ranked. And I don't buy that there's loads of competition out there. There is, but if you look at the categories the books are not ranked unreachably high. The highest ranking at #1 occult was around 5000 in the store and after 150 sales, I should have hit that.

I'm trying something new. Problem is it is probably too late for this sale. After doing a bit of research, I stumbled upon a suggestion to find at least 1 category that is popular and add that to the less popular higher rank-yielding categories for your book to be ranked--if you are using relatively unpopular categories. In other words, all this headache could all be due to Amazon category changes. And, in fact, though not stated on the email by the Amazon representative, it was highly hinted at when I received a long form letter after "apologize for all your troubles" all about choosing 3 categories with their new system.

Well... eureka! Most books under the Occult category in the urban fantasy/dark fantasy mix, like mine, have one general category like paranormal fantasy. Coincidence? I doubt it. If this is the culprit it means that this mess was all due to stupid Amazon algorithm changes. Surprise? The fact that we are all under the influence of their algorithms, which is essentially AI btw, is a sad state for the publishing industry. But we are and it's not new news, is it? My books were all changed to occult magic last month in order to work with the new category system (stupid move). Anyway, if I'm right, I might never know because by now the book probably won't rank. But it's quite a coincidence that about 75% of the urban fantasy like books under "occult" happen to have exactly 1 general category to work the AI algorithms. Apparently, I didn't get the memo. Now you guys do. Hope it helps for your future sale promos.

[TimothyEllis]

Well... eureka! Most books under the Occult category in the urban fantasy/dark fantasy mix, like mine, have one general category like paranormal fantasy. Coincidence? I doubt it. If this is the culprit it means that this mess was all due to stupid Amazon algorithm changes. Surprise? The fact that we are all under the influence of their algorithms, which is essentially AI btw, is a sad state for the publishing industry. But we are and it's not new news, is it? My books were all changed to occult magic last month in order to work with the new category system (stupid move). Anyway, if I'm right, I might never know because by now the book probably won't rank. But it's quite a coincidence that about 75% of the urban fantasy like books under "occult" happen to have exactly 1 general category to work the AI algorithms. Apparently, I didn't get the memo. Now you guys do. Hope it helps for your future sale promos.

What categories is the book in?

And what keywords did you use for more categories?

I don't get books in only 1 category. That makes no sense. Last time I saw that it looked like Trad incompetence to me. They simply don't know how to use Amazon correctly.

[alhawke]

I'm not referring to keywords. I'm referring to choosing your three categories in "details" section within KDP. Choose two that are not too competitive, like for me, "Occult Magic" or like "Metaphysical Fantasy" (like we've spoken about before and you've used, Timothy) BUT choose one category that is broad and popular. The popular category will trigger the book to not go invisible in US markets. I'm trying it but the books haven't had enough time yet to see if the changes will work.

{edit: if this tweak works, it might not work in the future. But I think the less categories are triggering Amazon to slow your book sales/ranking while they do whatever they're doing to make sure your book is legitimate. That's my theory, anyway.

[Bill Hiatt]

That's interesting, and it does sound logical.

However, I don't think mine are generally in unpopular categories, and the ranking changes are still slow, though admittedly, not as slow as yours ( 2 days vs. 6 plus).

It makes sense that Amazon would try to stop people from gaming categories. However, it needs to find a better way of doing that.

[alhawke]

Ranking 94,681 today US. Limited sales today and yesterday. Basically, the large sale spike I published on the prior page was invisible to ranking
Can't tell if my theory on categories is correct because Amazon's wonky rule of choosing whatever category they want after you enter them has made them not change the categories. And if the categories finally change to my new ones, it will be far too late to show any effect with ranking. But I'll keep the new 3rd category of Paranormal Romance for future categorization anyway.

[TimothyEllis]

So ranks seems to be back to what used to be the normal.

The only thing lagging at the moment is orange tags on UK books. That took a day, when the rank was there in normal time.

It seems like whatever was going on to slow ranks showing is now over.

The first 24 hours is now when the debut best rank will show up in, and then things start the normal slide.

[Bill Hiatt]

That suggests one of three things:

Amazon had a glitch.
Amazon was experimenting with something, and the experiment didn't work out as planned.
Amazon listened to feedback and adjusted accordingly.

I'd like to think it was the third, but we'll never know.

[alhawke]

Glad it's working for you, Timothy! Hope it remains.

I've seen the brakes put on sudden peak sales from promo sales in the past. If this happens again with my upcoming release, particularly in the US, I'll let you know.

I'm not holding my breath. Really, the problem on Amazon has been going on for 2yrs, focused on the US market over the past year. But I remember it hitting the Canada market two years ago where the rank wasn't even moved on one of my titles. As I've said before, all their antics have done for me personally is shift my emphasis away from Amazon and concentrate more on other retailers wide.