Anyone know what Amazon changed?

[TimothyEllis]

All the issue which popped up recently seem to point to Amazon having done some major changes again.

My just released book is showing some marked differences to to the past just on the stats.

Instead of most of the sales appearing on a single day, it has them broken in half across 2 days.

Of course that might mean my US sales were crap in comparison to normal, as the pre-orders were well down on the last book, but even so, I've seen a 2 day even spike off a pre-order before. (Might be premature, as the day has a bit to run yet, and the KU reads are still coming in.)

Also seems as if they've started sending out new release emails again.

Has anyone else noticed anything different?

[Eric Thomson]

Nope. The Zon hasn't been doing anything different for me for the last year or so. The new release emails have been going out just as they should. Sales stats are not unusual and my US sales are where they should be. Last month was my best since June 2020 and this month is promising to be just as good, if not better. Maybe the Zon hates you?

[R. C.]

Yep, the past two weeks have been interesting.

First: This is an anecdotal opinion. Which is another way to say I feel the changes.

Across the 'Zon publishing ecosystem, the underlying systems are always being change/updated/altered/improved. However, the past two weeks have an accelerated level of change.

Some pages load more quickly. Ex 1: Loading a cover or manuscript is snappy. Ex 2: The processing of a cover/manuscript has new messages.

The reporting is, generally, slower.  Not sure why, but I suspect new integrations are still being tuned.

Finally, the campaign reporting page is quicker by a lot.

R.C.

[alhawke]

My just released book is showing some marked differences to to the past just on the stats.
Instead of most of the sales appearing on a single day, it has them broken in half across 2 days.

Could be Amazon spreading out new releases to followers? Another possibility is it's summer, post covid (sort of, at least with everything opening up) in US, and everyone is out on vacation. People might not be looking at emails the minute they get them. But the fact that it's a 50:50 split makes me think it was released that way by Zon. You'll know if it keeps happening with your upcoming releases. I'll make mention if I see the same trend.

[VanessaC]

Not on new releases, but some of the interfaces have been glitching over the past week or so.

There was an issue with the KDP back end system where a lot of people - including me - were getting a blank page with "500" on it when trying to make amendments - e.g. update blurb / upload fresh content / review pricing. This seems to have been fixed. Amazon are also adding more stuff into the Beta dashboard - pre-orders, Vella, etc. i always feel that when Amazon makes some back-end changes, there is some weird stuff, and then it settles again. But that's just my impression.

[notthatamanda]

I've been getting that 500 error on another site I use that has nothing to do with Amazon. What browser do you use? I'm using Microsoft.

[VanessaC]

I've been getting that 500 error on another site I use that has nothing to do with Amazon. What browser do you use? I'm using Microsoft.

My default browser is Google - I also tried Firefox and Microsoft Edge for the KDP thing, but was still getting the same error, so not sure it was browser-related (for KDP anyway).

[CoraBuhlert]

My Amazon sales fell off a cliff in April and never really recovered, even though I had a new release in the meantime.

[LilyBLily]

My Amazon sales fell off a cliff in April and never really recovered, even though I had a new release in the meantime.

That stinks.

I wonder if anybody had a miraculous uptick in April? If one assumes that the same number of books will be sold and visibility affects what books are shown to eager buyers, some authors must be benefiting from your loss (indirectly). Another possibility is COVID-related, since April is when a lot of people started coming out of their caves.

Regardless, when that happens--and it happened to me last year--the only remedy that seems likely is advertising on other platforms and directing sales at Amazon (and other venues), not tweaking one's Amazon sales pages or doing Amazon ads or whatever. Sales brought from outside should--in theory, anyway--prove to Amazon's algorithms that your books are worth more visibility. This is just my theory, of course. Maybe a goat sacrifice would work better.