# And! Amazon rank-stripped me



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

For those who care (not sure I do, but...)

I have a Bookbub today. I was at #4 free. This is the only time really that I check ranking.

Well, the ranking is gone.

Thanks, Amazon.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Sorry this happened to you but it's not really a surprise. Their bot detection system is full of flaws.

I sent you a PM


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

That stinks. Was BB your only promo today?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Monique said:


> That stinks. Was BB your only promo today?


Yup. I had some AMS ads running but I stopped them last night.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

I see your rank. #4 right now. Am I looking at the wrong spot or maybe it came back?


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Puddleduck said:


> This is getting ridiculous.


It's been ridiculous for quite some time now.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Alan Petersen said:


> I see your rank. #4 right now. Am I looking at the wrong spot or maybe it came back?


The book's page shows its rank, but if you look at the Top 100 Free list, the #5 book is in the #4 slot, where Patty's book should be.

This stinks.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> I see your rank. #4 right now. Am I looking at the wrong spot or maybe it came back?


I keep refreshing the page but am not seeing it. Amazon is totally throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this one.

To be sure, the main value to me is going to be the thousands of books on people's ereaders (and the thousands that will be reported on B&N, Apple and Google Play tomorrow), but this is really stupid.


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## AnnaB (May 14, 2016)

Also seeing it here. Probably just some of the servers on Amazon's side not displaying all they should to everyone.

On the .fr site :


> n°229 des titres gratuits dans la Boutique Kindle (Voir le Top 100 gratuits dans la Boutique Kindle)
> n°1 dans Boutique Kindle > Ebooks Kindle > Ebooks en langues étrangères > Ebooks en anglais > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic


On .com :


> #4 Free in Kindle Store
> #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
> #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror > Dark Fantasy
> #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic


(Edit : And now the rank is gone on .com for me too.)


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

ugh! I have a BB tomorrow. This is very distressing. Question: can you run AMS ads on a rank-stripped book?? 

Also, Patty, I checked the US store and did not see a rank for your book.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Nope it's gone from the charts and my Author Central gives rank "unknown".


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

No rank on the page for me and it's not displaying in the free BS list either. All .com. I'm in the US.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

SevenDays said:


> The book's page shows its rank, but if you look at the Top 100 Free list, the #5 book is in the #4 slot, where Patty's book should be.
> 
> This stinks.


Ah, I wasn't looking there.


Patty Jansen said:


> I keep refreshing the page but am not seeing it. Amazon is totally throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this one.
> 
> To be sure, the main value to me is going to be the thousands of books on people's ereaders (and the thousands that will be reported on B&N, Apple and Google Play tomorrow), but this is really stupid.


SevenDays explained that I was looking at the book page, not the top 100. Now I understand how the rank-stripping works. Stinks. Hope they fix it for you and everyone else soon.

It's on the page for me but not the Top 100 free list. I'm on the U.S. West Coast.
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror > Dark Fantasy
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic


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## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

Alan Petersen said:


> I see your rank. #4 right now. Am I looking at the wrong spot or maybe it came back?


I see (saw) Fire & Ice ranked at #4 as of 5:36 EST in the US store (as of 5:45 the rank has vanished). Also see it at #3 in the UK store and #2 in the CA store. However, it's not on the Free Top 100 Bestseller chart in the US, whereas it is in the UK and Canada. Here's the US Top 100 Free as of 5:40 EST:










The book at #4 on the bestseller Top 100 Free in the US is also ranked at #4 when you go to its page in the US. Bizarre.

Nick


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

And you were right underneath me, Nick, weren't you?


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

At times, Amazon will strip rank for a couple of hours only. Sort of a Tier 1 strip. I've seen it with many BB'd books -- some from trad publishers/mega names too -- including our anchor author's. Many of those books return to the ranks within 2-4 hours of being stripped. So hang tight. Yours may be one of those...


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## Craig Andrews (Apr 14, 2013)

PhoenixS said:


> At times, Amazon will strip rank for a couple of hours only. Sort of a Tier 1 strip. I've seen it with many BB'd books -- some from trad publishers/mega names too -- including our anchor author's. Many of those books return to the ranks within 2-4 hours of being stripped. So hang tight. Yours may be one of those...


I hope this is the case, Patty. I saw your BB today, and was going to wish you luck, but never in a million years thought this would happen to you. Unreal.


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## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> And you were right underneath me, Nick, weren't you?


Yeah, my book ran on BookBub yesterday and was still ranked at #14 (#13, now) at the time your book disappeared today. I used 7 other sites leading up to it, plus have been running BookBub + Facebook ads today to the free book (no AMS). Everything went fine yesterday (I checked a few times, but wasn't locked in, so I guess it could've disappeared for a little bit, but I don't think that happened). I peaked at #7 (I entered BookBub day ranked #100 on the chart). Just strange. Had 19,266 downloads yesterday; Supernatural Suspense is a little bit smaller category than Fantasy. Maybe there's a trip wire for when downloads spike above a certain amount with a certain velocity that flags a title for a manual check.

It seems the rank-stripping works on a store-by-store basis, because I'm still seeing the CA/UK ranks + chart positions for Fire & Ice. It'd be interesting to see if those disappear at some point, or whether whatever mechanism is causing this glitch/additional check only affects the US store.

Nick


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I'm waiting for the "You are naughty" email.

I mean, seriously, why can't they employ a human to have a quick look *before* they start doing this nonsense?

How do you even FIND the free top 100 on the AU store /not an Amazon customer.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Craig Andrews said:


> I hope this is the case, Patty. I saw your BB today, and was going to wish you luck, but never in a million years thought this would happen to you. Unreal.


I'm no more special than anyone else.

But. I just want to say this, for those who still suffer from Amazon Stockholm Syndrome: Amazon operations are run by computers. There is no human checking any of this. They feel nothing about you, about me, or anyone else. Please bear that in mind next time you feel anything towards Amazon in terms of loyalty or gratitude. They will NOT return your adoration. They're a big frikken steamrolling company. Use them, but be on your guard.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I'm waiting for the "You are naughty" email.


IF your rank isn't returned in a couple of hours and it's really strip-stripped, the 'naughty' mail won't come for another WEEK. Unless you're proactive. Then they'll send you boilerplate naughtiness in reply.

For those unable to find Patty's book: note that it is wide and permafree, not KU.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Patty Jansen said:


> I'm no more special than anyone else.
> 
> But. I just want to say this, for those who still suffer from Amazon Stockholm Syndrome: Amazon operations are run by computers. There is no human checking any of this. They feel nothing about you, about me, or anyone else. Please bear that in mind next time you feel anything towards Amazon in terms of loyalty or gratitude. They will NOT return your adoration. They're a big frikken steamrolling company. Use them, but be on your guard.


Sucks this happened, but I think it happens way more than even we on kboards know about (there are tons of authors doing promos with bub that aren't on kboards, so they obvious never report getting deranked here).

The only safe way to play on zon anymore is direct paid. Everything else is a risk, as small or large as it may be.

The algos are clearly set to derank based on massive rank jumps. I know DG said that's not the cause, but I think it is. Too many bubs getting caught up in this crap for it to be a coincidence.


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

I actually saw your book earlier while checking the free ranking of my AMRC, but yeah, it's gone now. Sorry that happened to you.

I can only imagine waiting years and finally getting a BookBub, paying the big bucks, and then having most of the benefit stripped away. The programmers should have factored in BB ads--it wouldn't be hard. They are shooting themselves in the foot, missing out on the sales that would follow a BB.

Maybe I shouldn't try so hard for a BookBub.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Seneca42 said:


> Sucks this happened, but I think it happens way more than even we on kboards know about (there are tons of authors doing promos with bub that aren't on kboards, so they obvious never report getting deranked here).
> 
> The only safe way to play on zon anymore is direct paid. Everything else is a risk, as small or large as it may be.
> 
> The algos are clearly set to derank based on massive rank jumps. I know DG said that's not the cause, but I think it is. Too many bubs getting caught up in this crap for it to be a coincidence.


Well, yeah, one can be overly alarmist about this, but hey. This book consistently sells better in the UK than the US. I still have my UK rank. This book sells well on Kobo when I promo it. Kobo hasn't reported my freebie downloads yet, and anyway, Kobo seriously downvalues free in their ranking (as in: to the very bottom of the charts). It will come back up once I put the price back up. I expect about 1000 downloads minimum at Kobo. Maybe more, because I've already got 300 from a promo I did with them last week. Sellthrough at Kobo is about 30%. Yes. From a free book.

I also expect about 1500-2000 downloads at Google Play. GP also de-ranks free books to make them invisible. It's all about sellthrough. About 300 people have managed to find this book there already.

I expect about 4-5000 downloads on B&N. The nook store is a mystery to me, but this book does quite well there.

I expect about 8000 downloads on Apple. The iBooks store is a mystery to me, except sellthrough is usually quite good, and this book sells well in mainland Europe and Australia on iBooks.

Point is: on average, about 25% of my sales on all platform are in the US. About half of my sales are on Amazon. So this affects 12.5% of my sales on a book whose sales are heavily skewed away from the US in the first place.

Long story short: there is a vast world beyond Amazon US.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

TromboneAl said:


> The programmers should have factored in BB ads--it wouldn't be hard. They are shooting themselves in the foot, missing out on the sales that would follow a BB.
> 
> Maybe I shouldn't try so hard for a BookBub.


Maybe the programmers have factored in BB 

But you should still keep going for a BB. 1) Everyone who gets ranked stripped gets their rank back (or most do anyway). 2) It only seems to happen on zon US. 3) You'll still make a ton of money and get a ton of readers, so it's still a no-brainer.

And if you go 99c instead of free, you have nothing to worry about at all.


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## Guest (Nov 21, 2017)

Wow... that is complete BS. Sorry to see that  
It's 5:30 central time here (US, Texas) and it's not showing rank or categories under product details as books typically do on .com.
I actually hope it's all incompetence & poorly programmed automation. Better that than Amazon monkeying with things to devalue marketing service competitors to incentivize preferential use of AMS...


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Seneca42 said:


> Maybe the programmers have factored in BB
> 
> But you should still keep going for a BB. 1) Everyone who gets ranked stripped gets their rank back (or most do anyway). 2) It only seems to happen on zon US. 3) You'll still make a ton of money and get a ton of readers, so it's still a no-brainer.
> 
> And if you go 99c instead of free, you have nothing to worry about at all.


While there have been far fewer instances, we have seen rank stripping on paid books.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> I'm no more special than anyone else.
> 
> But. I just want to say this, for those who still suffer from Amazon Stockholm Syndrome: Amazon operations are run by computers. There is no human checking any of this. They feel nothing about you, about me, or anyone else. Please bear that in mind next time you feel anything towards Amazon in terms of loyalty or gratitude. They will NOT return your adoration. They're a big frikken steamrolling company. Use them, but be on your guard.


I'm really sorry this happened to you, but can we please stop insulting those who make the choice to be in Select? I'm not in Select out of any sense of loyalty to Amazon nor am I in it because I'm suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I was wide for four years. I'm in Select now because I make more money from KU in a month than I made in a year on all the other platforms combined. My decision is purely based on monetary reasons and the fact that the extra income is giving a big boost to my savings.

I don't denigrate you for being wide, you do you. Please show the same courtesy.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

TromboneAl said:


> I actually saw your book earlier while checking the free ranking of my AMRC, but yeah, it's gone now. Sorry that happened to you.
> 
> I can only imagine waiting years and finally getting a BookBub, paying the big bucks, and then having most of the benefit stripped away. The programmers should have factored in BB ads--it wouldn't be hard. They are shooting themselves in the foot, missing out on the sales that would follow a BB.
> 
> Maybe I shouldn't try so hard for a BookBub.


Hehe, tbh I actually hope that people do this (tongue-in-cheek-like) because there seriously is no cheaper way on the planet to put your book in front of 30-40k readers than to pay three hundred measly bucks for a Bookbub, and I'll take it, rank-stripping or no.

General-you from here on:

If all you (general you) can see is the ego boost of seeing your book up there (it is a nice boost, I admit) and somehow magically believing that Amazon will market your books because *magic* and *algorithms* and *Amazon* then omg you've got it all wrong. If you give away 30k books and you see a spike in on-sales, that's because of Amazon's algorithms and not because you happened to write a book that people enjoy reading?

Seriously, people give themselves far too little credit. I sell anywhere upwards of 1000 books every month (usually over 2k) and I can tell you almost to the individual sale what I did to make that happen.

So: pay $300 to give away 30k books? I'd do that again tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

PhoenixS said:


> At times, Amazon will strip rank for a couple of hours only. Sort of a Tier 1 strip. I've seen it with many BB'd books -- some from trad publishers/mega names too -- including our anchor author's. Many of those books return to the ranks within 2-4 hours of being stripped. So hang tight. Yours may be one of those...


Ugh. This happened to me on a BB freebie run; it came back after a few hours.

But what a son of a mother. I was happy dancing for you when I saw your FB post a little while ago. Good grief, this nonsense is unbelievable.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Perry Constantine said:


> I'm really sorry this happened to you, but can we please stop insulting those who make the choice to be in Select? I'm not in Select out of any sense of loyalty to Amazon nor am I in it because I'm suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I was wide for four years. I'm in Select now because I make more money from KU in a month than I made in a year on all the other platforms combined. My decision is purely based on monetary reasons and the fact that the extra income is giving a big boost to my savings.
> 
> I don't denigrate you for being wide, you do you. Please show the same courtesy.


I cannot see where I mentioned Select. I see a lot of Amazon adoration here that is misplaced, regardless of where the writers choose to sell. All I'm saying is: you may love Amazon, but beware, *Amazon will not love you back*. Just. Beware. Don't let yourself be caught unawares or flattened by the steamroller.

I did not see discourtesy.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Wow, how disheartening. Sorry, Patty. I decided against applying for any more bookbubs after this happened a few weeks ago. Now look, two of us in a week? Bookbub is too expensive, especially since it doesn't do what it used to do now anyway. The last one I did was 26,000 free downloads with a very light follow-through except on the day of the promo. I never did understand that. The next day maybe, but several sales the very same day? Who had time to read the free one and buy more on the same day?
Marti


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## Caimh (May 8, 2016)

Perry Constantine said:


> I'm really sorry this happened to you, but can we please stop insulting those who make the choice to be in Select? I'm not in Select out of any sense of loyalty to Amazon nor am I in it because I'm suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I was wide for four years. I'm in Select now because I make more money from KU in a month than I made in a year on all the other platforms combined. My decision is purely based on monetary reasons and the fact that the extra income is giving a big boost to my savings.
> 
> I don't denigrate you for being wide, you do you. Please show the same courtesy.


In all honesty fella, I don't see how on earth you took that post as being denigrated. Patty was making a general point about Amazon.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

I'm so sorry, Patty! It makes me sick that this is still happening to good authors like you. I was so nervous before my latest BB but it went without a hitch. I've had my ranks *freeze* (not stripped) plenty of times with a BB spike, but this is so much worse.

Did you do any promos beforehand? Before my last BB, I ran a bunch of ads to slowly build the rank - not that anything compares to a BB spike.

I hope your rank returns soon!


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## aimeeeasterling (Sep 22, 2014)

PhoenixS said:


> At times, Amazon will strip rank for a couple of hours only. Sort of a Tier 1 strip. I've seen it with many BB'd books -- some from trad publishers/mega names too -- including our anchor author's. Many of those books return to the ranks within 2-4 hours of being stripped. So hang tight. Yours may be one of those...


This happened to me too, but on a smaller scale. Incendiary Magic is being listed as a free book on Freebooksy, Booksends, Kindle Nation Daily, Manybooks, Bookgoodies, Bknights, Awesomegang, Free Kindle Books and Tips, and I Love Vampire Novels today, all of which I considered ultra-safe. Midway through the morning, the rank on the book disappeared.

I immediately shot off an email to KDP support listing the exact sites I'd used and explaining that I know these sites operate by sending out emails to newsletter lists only. My rank reappeared in a couple of hours. Not sure if it was because of my email or due to the reason Phoenix listed, but it's worth a shot being the squeaky wheel. My book is now ranked 34 free, so I hope to get some extra downloads from hanging out on the top 100 free for a day or two. You deserve triple that exposure from your Bookbub run!


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Luke Everhart said:


> Wow... that is complete BS. Sorry to see that
> 
> I actually hope it's all incompetence & poorly programmed automation. Better that than Amazon monkeying with things to devalue marketing service competitors to incentivize preferential use of AMS...


It's happening often. Could it be a stab at BookBub?


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> If all you (general you) can see is the ego boost of seeing your book up there (it is a nice boost, I admit) and somehow magically believing that Amazon will market your books because *magic* and *algorithms* and *Amazon* then omg you've got it all wrong. If you give away 30k books and you see a spike in on-sales, that's because of Amazon's algorithms and not because you happened to write a book that people enjoy reading?
> 
> Seriously, people give themselves far too little credit. I sell anywhere upwards of 1000 books every month (usually over 2k) and I can tell you almost to the individual sale what I did to make that happen.


Who ever equated algorithms with magic? Companies spend serious money creating and tweaking their algorithms. Interestingly, I too can pinpoint cause-and-algo-effect for our 1.5M+ sales (and I've managed promos for trad-pubbed, award-winning USAT and NYT authors who've written beloved books that have stood the test of time). The same algos that track rank drive current and future visibility. Generic-you can optimize the algo-effect with a great cover, a hooky blurb and a solid story -- of course. Just as algos can optimize word-of-mouth for a good book. One doesn't preclude the other, however; they can work together or individually.

But magic? No. Who's thinking that? Amazon (as well as Nook, iBooks, Google Play and Kobo, btw, just to a lesser extent) *does* market books via its algos. That's demonstrable and replicable. I'm a bit surprised a SF writer doesn't appreciate the science behind marketing and sales.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Perry Constantine said:


> I don't denigrate you for being wide, you do you. Please show the same courtesy.


Let's put aside I don't think anyone is denigrating anyone 

That said, just on point of fact, the two camps are not equal in terms of industry impact. KU authors are commodifying (ie. driving down margins) for the industry as a whole. Wide authors are not (although I guess one could argue that the permafree authors are; but realistically they are only permafreeing one or two books max, so their impact is negligible).

I 100% agree that everyone should do what is best for them. But at the same time, if in doing so you (and others) are contributing to the erosion and instability of the industry, driving down pricing power for authors in the aggregate, empowering zon to become a monopolistic powerhouse, etc. - you should at least understand those who have an issue with that (not with YOU, but with the general trend of kowtowing to zon)... even if, and though, they nonetheless respect your right to do whatever you feel like (and most probably understand why authors feel they have no choice but to play the game the way zon tells them to).


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> you may love Amazon, but beware, *Amazon will not love you back*. Just. Beware. Don't let yourself be caught unawares or flattened by the steamroller.


I see a lot of people who are *sure* Amazon hates them, personally, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim Amazon loves them. Like, ever.

If their book is doing well on Amazon, it's because it's *an amazing book*! If it's doing poorly, clearly it is spite.

I think you're issuing a warning people that don't exist, to be honest. I don't see many people equating book sales to emotional relationships with the vendor, but I do see a lot of people assessing where they earn the most and considering if being exclusive is their most profitable option. Even if it is, I don't think they expect Amazon to send love notes.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> Let's put aside I don't think anyone is denigrating anyone


And then goes on to tell us that KU authors are causing erosion and instability to the entire industry.



Seneca42 said:


> I 100% agree that everyone should do what is best for them. But at the same time, if in doing so you (and others) are contributing to the erosion and instability of the industry, driving down pricing power for authors in the aggregate, empowering zon to become a monopolistic powerhouse, etc. - you should at least understand those who have an issue with that (not with YOU, but with the general trend of kowtowing to zon)... even if, and though, they nonetheless respect your right to do whatever you feel like (and most probably understand why authors feel they have no choice but to play the game the way zon tells them to).


*den-i-grate*
ˈdenəˌɡrāt/
_verb_
criticize unfairly; disparage.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

I am seeing your book at #5 right now, but only on the free list, not on your book's page. Maybe it's coming back?


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Patty, did you notify KDP of the pending BB? Just wondering.

Also wondering where the threshold is. Best I've done so far is 170 in the free store (but mine went up gradually over a few hours), and no problems there. Makes me wonder if the bot is looking for anything which jumps straight into the top 100 or top 50, with no intermediate movement first.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

LilyBLily said:


> I imagine she's not feeling in a mood to appreciate anything to do with Amazon at the moment.


Been there, got the T-shirt. Plenty of things to disparage Amazon for, however, without dissing the *people* who have expectations of its algos. Besides, if generic-you doesn't "believe" in algos (that they play any appreciable role in a book's success), then why should a little rank-stripping put you out of sorts?


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

MaryMcDonald said:


> I am seeing your book at #5 right now, but only on the free list, not on your book's page. Maybe it's coming back?


Showing at 5 in the free list AND book page for me.

Listing at #2 in the Canada Store, list and book page.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

I see the rank too! 🎉 #5 in the store & #1 in your categories!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

PhoenixS said:


> Who ever equated algorithms with magic? Companies spend serious money creating and tweaking their algorithms. Interestingly, I too can pinpoint cause-and-algo-effect for our 1.5M+ sales (and I've managed promos for trad-pubbed, award-winning USAT and NYT authors who've written beloved books that have stood the test of time). The same algos that track rank drive current and future visibility. Generic-you can optimize the algo-effect with a great cover, a hooky blurb and a solid story -- of course. Just as algos can optimize word-of-mouth for a good book. One doesn't preclude the other, however; they can work together or individually.
> 
> But magic? No. Who's thinking that? Amazon (as well as Nook, iBooks, Google Play and Kobo, btw, just to a lesser extent) *does* market books via its algos. That's demonstrable and replicable. I'm a bit surprised a SF writer doesn't appreciate the science behind marketing and sales.


I don't disagree with this at all.

What I do disagree with is the ultimate level of importance a lot of writers ascribe to the "Amazon magic" (i.e. its unseen recommendation engine). The only time it becomes important is when your book goes sticky. And no one really knows how to do that.

Yes, you can do it with ads, but that just proves my point. It's something the author does.

Interestingly, I see no slowing of downloads beyond what I would expect for this time of day. I'm about to hit the 20K. I suspect this is because the main source of downloads is the Bookbub email, which is rank-agnostic. If this keeps up, maybe tomorrow's downloads might be affected, but from my own email list operations (over 51k subscribers across multiple lists) I know that many many people delay opening emails for days. This is why I usually leave the Bookbub advertised price for a month (until it falls off their website).

Second day downloads are *at most* going to be a quarter of today's. Of course, UK, CA, AU and the others are not affected.

About data science and book sales in general:

I've been reading a lot of stuff recently about this subject. I come from a background of population biology, which gets referred to as "the science of numbers". It's about the proportion of a large population doing x and another doing y. While you can measure x and y and draw interesting conclusions from it, interpreting these conclusions and modelling projected developments becomes a lot more rubbery.

You only have to have run a couple of large simulations to know that when you change a tiny variable, it can potentially throw your entire model out of whack. If you're predicting future behaviour of pretty much anything (animals, people, plants, the stock market, you name it), the more detailed your model becomes, the more it is liable to contain assumptions (even if they're currently borne out by data) that will throw it out of whack.

Modelling is interesting for gaining understanding in how various aspects of processes are related. It goes without saying that the quality of the model is entirely dependent on the quality of the mathematical functions that control each variable.

Take applied finance. The models are impressive. They're scary. The maths is crazy.

Why then did a university lecturer tell a student, after a question whether they used the models to predict the behaviour of the stock market: nope, we use the model to perfect our understanding afterwards.

OK, so to take this back to data science and book sales. Some of the stuff I've read recently on how people use data science for book sales makes my hair stand on end. Not because it's "wrong", not at all, but because the models rely on base assumptions that are (often by necessity, so not blaming anyone) already of poor quality, or that are extremely volatile and a small change could turn upside down the entire resulting prediction. Therefore, to my mind, it's useful to study after the fact and much less useful to predict future events.

And if predicted cause-and-effect coincides with what we already know, or "common sense", the importance of the model becomes much less important to me as author. In practical terms, I've always included on-sales of second and third books in ROI from ads, because that makes sense. I don't know how much stock I'd put in some of the elaborate methods I see mentioned for calculating it. I can do a wet-finger prediction in three seconds flat and spend the hour I saved writing. Maybe I could more accurately calculate my on-sales as 53% vs my estimated 50%, but because I don't really have enough data to make my calculations statistically reliable, I'm going to keep doing the wet-finger stuff until such time that I do have that data.

Make no mistake, I love the AE reports, because they do exactly what this science was meant to do: make sense of past events to allow us to make global decisions about the future.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

TimothyEllis said:


> Patty, did you notify KDP of the pending BB? Just wondering


I did. But, as I said, KDP is just part of a big company that just rolls on like a huge ship and takes forever to change course. You cannot expect them to take notice of this.

KDP tech Help is a call centre Cape Town, and last time I spoke to them, it sounded like there were a lot of people there. They would need to have to be VERY organised in order for this sort of stuff to be remembered.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Looks like rank is back. That must be a relief.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Annie B said:


> Looks like rank is back. That must be a relief.


That took a while to become visible to me, but now I see it, too.

OK, now I can do some writing


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> Let's put aside I don't think anyone is denigrating anyone
> 
> That said, just on point of fact, the two camps are not equal in terms of industry impact. KU authors are commodifying (ie. driving down margins) for the industry as a whole. Wide authors are not (although I guess one could argue that the permafree authors are; but realistically they are only permafreeing one or two books max, so their impact is negligible).
> 
> I 100% agree that everyone should do what is best for them. But at the same time, if in doing so you (and others) are contributing to the erosion and instability of the industry, driving down pricing power for authors in the aggregate, empowering zon to become a monopolistic powerhouse, etc. - you should at least understand those who have an issue with that (not with YOU, but with the general trend of kowtowing to zon)... even if, and though, they nonetheless respect your right to do whatever you feel like (and most probably understand why authors feel they have no choice but to play the game the way zon tells them to).


Then make noise to the other channels to provide more tools to improve discoverability. Make noise to them to drop the curated placements. When I can make more from KU in a month than I make on all other platforms combined due to lack of discoverability on those other platforms, then I have a financial decision to make. As much as I hate being exclusive to one channel and as much as I would love to go wide, I can't pay my bills with good intentions.

But if you think telling exclusive authors that they're contributing to the erosion of the industry and accusing them of having Stockholm Syndrome will win you any converts, you're barking up the wrong tree.


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## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

Perry Constantine said:


> But if you think telling exclusive authors that they're contributing to the erosion of the industry and accusing them of having Stockholm Syndrome will win you any converts, you're barking up the wrong tree.


Why are you making this about you? 

If you want to have a wide vs. KU debate why not start another thread? It's a topic we're almost all interested in and will probably continue to be interested in.

This thread is specifically about Patty having a BB deal de-ranked by Amazon. Yes, there are some not-positive feelings towards Amazon in this thread. 

Stockholm Syndrome might be a strong terms, but so is the term that was popular for a long time: Amazon Derangement Syndrome. ADS. We're authors. We like to use lots of descriptive words. 

Find another thread that's more pro-KU or stop looking for reasons to be offended.

Lord knows we're not all in lockstep here at KBoards and you'll find many people who agree with you. 

I don't see people "barking" at your tree specifically or trying to convert you!


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Folks, let's leave the KU-vs.-wide argument for other threads. I read Patty's comment about "Amazon Stockholm syndrome" as pertaining not to KU authors but to people who just loooove Amazon and see no problems with the company whatsoever, a (probably small?) group that likely overlaps with KU authors somewhat but is not identical with them. So there is no reason for that argument to blossom here.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

HSh said:


> Why are you making this about you?
> 
> If you want to have a wide vs. KU debate why not start another thread? It's a topic we're almost all interested in and will probably continue to be interested in.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the reminder of why I don't come here as often as I used to.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

1) This, EXACTLY:  Maybe the programmers have factored in BB   

1b) And if you go 99c instead of free, you have nothing to worry about at all.

Box Set Rank stripping a few weeks ago. Are they less frequent? The 99c rank stripping incidents?

***********************

2) This: It's happening often.  Could it be a stab at BookBub?

It's 1000% a 'stab at Bokbub' and at other promo sites

************

3) This: I don't see it so much on kboards, but then, I don't read every thread or anything.

No, on KBoards authors choose to give the algorithms benefit of the doubt by saying 'it's being done to target scammers' when it's becoming obvious that it has more to do with hurting other marketing venues

***********

4) Here's an example of giving benefit of the doubt

Patty writes:  You cannot expect them to take notice of this.

It's actually the EXACT opposite

first algorithm delays and tweaks were done to hit all the small promotion sites

now they are going after even Bookbub

Indie authors are writing things like

- it's just a false positive
- they don't even notice this
- it is to target scammers

This is a company that built a specialized Cloud Service for the CIA 4 years ago. You expect us to believe they can't stop a handful of botters

The other defence is that they just don't notice. Actually they notice two things very well

A) That promotion sites are growing very fast

B) That if money flows away from promotion sites it flows towards their own marketing avenues
*******************************


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

I've just suddenly cottoned onto this issue about rank-stripping.

Whenever I've made my book free in the past it has ALWAYS dropped the ranking from my normal daily setting, and re-ranked it under the free book graph. Only when it was set at $2.99, but Amazon was price-matching it to Free did it continue to show in normal ranking. I thought it was perfectly acceptable practice by Amazon. Maybe I was trialling this new 'rank-stripping' before it was rolled out without even knowing about it. Does it happen on NON-FREE books as well?


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Em, for those advancing the ludicrous theory that Amazon is targeting BookBub, please explain why Amazon imprints use BookBub almost every day.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> What I do disagree with is the ultimate level of importance a lot of writers ascribe to the "Amazon magic" (i.e. its unseen recommendation engine). The only time it becomes important is when your book goes sticky. And no one really knows how to do that.


There have always been authors who have declared Amazon's system unknowable, and there have always been those who have been working away and figuring it out and putting that knowledge to work.

When I started self-publishing in 2011, there were people who claimed Sales Rank was unknowable. Anyone want to still claim that today?

When we started figuring out the Pop List the same kind of people claimed it was unknowable (or irrelevant). We figured that out too.

Quite a large part of the Amazon recommendation engine and the various algorithms feeding into it have been mapped out at this point, by various authors, who have then shared that knowledge publicly - which has then been applied by authors who have optimized their marketing and sold millions and millions of books on Amazon.

Just a small data point.

(And, yes, I can make a book sticky. I've done it plenty of times, as has Phoenix and many others. The last time I made a book sticky it was below 200 for a whole month, below 800 for a month after that at $2.99 too. This led to a KU All Star and close to 7m KU page reads, and an equivalent amount of sales.)


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## C. Gold (Jun 12, 2017)

Um, my website is getting hacking attacks from Russia and other countries. I think that's the global standard now. Unless AMS reaches a lot more people who click and buy/borrow, people will keep using external promotion sites because large lists of people who actually want those types of books is a far better plan of attack than sticking your book somewhere in the ad section and hoping the person has ads unblocked and bothers looking at them. 

Sucks about the rank stripping, but at least it didn't stay stripped.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

I keep repeating this:

I've had direct reports of something like 40 different authors who were ranked stripped. Most shared comprehensive details of what promo was involved.

1. Some were in KU.
2. Some were wide.
3. Some used BookBub.
*4. Some did not use BookBub.*
5. Some were free.
6. Some were paid.
7. Some used other ad sites.
*8. Some used no ad sites.*
9. Some only used FB ads.
*10. Some only used AMS ads.*
11. Some only hit their list.

So for anyone who thinks this is a potshot at BookBub, an attack on non-KU authors, Amazon undermining all ad sites, or forcing people to only use AMS, or whatever, the evidence simply does not support those claims.

Please stop repeating them and causing undue panic.

I can't spot any real commonalities in these cases after examining all the information provided, other than perhaps they were all (or almost all) very visible in the free or paid charts when rank-stripped, and almost all cases are clumped together. That to me indicates *possible* manual/deliberate targeting but only Amazon will know for sure. It could also be a malfunctioning fraud detection system. There is a little evidence for both theories (and they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive either). I don't see much evidence for these other claims, and plenty discounting them outright.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Basically at this point there's nothing we can do except cross our fingers before a promo.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Without being alarmist, there is *a chance* any book hitting the free or paid charts could get rank stripped right now. There is no pattern really, and no way to protect yourself. Even monster sellers have been hit. Even A-Pub authors (with their indie titles). Patty even informed Amazon in advance of her BB promo and was still hit. 

But some much-needed perspective: a huge number of books make the charts every hour without getting hit. So you have to be incredibly unlucky to be one of those affected.

(Doesn't make it suck any less though, and my sympathies to anyone caught up in this. I'd be eating my hair.)


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

My own rank-stripping / KU read-grabbing adventures appear to be over, for the moment. But I'm left feeling I can't undertake any promotion with confidence. I'm relying on organic sales and social media only, and watching my income trickle away by the month. It so happens that I'm involved in a very successful anthology right now, so that's fine for the moment, but my income is going to take a real hit if things haven't calmed down in the next couple of months.


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## crow.bar.beer (Oct 20, 2014)

ireaderreview said:


> One interesting side note on this is that by early 2014 our curated books were taking 15 to 25 spots in the Top 100 Free Books each day
> 
> Now we have 4 million additional readers (as compared to 2014). If there were no 16 to 24 hour delays, given our size, we'd be taking 40 to 60 spots (of course, Bookbub would take top 20 to 30 - however, we'd take much of the rest).
> 
> ...


Another alternative: your readers are far less engaged now and don't respond to your emails as much or as quickly.

Saturation happens sometimes.

For instance, I'm sick of hearing about Books Butterfly in every single thread on Kboards.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Amazon uses machine learning for more of the site than ever. Machine learning aims to provide tailored shopping experiences to individual accounts. The original Kindle store was as straight-forward as we were ever going to get . . .  and over the years Amazon has made changes to overcome rank manipulations, better align to their business goals, appease large vendors, and improve the experience for the customer.

Check your own site. I suspect more than 50% of your traffic is mobile. Now look at the mobile site of Amazon. You will see that it provide not even a WAY for readers to get onto the top 100 FREE list. Try it with your phone. Even if you go to the bottom and click "amazon.com full site" go to a book that's ranked top 100 free and try to clik on the link to top 100 free, it takes you to the top 100 paid. Do a drop down and you can only get top 100 paid, top 100 new release. I sat at the bar at NINC and realized this with T S Paul who was like "the Amazon people are right there, you can ask them about this . . ." because we both wondered if it was a glitch. It's 1.5 months later still doing that (and no I didn't bother the Amazon people with this), it's NOT A GLITCH.

What Patty and others I think are trying to say is that if you build your entire business strategy on getting sticky at a single vendor there will come a time when changes to their system impact your publishing empire. Right this second, look around, we are in the middle of a major change to Amazon's systems that are derailing many people's marketing campaigns. Spikes are out, somehow, and we've watched Amazon punish spikes to varying degrees over the last 5 years. 

There's no way to predict from what Amazon is doing right now to what they will be doing in 1 year or 2 years. Who knows when KU 3.0 or 4.0 or whatever number we are on will be out? Who knows when/if Amazon will separate out the KU books into a separate sales ranking so their A Pub titles can dominate in two powerful recommendation engines? Who can tell everyone exactly how Also Boughts are deterined because mine are most frequently new releases in my genre, not my other books, which make NO SENSE. . . . 

All efforts to publish based on leveraging the Amazon algorithms will have to be reactionary in nature, and it's basically a game of musical chairs. Something works until it doesn't, because the music stopped and we didn't know and now people are left without a chair. Some publishers shrug and go "OK!" and expect some launches to flop or some promotion to fail and just keep on going and kept a budget thus. Others can't or won't do that and hinge every major release on a wish and prayer that all of the stuff they took months to put into place WILL work the day of launch...Others just go "eh, I'll let Amazon worry about Amazon, and just focus on selling books any way I can." 

I read Patty's post as publishing off of the current Amazon algorithms is unpredictable because it requires assumptions and observations where we are most often trying to justify the phenomenon we see. It's unknowable because we aren't in the loop on when or why changes are made, and unless someone is prepared to rise up from when the algorithms change and they weren't ready, it can be very demoralizing and devastating if you are counting on a specific performance of a book to say feed your family or pay your bills.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

There's a difference between strategy and tactics. A tactic might be putting a book free for five days and watching it bounce up the Pop List and then the paid chart. And that can get nerfed by changes to the pop list. A more grimy tactic might be stuffing a book and deceptively getting people to click to the end. And that can get nerfed by Amazon having a more accurate way to count pages.

A strategy might be using free to drive sales of other titles. Another strategy might be understanding how the store works (and, yes, the algos) and tweaking your marketing accordingly.

I'm comfortable using both. I'm not over reliant on tactics and have strategy to fall back on if one tactical play becomes less useful.

An example: KU is all about visibility because visibility turns into good Pop List placement which feeds into KU recommendations and then ultimately turns into reads. However, because of the way the Pop List works, there is usually a four-day lag before that visibility turns into reads. If I didn't know the algos, I wouldn't know that. Which means I wouldn't have the tactic of holding prices lower for longer after a promo, until the page read wave kicks in. 

This is a tactic. It works very, very well, and makes a book sticky if you do it right.

The strategy is different, it's knowing the algos and recognizing the power curve in KU and knowing that aggression is rewarded with reads.

Both are useful.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

There are a few observations here.

1) Authors are gaming/attempting to 'game' the Amazon system to gain rank, visibility.
2) Technical trading (following a regimen to 'game' the system automatically) will result in anticipation from the algorithm machine and subsequent readjustment to return things to balance.

I've watched (from the sidelines mostly) as author after author has come up with new ways to gain traction and get ahead of the crowd of other authors trying to do exactly the same. Maybe four years ago there were a hundred or so, now there are thousands. All up to the same tricks because everyone loves to publicise how successful their 'system' is. We've (the Indy author sector) become more concerned with manipulation of the market, rather than plain marketing. Free books, special offers, serial promotions, newsletter round-robin, cross-promo's (to name a few) and the market (being the reader) is saturated with it. Amazon and other sales platforms are reeling from the mass promotion of books by thousands of authors EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

And you wonder why the thing breaks !!!


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

dgaughran said:


> An example: KU is all about visibility because visibility turns into good Pop List placement which feeds into KU recommendations and then ultimately turns into reads. However, because of the way the Pop List works, there is usually a four-day lag before that visibility turns into reads. If I didn't know the algos, I wouldn't know that. Which means I wouldn't have the tactic of holding prices lower for longer after a promo, until the page read wave kicks in.


I'm seeing this happen with a (former)permafree book that was bungled in the Pronoun fiasco. It did not retain permafree status when it hit Amazon and I was shocked to see it immediately started to generate paid sales. I did not promote it, as it's been permafree for at least 2 years now & I felt silly doing anything with it as a paid book. Yet I can see that putting it in KU has placed it in a better position on the pop list, my series page is back up and active, and it's getting a consistent # of paid sales and page reads. This with was absolutely no effort on my part, and I can't ignore it, or consider what that means for future releases.



crow.bar.beer said:


> For instance, I'm sick of hearing about Books Butterfly in every single thread on Kboards.


<sigh> Agree. I thought there was a block button but I can't find it.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

TobiasRoote said:


> 1) Authors are gaming/attempting to 'game' the Amazon system to gain rank, visibility.


I take extreme exception to this characterization. Figuring out how the store works and tweaking your marketing isn't "gaming the system" which implies some kind of cheating or unscrupulousness.

If I want to open a shoe store and I conduct a survey of the footfall in various streets in the town center, is that gaming the system? No, I'm gaining an understanding of the marketplace and tweaking my business decisions accordingly.



TobiasRoote said:


> And you wonder why the thing breaks !!!


This is a little silly. Amazon sells half a billion distinct products. The Kindle Store is less than 7m items.

Yes, the problem here is legit marketing of ebooks.


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## TheLass (Mar 13, 2016)

ireaderreview said:


> The other defence is that they just don't notice. Actually they notice two things very well
> 
> A) That promotion sites are growing very fast
> 
> B) *That if money flows away from promotion sites it flows towards their own marketing avenues*


Does it? I'm not sure AMS is a match for any good list.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

dgaughran said:


> I take extreme exception to this characterization. Figuring out how the store works and tweaking your marketing isn't "gaming the system" which implies some kind of cheating or unscrupulousness.


Take it however you want. Your taking exception isn't my problem. However, the algorithms cannot tell the difference between an author and a spammer/scammer, or whatever. To the machine every input is the same. My son is a 'gamer' I'm not insulting him because when he uses the games platform to garner an advantage over the opposing teams he's 'gaming' the system. It's a 'game' and you're all playing it, but the system knows you are doing it so tries to put checks and balances in place. It will continue to do so and might make some mistakes, but it believes it is being fair (as far as a machine can sense fairness).



dgaughran said:


> This is a little silly. Amazon sells half a billion distinct products. The Kindle Store is less than 7m items.


I agree it's silly, but it's what people on KBoards are constantly saying. The system is broken or Amazon is [deliberately] 'breaking my run for the top'
The problem is when someone shouts foul because everyone else is doing the same and the system says STOP! while it checks things out (probably by a human being several hours, days down the line).

Are all the product groups in Amazon having this conversation? or just the authors?


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

dgaughran said:


> There's a difference between strategy and tactics. A tactic might be putting a book free for five days and watching it bounce up the Pop List and then the paid chart. And that can get nerfed by changes to the pop list. A more grimy tactic might be stuffing a book and deceptively getting people to click to the end. And that can get nerfed by Amazon having a more accurate way to count pages.
> 
> A strategy might be using free to drive sales of other titles. Another strategy might be understanding how the store works (and, yes, the algos) and tweaking your marketing accordingly.
> 
> ...


How about the strategy of writing books that intelligent people want to read, instead of marketing to sell crap to people who think crap is wonderful?


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I don't think you are being silly TobiasRoote. I agree with you that there are many perspectives in this industry and we as indies most often look at it from only our own perspective.

Amazon doesn't want sales spikes. They've punished the sudden upward velocity of books for years. Now, more so.

This is a major change and now we all have to adjust for it. My adjustments will be working harder in 2018 to make Amazon a lower percentage of my monthly income.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

TobiasRoote said:


> We've (the Indy author sector) become more concerned with manipulation of the market, rather than plain marketing.
> 
> And you wonder why the thing breaks !!!


Because the hard truth is 99% of self-publishers can't make a living without the myriad of tactics being employed... from simply working themselves to death, to investing absurd amounts of money into marketing and production, to using grey and black hat tactics. It used to be writing a book in itself was an accomplishment... now if you aren't writing a book a day you're half-assing it.

No one wants to admit that none of this is sustainable due to saturation and commodification. The unreliability of the zon platform and irrational algo behavior is simply another data point that this industry is buckling under its own weight.

The come-to-Jesus moment isn't going to happen though until KU hits 35c (or until page reads drop another 30%) and marketing / visibility costs climb even higher. That's when people will finally acknowledge that this has become a gong show.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Modi Gliani said:


> How about the strategy of writing books that intelligent people want to read, instead of marketing to sell crap to people who think crap is wonderful?


Writing books that people want to read is the prerequisite for a sustainable book business. So it goes without saying.


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## nigel p bird (Feb 4, 2011)

You have to hate it when it happens. It's that slow response and helplessness at the time that bugs me - you're left stranded and if it's fixed a few days or weeks later when the damage to the investment in terms or money, time, energy and emotion has already happened. I also struggle when explanations for such disappearance aren't given when asked for.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

TobiasRoote said:


> I agree it's silly, but it's what people on KBoards are constantly saying. The system is broken or Amazon is [deliberately] 'breaking my run for the top'
> The problem is when someone shouts foul because everyone else is doing the same and the system says STOP! while it checks things out (probably by a human being several hours, days down the line).
> 
> Are all the product groups in Amazon having this conversation? or just the authors?


What's absurd about this situation is that KU books don't get hit anywhere near (if at all) the way non-KU books do. There are so many KU books outright botting the system and they go on forever without zon taking action.

But someone gets a bookbub, which is beyond easy for zon to check to identify the source of the spike, and zon says "STOP! TIME OUT!"

I agree with you that this is all a function of how the algo is programmed, but I also think the algo is constructed such that it uses a sledgehammer for non-KU books and a feather for KU books. One gets smashed over the head while the other gets the bottom of their feet tickled.


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

TobiasRoote said:


> It's a 'game' and you're all playing it, but the system knows you are doing it so tries to put checks and balances in place.


There's no evidence this happens as a counterbalance to authors promoting their books. It's possible Amazon has simply installed a mechanism that verifies all newcomers to the Top 100 Paid and Free in order to deny high-profile visibility to scammers, in response to recent complaints in which scammers had hit the Top 100s.

Amazon has every reason to love and embrace promotions, IMO, and no real reason to frown upon them.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

Seneca42 said:


> What's absurd about this situation is that KU books don't get hit anywhere near (if at all) the way non-KU books do. There are so many KU books outright botting the system and they go on forever without zon taking action.
> 
> But someone gets a bookbub, which is beyond easy for zon to check to identify the source of the spike, and zon says "STOP! TIME OUT!"
> 
> I agree with you that this is all a function of how the algo is programmed, but I also think the algo is constructed such that it uses a sledgehammer for non-KU books and a feather for KU books. One gets smashed over the head while the other gets the bottom of their feet tickled.


Yes, it's evident that the Cinderella (KU) is treated much more leniently than the rest. However, the next quote explains the system perfectly.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Amazon doesn't want sales spikes. They've punished the sudden upward velocity of books for years. Now, more so.


and yet authors still try to 'spike' the system instead of accepting a more natural progressive growth of sales on the back of actual popularity of the book and organic take-up. Which I believe would not warrant any reaction at all by Amazon's 'spike bots'


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## William Meikle (Apr 19, 2010)

Seneca42 said:


> Maybe the programmers have factored in BB
> 
> But you should still keep going for a BB. 1) Everyone who gets ranked stripped gets their rank back (or most do anyway). 2) It only seems to happen on zon US. 3) You'll still make a ton of money and get a ton of readers, so it's still a no-brainer.
> 
> And if you go 99c instead of free, you have nothing to worry about at all.


Not true. Our VEIL KNIGHTS series promo got rank stripped on a 99c BB promo just a few weeks back.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

Mylius Fox said:


> It's possible Amazon has simply installed a mechanism that verifies all newcomers to the Top 100 Paid and Free in order to deny high-profile visibility to scammers, in response to recent complaints in which scammers had hit the Top 100s.


Yes, I think I pretty much said the same thing


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

TobiasRoote said:


> Yes, I think I pretty much said the same thing


I didn't have that impression, unless you're saying that having one's book listed on the Top 100, in and of itself, should be considered _gaming the system_. I'd understood you were talking about using promotions to boost one's rankings, that doing so was gaming, or manipulating or taking advantage of, how things "normally" work.


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

Welp, I had a bookbub today for a 3 year old permafree wide book. I was at maybe #475 in the free store at the start of the day, before the email went out. I'm already rank stripped. Fingers crossed that my ranking is restored.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Mylius Fox said:


> I didn't have that impression, unless you're saying that having one's book listed on the Top 100, in and of itself, should be considered _gaming the system_. I'd understood you were talking about using promotions to boost one's rankings, that doing so was gaming, or manipulating or taking advantage of, how things "normally" work.


FWIW, I didn't get that impression either.


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## ImaWriter (Aug 12, 2015)

EB said:


> <sigh> Agree. I thought there was a block button but I can't find it.


Thank you for the reminder. I forgot this was an option. Instructions on how to block a specific user are here.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

williammeikle said:


> Not true. Our VEIL KNIGHTS series promo got rank stripped on a 99c BB promo just a few weeks back.


forgot that. But your situation is very rare, or at least seems to be... it's the only example of a 99c derank I've heard of. But we've had probably a dozen free bub deranks.

But to state the obvious, more than one thing can be happening. The free bubs I think are clearly getting dinged by an algo setting regarding rank spike. Your situation may have been triggered by something else.

What's ultimately confusing in this whole situation is why some books get hit and others do not. If it were "just" a rank spike, then ALL bubs should get hit. And yet, only some do, while most don't.

So to state a second obvious point, everything is pure speculation based on the examples that pop up allowing us to infer things. But ultimately, none of us really know what is happening.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Mylius Fox said:


> Amazon has every reason to love and embrace promotions, IMO, and no real reason to frown upon them.


Amazon doesn't love us, as Patty says, but it doesn't hate us, either. I think a good argument could be made that it doesn't care about us one way or the other. It does, however, care about sales, so yes, there really is no obvious reason to try to kill promos that would in the long run bring in more sales.

To borrow one of Patty's metaphors, Amazon is like a large ship that takes forever to change course. I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that much of what we complain about is either efforts to stop scammers that develop too many false positives or outright malfunctions, neither of which get caught quickly enough. I think I've used this example before, but every so often, the automated mechanism that discounts paperbacks goes haywire. I've seen several instances of my paperbacks being sold below cost. Amazon has absolutely no rational reason to do this, and it cleared up a while ago, presumably when a live person actually noticed. That one glitch is obvious--but how many other things are glitching that we don't know about?

It's also important to keep in mind that totally innocent authors can have a successful book targeted by scammers to camouflage their own activities. We have no way of knowing when or how much that happens, which makes it doubly difficult to analyze what Amazon is really doing. It's no wonder so many conspiracy theories flourish. That will inevitably happen in the absence of sufficient data.

I used to like stacking promos, but I'm now shifting to a model that spreads them out, instead. It's true that I may lose some sales from not hitting a really high place on the lists, but at this point, that seems safer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the algos now seem friendlier to slower, steadier growth than to sudden spikes? Of course, that wouldn't help with a Bookbub (which I never get, anyway ) but perhaps cushioning the Boobkbub with some smaller promos beforehand to make the rank-boost less sudden.

I'm also taking the advice of someone on another forum and diversifying. I make a fair amount (from a prawn's point of view) in KU and made much less in my too earlier attempts at going wide, but I'm planning to take at least one series wide. At this point, that seems prudent.


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Patty Jansen said:


> ... there seriously is no cheaper way on the planet to put your book in front of 30-40k readers than to pay three hundred measly bucks for a Bookbub, and I'll take it, rank-stripping or no.


*
I agree*, but here's a fine-print, YMMV statement, and this goes for the cost-benefit ratio of mailing lists as well:

Results may vary for authors with a backlist of forty books selling 1,000 books per month versus authors with only a few books selling less than ten copies per month.


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

Bill Hiatt said:


> don't the algos now seem friendlier to slower, steadier growth than to sudden spikes? Of course, that wouldn't help with a Bookbub (which I never get, anyway ) but perhaps cushioning the Boobkbub with some smaller promos beforehand to make the rank-boost less sudden.


I don't stack anymore. I run about three days of smaller promos before the BB. Here's the thing, the rank boost from BB vs. any other site is huge. There's no way to get around that (and, really, why would we want to?). The jump is in the thousands of downloads pretty much as soon as the BB email goes out.

I've been running AMS ads pretty aggressively for the past week or so, then adding a few promo sites per day leading up to the Bookbub. I was rank stripped within...fifteen minutes...from the time I received my BB emails.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

It might seem crazy but I never record my rank before, during or after my promos. I just look at the downloads and the sales of other books on the tail of the promo. Maybe I'm weird, but to me the ranking and the reviews are none of my business, or at least not under my control and are what they are. I sleep well at night too


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

Bill Hiatt said:


> It's also important to keep in mind that totally innocent authors can have a successful book targeted by scammers to camouflage their own activities.


How the heck does that work?


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## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

TobiasRoote said:


> How the heck does that work?


They turn a click farm on your book so as to divert attention away from scam-authors. Sort of like chaff to a missile.


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I have to admit that I don't know how to make a book sticky and I've never had a Bookbub.
> 
> Just a quick comment as to why KU books might not be getting hit. (And maybe this is obvious to everyone else.) Is it because the computers can compare a spike in the charts to the author using one of the KU free days? Maybe that is one way to show it's not a bot/scammer and move on to the next one?
> 
> Not saying KU is better than wide or vice versa. I'm a prawn. LOL Just thought I'd ask.


Naw. Zon knows where the traffic is coming from. It's actually easier to correlate a bookbub email with a spike than it is a KU free day with a spike... because the KU system is so easily botted it's very hard to tell what's a bot account and what isn't. In theory zon should be behaving the opposite... temporarily deranking KU book spikes and being ultra cautious on non-KU books; but they are doing the opposite.

My suspicion is that they go easy on KU for the obvious reason that they don't want KU getting a rep for being dangerous to your rank. Heck, extra rank bump is one of the primary incentives for joining KU.

Ultimately I think it's as simple as: if you are in KU you are innocent until proven guilty. If you are wide, then you're guilty until proven innocent.

But the obvious caveat applies that this phenomenon is not uniform; not all bub books experience deranking.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

*Patty's rank is back in the U.S.. *

Alison, I hope your rank is back soon ... a few months back I lost my rank for a few hours. I'm wondering if this really isn't a big computer glitch.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

Laran Mithras said:


> They turn a click farm on your book so as to divert attention away from scam-authors. Sort of like chaff to a missile.


One assumes then, that if I was targeted I'd get lots of unexpected sales.


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

C. Gockel said:


> *Patty's rank is back in the U.S.. *
> 
> Alison, I hope your rank is back soon ... a few months back I lost my rank for a few hours. I'm wondering if this really isn't a big computer glitch.


That is good news!!

And thank you. I'm optimistic.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> Check your own site. I suspect more than 50% of your traffic is mobile. Now look at the mobile site of Amazon. You will see that it provide not even a WAY for readers to get onto the top 100 FREE list. Try it with your phone. Even if you go to the bottom and click "amazon.com full site" go to a book that's ranked top 100 free and try to clik on the link to top 100 free, it takes you to the top 100 paid. Do a drop down and you can only get top 100 paid, top 100 new release. I sat at the bar at NINC and realized this with T S Paul who was like "the Amazon people are right there, you can ask them about this . . ." because we both wondered if it was a glitch. It's 1.5 months later still doing that (and no I didn't bother the Amazon people with this), it's NOT A GLITCH.


Definitely not a glitch. It's been happening since at least April. That's when I noticed it. I had a BB for a free book, and I was away from the house all day. It drove me crazy that I couldn't keep an eye on my book's rank - only from my laptop.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

TobiasRoote said:


> There are a few observations here.
> 
> 1) Authors are gaming/attempting to 'game' the Amazon system to gain rank, visibility.
> 2) Technical trading (following a regimen to 'game' the system automatically) will result in anticipation from the algorithm machine and subsequent readjustment to return things to balance.
> ...


Tobias is right; whether legitimately or not, a great percentage of authors are trying to get that spike. We're playing the game.

If 10 of us on equal footing -- same genre, platform size, quality, etc -- all vie for the #1 spot by booking ads, that's nine authors who can't be #1. In reality, there are thousands of us playing the lotto, whether we want the boost in income or we want the pride of having a bestseller. Amazon has to account for that in its algorithms. It also has to account for the large amount of scammers.



Elizabeth Ann West said:


> I don't think you are being silly TobiasRoote. I agree with you that there are many perspectives in this industry and we as indies most often look at it from only our own perspective.
> 
> Amazon doesn't want sales spikes. They've punished the sudden upward velocity of books for years. Now, more so.
> 
> This is a major change and now we all have to adjust for it. My adjustments will be working harder in 2018 to make Amazon a lower percentage of my monthly income.


This has been my focus, too -- especially because I don't have hundreds of dollars to invest in chasing the spike. I've also started my Bachelor's in marketing, because I don't want to keep alternating methods that work "for now." I want to market my books using the science, leveraging various tools with that knowledge.


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## truc (Apr 2, 2015)

This is a very wee datapoint, but I put up a new book for preorder and it has no rank or categories. It's been like that for a few days, despite preorder numbers appearing in my KDP account dashboard. 

I should add that I have less than 10 preorders right now. I've run no promotions (have not even told my mailing list about it).

My vote is w/C. Gockel--there may be a systemwide glitch.


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

elizabethbarone said:


> If 10 of us on equal footing -- same genre, platform size, quality, etc -- all vie for the #1 spot by booking ads, that's nine authors who can't be #1.... Amazon has to account for that in its algorithms.


Personally, I think the _customers_ account for that by deciding which of those ten they buy most from. Ten authors might try, but only one of them is going to sell the most at any given time. Amazon's algorithms have their own way of weighing current sales against past sales, sure, but I doubt they try to model some kind of response to similar authors competing against each other at the same time, as if they need to arbitrate some form of fairness. It's a bestsellers list because it's driven by who is selling the best.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

elizabethbarone said:


> This has been my focus, too -- especially because I don't have hundreds of dollars to invest in chasing the spike. I've also started my Bachelor's in marketing, because I don't want to keep alternating methods that work "for now." I want to market my books using the science, leveraging various tools with that knowledge.


Agree. I've changed my marketing strategies as well. I'm staying away from short-term strategies; it doesn't help me to sell a crap ton of books on a $0.99 sale and then completely drop off the radar b/c the next 20 $0.99 bestsellers hit the charts. I'm trying to focus on what keeps my books selling consistently. I'd rather commit my advertising funds to things that keep my books at steady rankings; that is how my bills get paid every month. I've increased my prices, no longer have a permafree, re-vamped all my blurbs, and am working to keep a steady flow of new releases available along with daily FB Ads, BB Ads, and AMS ads. So far, the consistency is working better than my attempts to jump-start sales with massive promo-driven spikes.

I do love the heck outta BB & will run them as often as I can, but I'm seeing that it is no longer a sure-fire way to stand out in the crowd for the long term. There has to be more behind an advertising plan than just pouring tons of cash into a short-term period for a huge rank spike; books in the top 100 rotate through the ranks faster than a new version of anything by Microsoft needs to be patched.

Well, consistency is my goal anymore. I can't make a living by pimping my books out at $0.99 and pouring thousands into a week long promo stack in an uber-saturated market. It's about getting (and keeping) a handful of sales every day on multiple books in my catalog at a reasonable price point.


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## Nate Hoffelder (Jun 9, 2014)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> I don't think you are being silly TobiasRoote. I agree with you that there are many perspectives in this industry and we as indies most often look at it from only our own perspective.
> 
> Amazon doesn't want sales spikes. They've punished the sudden upward velocity of books for years. Now, more so.
> 
> This is a major change and now we all have to adjust for it. My adjustments will be working harder in 2018 to make Amazon a lower percentage of my monthly income.


If that were the case then why does Amazon have its own promo email service through GoodReads?
https://the-digital-reader.com/2016/05/17/move-over-bookbub-fussy-librarian-goodreads-is-getting-into-ebook-discounts/

I think you're working to hard to excuse Amazon here.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

Mylius Fox said:


> Personally, I think the _customers_ account for that by deciding which of those ten they buy most from. Ten authors might try, but only one of them is going to sell the most at any given time. Amazon's algorithms have their own way of weighing current sales against past sales, sure, but I doubt they try to model some kind of response to similar authors competing against each other at the same time, as if they need to arbitrate some form of fairness. It's a bestsellers list because it's driven by who is selling the best.


I think if those customers have ten choices in one week and only sufficient money for one book, then nine authors are going to lose out. If those ten authors spread their promotions over ten weeks, then each one might gain a sale. The trouble is thousands of authors are trying to do the same. So, the odds get longer and longer.

When I first started doing the lottery, it was in its infancy. I won quite often. When it reached the point of never winning the lottery was reaching saturation point.

It's a numbers 'game'


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

TobiasRoote said:


> I think if those customers have ten choices in one week and only sufficient money for one book, then nine authors are going to lose out.


I think it's more dynamic than that, because of those ten authors, only so many are going to share the same genre, for example. So it might not even be a matter of competing for the same customers; it's simply a snapshot of whoever happened to have convinced the most customers overall to purchase their product at that moment. Why would Amazon want or need to contrive a system to try to assist those authors who "lose out" (read: don't sell as much)?

The customers ultimately decide how authors rank in the list, Amazon simply decides how to facilitate how much weight those sales have across the passage of time...


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

Mylius Fox said:


> I think it's more dynamic than that, because of those ten authors, only so many are going to share the same genre, for example. So it might not even be a matter of competing for the same customers;


Your pushing the discussion out of context. It [this discussion] refers back to this point.



> If 10 of us on equal footing -- same genre, platform size, quality, etc -- all vie for the #1 spot by booking ads, that's nine authors who can't be #1.... Amazon has to account for that in its algorithms.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

Nate Hoffelder said:


> I think you're working to hard to excuse Amazon here.


I don't think anyone's trying to excuse Amazon. On the contrary we're saying Amazon is directly interfering in the efforts of people to gain momentum. It's just that the interference is one the one hand desirable, and on the other, not.


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

TobiasRoote said:


> Your pushing the discussion out of context. It [this discussion] refers back to this point.


...


> If 10 of us on equal footing -- same genre, platform size, quality, etc -- all vie for the #1 spot by booking ads, that's nine authors who can't be #1.... Amazon has to account for that in its algorithms.


Right, even within the same genre, not all customers have the same interests in sub-genres, but that's merely a side point. The real issue is nothing about that scenario poses a problem Amazon needs to account for in its algorithms, as far as I can see. Each author has their hourly sales total, and all Amazon needs to do is weigh them up over time and rank them from highest on down.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Nate Hoffelder said:


> If that were the case then why does Amazon have its own promo email service through GoodReads?
> https://the-digital-reader.com/2016/05/17/move-over-bookbub-fussy-librarian-goodreads-is-getting-into-ebook-discounts/
> 
> I think you're working to hard to excuse Amazon here.


That's a mid-2016 article. A lot has changed since then. What's the actual impact of this service?

As far as I can tell, the list is curated and currently not open to indies. That makes it quite different from BookBub. I'm not sure if it really works this way in practice, but it seems to have been originally designed to give readers an indication when items on their "to read" shelf went on sale. Again, the setup is rather different from the other services. Looking at today's recommendations without being logged in, it's a mix of other trad pub and Amazon imprints.


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

Checking in to say I got my rank back. It took about 4 hrs, but everything seems fine now.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> What I do disagree with is the ultimate level of importance a lot of writers ascribe to the "Amazon magic" (i.e. its unseen recommendation engine). The only time it becomes important is when your book goes sticky. And no one really knows how to do that.


What's your definition of "sticky?" My latest release has remained in the top 5000 on Amazon since it debuted at #63, three months ago tomorrow.

Sorry this happened, Patti. I agree Amazon needs to fine tune this bot detector. A ten pound sledge for a flyswatter is overkill. I'm actually worried about my launch next month. With a large number of sales in the first few hours after release, the bot is bound to pick up on it. Someone, I forget who, told me of an incident where an AMS ad triggered a rank stripping.

As others have mentioned, alerting Amazon to an upcoming promotion might not be a bad idea. No, it won't stop the computer from doing it, but if you alert them a few days ahead of time, you'll get an email reply, probably saying they don't understand what you're talking about. Then you can reply to that email when it does happen.

An ounce of prevention?


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Allyson J. said:


> Checking in to say I got my rank back. It took about 4 hrs, but everything seems fine now.


This was my experience too. I think it's just a bug in their system sometimes.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

maybe the new normal for a spike in the free lists is a temporary de-ranking.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

GeneDoucette said:


> maybe the new normal for a spike in the free lists is a temporary de-ranking.


Though it's happening to paid books too, according to David G.

I'm wondering if Amazon is automatically de-ranking books that rise fast, then running them through some sort of escalating series of algorithmic tests for scamming, either restoring their rank or leaving them rankless as they pass or fail the tests.

Is this happening consistently enough to say that *all* books that rise sharply in the ranks are being de-ranked for at least four hours?


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

GeneDoucette said:


> maybe the new normal for a spike in the free lists is a temporary de-ranking.


I'm not a big seller, but I ran a free promo on one of my books a ciuple weeks ago and the book didn't have a rank for about a day. I figured this was normal now too.

I'm glad Patty and Allyson's ranks have returned.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> Though it's happening to paid books too, according to David G.
> 
> I'm wondering if Amazon is automatically de-ranking books that rise fast, then running them through some sort of escalating series of algorithmic tests for scamming, either restoring their rank or leaving them rankless as they pass or fail the tests.
> 
> Is this happening consistently enough to say that *all* books that rise sharply in the ranks are being de-ranked for at least four hours?


Maybe a question is 'how sharp'. It's easier to shoot up quickly in the Free ranks than the Paid ranks. Maybe the reason free books are deranked more commonly than paid ones is that it's harder to get the necessary degree-of-movement-over-time ratio in the paid market. Would that fit the pattern we're seeing?


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

GeneDoucette said:


> Maybe a question is 'how sharp'. It's easier to shoot up quickly in the Free ranks than the Paid ranks. Maybe the reason free books are deranked more commonly than paid ones is that it's harder to get the necessary degree-of-movement-over-time ratio in the paid market. Would that fit the pattern we're seeing?


Yep. You know how sloping roads have a "grade" percentage, figured by 100 * rise/distance? Something like that.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Yeah, I don't think there's anything nefarious going on. I agree that it's likely a new system Amazon has implemented where a book that's suddenly spiking is temporarily removed from the rankings for further testing and then put back in should it pass those tests. 


The confusion and assumptions come from Amazon's usual practice of not being forthcoming with information about changes to their system. So, we're left to guess and squabble and point fingers while some kboards lurking Amazon engineer giggles from behind the curtain. Such is life.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

> As others have mentioned, alerting Amazon to an upcoming promotion might not be a bad idea. No, it won't stop the computer from doing it, but if you alert them a few days ahead of time, you'll get an email reply, probably saying they don't understand what you're talking about. Then you can reply to that email when it does happen.


There are two layers of robots. One layer of robots runs the algos tracking sales and reads and reacting On top of that is a layer or robots answering emails about the lower layer. I have given up assuming emails are answered by humans.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Well, I got the "we detected activity from accounts that manipulate sales rank" email. The book still has a rank.

Helpfully, they also removed another book of mine because the auto-currency calculation made it cheaper on another site.

I'm feeling zero love for Amazon.


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## baldricko (Mar 14, 2014)

Modi Gliani said:


> There are two layers of robots. One layer of robots runs the algos tracking sales and reads and reacting On top of that is a layer or robots answering emails about the lower layer. I have given up assuming emails are answered by humans.


I think you are very close to the truth!

We have had a thread about bots and how awfully easy it is to set them up on fb. Think about how much easier it would be for a corporation. Before you break into fits of laughter at the very idea ask yourself this question. Who is the richest man in the world? The answer is the founder of Amazon.

Just imagine for a moment if you had unlimited amounts of money to pour into AI-- what could you do with your algos and with your bots that interface with real humans. A lot more than us mere authors and readers would want to believe.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

My head hurts.

I AM NOT EXCUSING AMAZON. I have said numerous times on this board in fact that I do not trust working with Amazon to be my sole source of income. Did I try KU? Yes. I used those 6 months to head down and write and publish 6 titles. Then I thoughtfully moved wide, back in 2015. But I watched how Amazon handled affiliates back in the day and knew without a doubt I would never long-game trust Amazon to be my sole income provider. I've also said before, it's like the Godfather. I've seen too many people wake up with proverbial horse heads in their beds. And it IS often the excuse "I didn't know who I was with..." meaning people always think not them, nope Amazon won't shut them down, or put their books in QA loop hell.... until it is them. 

I am ticked off on Patty's behalf. I am ticked off still that I had to go round and round with them 2 weeks ago over copyright on my books and I use my legal name on everything. No ambiguity there. And I even had a bit of "won't happen to me..." mentality as friends all around me had books delisted when they changed a price over "prove your copyright." 

But what I do not do is go "oh well Amazon must be glitching...." because I afford them the respect that Amazon knows its business very well. Very well. They didn't become the #1 online retailer in the US and take 70-80% (depending on who is counting) of the ebook market in the US by mistake. If Amazon changes something, as they are wont to do, I accept that the change is deliberate and permanent. Perhaps a lot of these "glitches" and issues are the result of them just pulling back on the staff for KDP. Perhaps it's the result of pressure from up high to "FIX THE SCAMMING" because they were publicly humiliated earlier this year over it and so the definition of success changed from providing a very accessible publishing platform to providing a "will not embarrass us" publishing platform. Perhaps they realized they could exert a bit more pressure against outside advertising forces in the name of pursuing scammers and have the added benefit of people using their own marketing services? Who knows?

Regardless, like Patty says, we can only make decisions based on after the fact behavior because Amazon doesn't clue any of us into the loop. And like others, and like I have been doing, I don't make my business Amazon-centric. Amazon didn't invent selling things online, they didn't invent publishing books, they didn't even invent the file formats or operating systems of their devices. Amazon's core value system is they are going to do HIGH VOLUME at a lower cost. That's not MY value system. My value system is I'm going to create quality work as efficiently as I can sold at the price its worth. I know my business model is lower volume, higher margin. Amazon has always said they can do things on smaller margins because they will just go after higher volume.

Doesn't mean I won't sell on Amazon. Or that I don't wish Amazon-centric authors well, I do. It's about knowing what I want out of my business and pursuing that, even if other tactics and strategies would or could make me more money in the short-term, I have to plan and work for the long-term. I'm not wide for any altruistic reason to benefit other authors, I'm wide because my data tells me that's most sustainable system for me. I don't expect other authors to be KU or wide for altruistic reasons either, though I would say most money right now isn't always as safe as it sounds it's beyond difficult to mentally weather "the Zon giveth, the Zon taketh away...." Authors should be Amazon-centric or wide as those decisions align with their business goals and values systems.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

baldricko said:


> I think you are very close to the truth!
> 
> We have had a thread about bots and how awfully easy it is to set them up on fb. Think about how much easier it would be for a corporation. Before you break into fits of laughter at the very idea ask yourself this question. Who is the richest man in the world? The answer is the founder of Amazon.
> 
> Just imagine for a moment if you had unlimited amounts of money to pour into AI-- what could you do with your algos and with your bots that interface with real humans. A lot more than us mere authors and readers would want to believe.


There is only one human in Amazon. He is Jeff Bezos and he sits in a room locked from the inside thinking up new robots and reading what is going on on a bank of screens. He is the Wizard of Amazon and every author is Judy Garland trying to figure out what the hell is going on. It's an Asimovian nightmare.


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## Mylius Fox (Jun 2, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> Well, I got the "we detected activity from accounts that manipulate sales rank" email. The book still has a rank.


*_checks watch and realizes it's time for BookBub to comment on this_


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Modi Gliani said:


> There is only one human in Amazon. He is Jeff Bezos and he sits in a room locked from the inside thinking up new robots and reading what is going on on a bank of screens. He is the Wizard of Amazon and every author is Judy Garland trying to figure out what the hell is going on. It's an Asimovian nightmare.


Well, definitely a good possibility for science fiction. What if the bots became sentient (like the androids in the Westworld series) and took over? Are we sure Jeff is really still there? Maybe he was replaced by an android a few months back.

Remember the motto of the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation? "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."

(I'm not making light of the very real problems. I just thought we could all use a laugh at this point.)


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## The one with all the big dresses on the covers (Jan 25, 2016)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> What's your definition of "sticky?" My latest release has remained in the top 5000 on Amazon since it debuted at #63, three months ago tomorrow.
> 
> Sorry this happened, Patti. I agree Amazon needs to fine tune this bot detector. A ten pound sledge for a flyswatter is overkill. I'm actually worried about my launch next month. With a large number of sales in the first few hours after release, the bot is bound to pick up on it. Someone, I forget who, told me of an incident where an AMS ad triggered a rank stripping.
> 
> ...


Has anyone heard reports of new releases losing rank like this? Or has it just been following spikes on older books?


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

I've heard reports of:

Product description pages in the .com store in different languages.
Preorders having higher than usual loss of sales upon going live.
Books going live with 5+ days for any information to populate on the screen.
Price changes or any metadata changes in KDP trigger a copyright verification process.
Rank stripping on free and paid books in and out of KU with a variety of advertising used, about the only consistent thing is that the book had radical different performance.
More and more authors caught up in a "we detected suspicious activity on your account" emails, they write back they've done nothing, and they get "okay then, we will let this go but don't do it again" with no clarification on what "it" is.
Authors having their entire Also Boughts taken over by stuffed books all published one day with their rank out of whack and they have no ads running, they email KDP to be proactive like "I think I'm being targeted by a click farm" to the response of "we see nothing off about your book or the Also Boughts, have a nice day."

I don't know if things COULD be more scuppered if they TRIED.


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## Avis Black (Jun 12, 2012)

A couple months ago I happened to be glancing at once particular top 100 free chart in an rather obscure subsection and noticed that Amazon was trying to keep at least 8 KU books in every twenty slots or so of that chart, and it only allowed its KU books to decline in number once the chart ranks got above 60.  The only way to ensure that a 'correct' number of KU books is always available and visible to readers on these charts is to jigger the algo to favor them and push down non-KU books. 

But I just looked at the same chart today, and the amount of KU books in the 1-60 slots has almost doubled.  That may not be an accident.  Amazon is likely using this extra visibility for KU books over the holiday season (when a lot of people are looking at Amazon for their holiday shopping) to try to get more customers to sign up for KU.  But in doing so, they have to be deliberately handicapping non-KU books even more severely than before.


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## Nate Hoffelder (Jun 9, 2014)

Here's the official word from Amazon PR:


> Amazon monitors a variety of activities to detect efforts to manipulate sales rankings. While we don't disclose the methods we use to detect this type of abuse, our focus is on suspicious activity, not any particular promotional program that publishers and authors may use. As always publishers and authors are responsible for any third-party marketing activities used to promote their books, and so are strongly encouraged to make sure these activities don't manipulate our services. If a publisher or author believes there has been an error, they should contact us directly and we will investigate.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Nate Hoffelder said:


> Here's the official word from Amazon PR:


That's pretty much a carbon copy of what they say in the email you get.

So how about you target the nefarious accounts instead, huh, Amazon? Since you already know who they are.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Patty Jansen said:


> Well, I got the "we detected activity from accounts that manipulate sales rank" email. The book still has a rank.
> 
> Helpfully, they also removed another book of mine because the auto-currency calculation made it cheaper on another site.
> 
> I'm feeling zero love for Amazon.


Wait....so how do they figure this from a reputable Bookbub? This is so confusing. Amazon knows the spike from a Bookbub is unlike anything else. I wonder if they're just doing this as a form of habit now after large spikes, which still sucks. I'm sorry you're dealing with this!


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## CassieL (Aug 29, 2013)

I suspect the bots are set up to piggyback on any book that makes the top 50. Having a successful Bookbub puts a book in range for them to latch onto.


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## baldricko (Mar 14, 2014)

Cassie Leigh said:


> I suspect the bots are set up to piggyback on any book that makes the top 50. Having a successful Bookbub puts a book in range for them to latch onto.


I would go one step further and say the bots and the algos are being progressively set up to take over each and every aspect of the Amazon machine, save of course the very top jobs. Jeff B. actually thinks he will always control the AI he's set loose. Maybe, but in the meantime as all of that AI learns from its mistakes we who watch each and every detail as it affects our own sales see the results on a daily basis.

Keep in mind just how huge Amazon is. Today it opened in Australia. Amazon is vast, and I have heard it still does not make a profit, but no problem because it has end goals, and just like many of us don't mind spending a lot more on our ads than they return initially for some future payoff like vastly enhanced book ranking and readership, Amazon has clear targets in mind when the profits it makes will be huge and its rule will be global (bwahahaha).

That's what it looks like to me. That would explain why things appear to be going haywire in all directions and why nothing seems to be done about it. The means (the increasingly random way the authors and their products appear to be treated at the moment) justifies the ends. We simply aren't in on those board meetings, or in on the conversations held on the private yachts, etc. We don't know what those end goals are (or the end goal is).


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## Seneca42 (Dec 11, 2016)

baldricko said:


> Amazon has clear targets in mind when the profits it makes will be huge and its rule will be global (bwahahaha).


naw, that global hegemonic role is already taken by the banks. Trust me, anytime wall street wants to they can destroy zon overnight (well, not instantly, but over the course of 12 months).

Zon is the biggest case of self-fulfilling prophecy we've ever seen. Everyone believes they are unstoppable, and because of that they are unstoppable. But if JB forgets his place, JD and LB will put an end to him right quickly. Zon exists because the powers-that-be allow it to exist.

What's going on with zon now, I think, is that the centers of power within zon are well removed from the day-to-day of the business. This always happens. So processes are being put in to place by people who don't really care... it's just a "job" to them. They want to do well to make more money, but they don't have the investment, passion, or smarts to run things smoothly (and the guys who built zon are too busy enjoying their wealth to really monitor what's going on). So you get a chit show like we're seeing. That's my best guess.

It's only because their original model worked so well that they are able to coast along despite the obvious decline in proficiency.

The real test for zon will be when its competitors get their ecommerce act together. And that day is fast approaching. I just wish it would get here faster for ebooks (but unfortunately, no one seems to be mounting a real challenge in that market segment)


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## baldricko (Mar 14, 2014)

Seneca42 said:


> naw, that global hegemonic role is already taken by the banks. Trust me, anytime wall street wants to they can destroy zon overnight (well, not instantly, but over the course of 12 months).
> 
> Zon is the biggest case of self-fulfilling prophecy we've ever seen. Everyone believes they are unstoppable, and because of that they are unstoppable. But if JB forgets his place, JD and LB will put an end to him right quickly. Zon exists because the powers-that-be allow it to exist.
> 
> ...


Wha--? Why would 'JB forget his place?' What place are you talking about? What has 'JD and LB' to do with it? Questions, questions, always questions.

You do realize that line you quote me on was delivered tongue in cheek? Hence the "bwahahaha" at the end.

Amazon sells actual things you can touch or interact with somehow, Banking sells debt, er financial products. It really doesn't matter at JB's level which one of those you came from. Once you reach billionaire status you are on par whether it is through private banking or investment. JB is an investor.

These people might not like each other, they might step on others toes, but that's expected. One thing they don't do is set out to destroy each other, except when they see themselves as forced to go to war, and then they talk about nation against nation.

The billionaire club has one requirement. You must be a billionaire. To stay in it you must continue to be a billionaire. If you can't make money by selling the product than you start cutting costs. The most costly item is labor. Replacing real people with machines is one way to reduce the labor cost.

Giant corporations like bankers must cooperate. Otherwise they are engaging in a zero sum game. Inevitably, and sadly is a zero sum game anyway unless they expand their markets - hence the privatisation of space, proposals to mine asteroids, etc

Bots used to do the sorting and communicating at Amazon are all par for the course in this rush for greater profit.

But hey, what do I know, I'm just an author. And I digress from the subject of Patty's thread.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

MelanieCellier said:


> Has anyone heard reports of new releases losing rank like this? Or has it just been following spikes on older books?


*Yes, it's happened to newly released books. It's also happened to 99c wide, free books, KU books. No book is safe from this.* Anyone running a promotion is at risk. BookBub know this is happening and so far appear to be shrugging it off. I can't see them doing anything until it starts to hit their bottom line, and even then, what can they do? Remember, BookBubs happen every day but only a handful of books (that we know of) are getting stripped. However, there's a pretty high percentage of KBoarders who either know of someone this has happened to or have had it happen to them, and KBoards authors are a tiny fraction of the indies publishing with KDP - so perhaps this book yanking is happening far more than we realise but to authors who either don't know what's happening, or they don't have anywhere they can discuss what's happened.

It sucks. Amazon's knee-jerk finger pointing is degrading and unprofessional, but there's little-to-nothing we can do. If you publish with Amazon, you have to roll with their punches. That's just the way it is.

I'm glad you got your rank back, Patty, and I'm surprised you still got the manipulating ranks email. You're extremely lucky your book was only taken off the store for a day. Many are removed for days and weeks.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

I'm officially coining the phrase "rank yank."

*noun*
1. the removal of one's sales rank
"_Patty recently suffered a rank yank._"

*verb*
1. remove one's sales rank
"_If you promote a book, Amazon might rank yank it._"


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2017)

Anarchist said:


> I'm officially coining the phrase "rank yank."
> 
> *noun*
> 1. the removal of one's sales rank
> ...


I think some smelly American's might fit the bill too


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## Goulburn (May 21, 2014)

I'm sorry that as happened to you.

I've been having my own problem with Amazon which I hope will rectify itself. Perhaps they are so focused on the opening of Amazon AU physical goods sales today they haven't anyone doing good customer relations work. I need help from them too and I got a nonsense email in reply to my concerns that all my reviews, hundreds of them, disappeared when I moved my books from Pronoun on the day they announced they would close, and they haven't come back. 

I once hit the top 100 (no 55) Authors in Australia list, and someone from Amazon phoned me and gave me such a hard time, I give them details of all of my advertising spending to satisfy them that my ranking was legitimate. I stopped advertising my Amazon books after that as it left me shocked, rather that pleased by the results of advertising. I didn't share what happened here. I'm a bit shy about expressing self publishing problems I have unless I feel it will show support to someone else having a similar issue, not that I've ever made it made to 5 free. That was a fantastic result, and you would feel slammed in the gut to have that ranking removed.

Your books are excellent and you have a right to feel peeved that Amazon couldn't give you a pat to the back and say, "Well Done," rather than penalise you for an honest effort to sell books.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

This might shed some light on the "Amazon thought process".

First, you gotta remember that Amazon doesn't sell just books. They sell everything under the sun, and their algos, methods and systems will never really be of books specific. And the problem is that here people are always talking things book centric.

I recently read this book written by an exec who had worked at Amazon and with Overlord Jeff Bezo. https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Way-Leadership-Principles-Disruptive-ebook/dp/B01LZJSWKN/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1511456257&sr=1-1&keywords=the+amazon+way

One thing is very clear. We can stop wishing for a team of live people to review and check books to detect scams or whatever. Why? Because one of Bezo's tenent of principles to success is to entirely eliminate human "support". This is not something sinister or cost saving to replace humans with machines. His fundamental goal is to - believe it or not- give customers the best service possible. And the way to achieve it is to make the entire process so seamlessly automated so that the customer (that includes us, the vendors) can self-serve and will NEVER have to contact support. The process is to be perfected to the point that there should be no NEED to get a live person to help you. PLUS, he believes that live help always complicates the problem, because human help will mess things up. So if there's a glitch in the automated system, the solution is to continue to fix the automated system until it solves the problem. That means the botting problem will finally resolve ONLY WHEN Amazon finally figures out and perfected an algo and an automated process that will syphon out the botted books.

Until then, we're at their mercy. But it does give a glimpse of why things are the way they are, and we need to stop complaining about not live review team or why they don't do it the way Apple does it like live human checkers. It's because Jeff is convinced that his company works better than Apple by NOT having human review teams.

Just read that book and you'll see it's all right there.

The book does also say that Jeff is customers obssessed. I don't think that they "do not care". It's not about love or no love. They care deeply about customers. Going by this book, I do think that, to really bring this problem to their priority "to fix" list, what needs to happen is for all the concerned authors to act in concert and email Jeff with the same message. Not just one author or two authors, but enough authors to make them realize it's a very serious problem.

That said, in some ways, I think this is not a problem that affect most authors, because most authors don't ever get Bookbub, and most never make it to the overall store 100 list, free or paid. It is a problem, but TBH, one that affects a minority of authors.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

AlexaKang said:


> One thing is very clear. We can stop wishing for a team of live people to review and check books to detect scams or whatever. Why? Because one of Bezo's tenent of principles to success is to entirely eliminate human "support". This is not something sinister or cost saving to replace humans with machines. His fundamental goal is to - believe it or not- give customers the best service possible. And the way to achieve it is to make the entire process so seamlessly automated so that the customer (that includes us, the vendors) can self-serve and will NEVER have to contact support. The process is to be perfected to the point that there should be no NEED to get a live person to help you. PLUS, he believes that live help always complicates the problem, because human help will mess things up. So if there's a glitch in the automated system, the solution is to continue to fix the automated system until it solves the problem. That means the botting problem will finally resolve ONLY WHEN Amazon finally figures out and perfected an algo and an automated process that will syphon out the botted books.
> 
> Until then, we're at their mercy. But it does give a glimpse of why things are the way they are, and we need to stop complaining about not live review team or why they don't do it the way Apple does it like live human checkers. It's because Jeff is convinced that his company works better than Apple by NOT having human review teams.


This seems to match my experience as a publisher but not as an Amazon customer. The main store's customer service is excellent. I can always get a real person on chat immediately, and they always make right whatever has gone wrong, even if it's not their fault. On several occasions, they've replaced packages that were delivered but stolen off my porch. Pricey items, too. Once they took back a laptop that failed two days after the 30-day return period ended. They even waived the restocking fee. Basically, they bend over backwards to help me. Now, admittedly, I'm someone who spends thousands of dollars a year in the store, but we have authors who put a lot more money in Amazon's coffers as vendors than I do with my customer dollars.

Dunno. It doesn't really make sense to me outside the no-competition-leads-to-a-bad-product explanation. There's just no one out there pushing KDP to up its game, so why should Amazon bother funding improvements?


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2017)

Becca Mills said:


> This seems to match my experience as a publisher but not as an Amazon customer. The main store's customer service is excellent. I can always get a real person on chat immediately, and they always make right whatever has gone wrong, even if it's not their fault. On several occasions, they've replaced packages that were delivered but stolen off my porch. Pricey items, too. Once they took back a laptop that failed two days after the 30-day return period ended. They even waived the restocking fee. Basically, they bend over backwards to help me. Now, admittedly, I'm someone who spends thousands of dollars a year in the store, but we have authors who put a lot more money in Amazon's coffers as vendors than I do with my customer dollars.
> 
> Dunno. It doesn't really make sense to me outside the no-competition-leads-to-a-bad-product explanation. There's just no one out there pushing KDP to up its game, so why should Amazon bother funding improvements?


It's simple really when you think about it Alexa's point is that Jef Bezos is aiming to to do away with humans. He hasn't achieved that yet. He knows for sure, that if he doesn't front his main [retail] customer base with human faces (while building his super AI) he will lose business. Where WE are losing as authors is that we have standard problems that CAN be automated, or at the very least turned into 'EXPERT SYSTEMS' that a human can control from the back end. Which is why I believe this rank stripping is an automated procedure with a human overlord checking things are working according to algorithm expectations. They only step in when the algo misses, then it's tweaked and they await the next incidence. You won't know a thing when they finally get it right and move onto the next issue.

I'm in the middle of a BB right now, but it hasn't tripped anything in the algorithm yet, because it's a slower moving book. I'm still ecstatic with the sales, but it's not hyper-reacting and causing that algorithm to flag it. (and I wouldn't care if it did).


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

AlexaKang said:


> This might shed some light on the "Amazon thought process".
> 
> First, you gotta remember that Amazon doesn't sell just books. They sell everything under the sun, and their algos, methods and systems will never really be of books specific. And the problem is that here people are always talking things book centric.
> 
> ...


I extract some hope from this, because Jeff Bezos, whatever else he may be, is intelligent. At some point, he's going to realize that there are some things that can't be automated, and detecting scam books may well be one of them.

Realistically, we're also reaching a point at which further automation won't be sustainable. Driverless cars could well eventually replace taxi drivers, Uber and Lyft drivers, etc. Plans are afoot to automate most fast food jobs and eventually even restaurants. The list goes on. The problem is that our economy doesn't work unless there are enough consumers to keep buying the products served to us by automatons. Drive enough people into unemployment, and the customer bases begins to wither.

Elon Musk has already proposed a steep tax on machines that take the place of people. That's an idea that probably isn't going to catch on right away but could eventually.


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2017)

JRTomlin said:


> Nonsense. Businesses advertise and that includes publishing businesses. It is part of any business progression. Saying you should publish you novels and then cross your fingers that thousands of people 'naturally' discover it is absurd.


You're entitled to your opinion. I won't hold it against you in any way, shape or form  The fact that Amazon appears to agree with me because they terminate spikes abruptly (fairly, unfairly, right or wrong) would negate your view.

I have seen 'ramping' of products and services in many areas in my business career. There is a big difference between that and organic/dynamic growth. One is a 'bubble' the other is stable and has legs.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> Dunno. It doesn't really make sense to me outside the no-competition-leads-to-a-bad-product explanation. There's just no one out there pushing KDP to up its game, so why should Amazon bother funding improvements?


To me, that's the heart of the problem. Customers aren't much affected by the problems we see. Despite all the glitches, Amazon can keep them supplied with books. The fact that it doesn't deal with some of its vendors well is an issue only for those vendors.

If competitors were strong enough to offer us incentives not to be exclusive with Amazon--or even perhaps to be exclusively non-Amazon--then Amazon would do more. It upped the royalty rate when Apple raised theirs, and Apple was doing quite a bit of showcasing indie books at the time, but Apple has since done very little to make publishing with them more appealing. Barnes and Noble occasionally does things, like making a hardcover option available to Nook Press writers--and then kills the whole thing by not giving it distribution channels. Kobo's ads appear promising right now, so maybe something will come of that, but probably not enough to make Amazon really take notice. Of course, Rakuten is another massive company like Amazon that might also lose interest in ebooks when it has so many irons in the fire. The same is probably true of Google, which might also have had the clout to compete more with Amazon if it had really wanted to.

In last five years, Amazon has moved from 60% of the US ebook market to over 83%. It's even higher than that in the UK, despite all the Amazon boycott activities a few years ago. Even in places like Canada and Australia, where the Amazon presence was a lot lower five years ago, Amazon has something like 60%. Authors can go wide--but it would be pretty hard to make a living from all the other outlets without Amazon.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

JRTomlin said:


> Nonsense. Businesses advertise and that includes publishing businesses. It is part of any business progression. Saying you should publish your novels and then cross your fingers that thousands of people 'naturally' discover it is absurd.


I think the issue is not so much advertise vs. not advertise as it is how to advertise. I'm not sure Tobias is saying just cross your fingers. I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what he was saying was that big bursts of advertising aimed at producing huge spikes may not be the way to go.

It does seem as if Amazon, whether deliberately or accidentally, is making it more difficult for spikes to have a long-term benefit. It used to be easier to ride that tail, which has now shrunken considerably, has it not? Unless one is shooting for a bestseller list, it seems as if having lots of little ads over time is better. Of course, the two approaches are not mutually exclusive, but if Amazon is going to keep raining on the parade for at least some people, for me that shifts the balance in terms of how I'd want to advertise. Of course, never having gotten a BookBub, I may have a very different view from those of you who've seen enormous benefits from them in the past.


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2017)

Bill Hiatt said:


> I think the issue is not so much advertise vs. not advertise as it is how to advertise. I'm not sure Tobias is saying just cross your fingers. I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what he was saying was that big bursts of advertising aimed at producing huge spikes may not be the way to go.


Correct! Think of it like this.
Author A does a BB on Monday, gets a spike and rides the tail.
Author B does a BB on Tuesday, gets a spike and rides the tail.
Author C does a BB on Wednesday, gets a spike and rides the tail.
Author D does a BB on Thursday, gets a spike and rides the tail.

Fill in the blanks, then multiply it by as many promotions as you tend to use in the course of a campaign.

Now, look at it from Amazon's point of view. They want to give their readers/buyers customers a good experience, so they try to create a system that rewards the products that are steadily selling good numbers of items on a week in week out basis, then they come across these spikes, thousands of them which upset Amazon's attempts at presenting a cogent and reputable system for putting good material in front of the reader. Just because it spikes on a free, or 99 cent offer doesn't mean its good material or worthy of high rank. Yet Amazon WANTS the reader to have that good experience so trips the spike over to keep the rankings meaningful. You have one objective, but it's not Amazon's. They are doing whatever they have to in the interest of the reader/customer.

AMS might be more acceptable to Amazon because they can control the reader/customer experience. External forces creating unknown results doesn't suit their world because it distorts everything. Which has been my argument from the outset nearly two years ago. Flogging something to death isn;t marketing and promotion - it's ramping or spiking and Amazon don't appear to like it.


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## It&#039;s A Mystery (Mar 14, 2017)

Bill Hiatt said:


> I extract some hope from this, because Jeff Bezos, whatever else he may be, is intelligent. At some point, he's going to realize that there are some things that can't be automated, and detecting scam books may well be one of them.
> 
> Realistically, we're also reaching a point at which further automation won't be sustainable. Driverless cars could well eventually replace taxi drivers, Uber and Lyft drivers, etc. Plans are afoot to automate most fast food jobs and eventually even restaurants. The list goes on. The problem is that our economy doesn't work unless there are enough consumers to keep buying the products served to us by automatons. Drive enough people into unemployment, and the customer bases begins to wither.
> 
> Elon Musk has already proposed a steep tax on machines that take the place of people. That's an idea that probably isn't going to catch on right away but could eventually.


Universal basic income, shorter working weeks and more job shares help to solve that.

We need to start focusing on social time rather than working constantly all our lives. We should be embracing it, not smashing the machines.


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2017)

A.G.B said:


> Universal basic income, shorter working weeks and more job shares help to solve that.
> 
> We need to start focusing on social time rather than working constantly all our lives. We should be embracing it, not smashing the machines.


Absolutely! More time to read


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## Nate Hoffelder (Jun 9, 2014)

TobiasRoote said:


> Correct! Think of it like this.
> Author A does a BB on Monday, gets a spike and rides the tail.
> Author B does a BB on Tuesday, gets a spike and rides the tail.
> Author C does a BB on Wednesday, gets a spike and rides the tail.
> ...


If Amazon doesn't like sales spikes then why does it offer some of its titles - free - to Amazon Prime members each month? This causes the titles to jump up the best-seller list.

If Amazon doesn't like sales spikes then why does it have its own spike-making email promotions (Goodreads, but also a several newsletters)?

i think you are trying so hard to excuse Amazon's actions here that you overlooked the fact that Amazon could have lessened the impact of sales spikes by quietly changing their ranking algorithms. There was no need to take a drastic and obvious step of rank-yanking.


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## It&#039;s A Mystery (Mar 14, 2017)

TobiasRoote said:


> Absolutely! More time to read


Ha! Exactly! These could be boom years for authors with no one working!


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2017)

Nate Hoffelder said:


> i think you are trying so hard to excuse Amazon's actions here that you overlooked the fact that Amazon could have lessened the impact of sales spikes by quietly changing their ranking algorithms.


Oh! I don't think I'm trying to excuse Amazon here. I think I'm trying to explain why the spiking is being blunted. If amazon chooses to manage its own marketing to gain impact in it's own way and external forces are interfering with that you will get the same result. In the end the authors 'en masse' are all trying to 'spike' or 'game' the Amazon system. Amazon will fight back in whatever way it deems applicable to ensure that it remains in control of its own platform. If you cannot see the massive impact that all of these very powerful promotions are having, then you're not going to see it from Amazon's perspective at all.

In the end, like everyone here, I would like my books to be bestsellers. I'm not on Amazon's side, but I do pick my battles. I don't think they like these spikes and they are, at the moment, experimenting with stopping them. They may keep doing it, they may, as you say alter the algorithms. I just think the more people apply themselves to this form of mass exposure marketing, the more Amazon is going to attempt to control its effect on their business model.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Bill Hiatt said:


> To me, that's the heart of the problem. Customers aren't much affected by the problems we see. Despite all the glitches, Amazon can keep them supplied with books. The fact that it doesn't deal with some of its vendors well is an issue only for those vendors.
> 
> If competitors were strong enough to offer us incentives not to be exclusive with Amazon--or even perhaps to be exclusively non-Amazon--then Amazon would do more. It upped the royalty rate when Apple raised theirs, and Apple was doing quite a bit of showcasing indie books at the time, but Apple has since done very little to make publishing with them more appealing. Barnes and Noble occasionally does things, like making a hardcover option available to Nook Press writers--and then kills the whole thing by not giving it distribution channels. Kobo's ads appear promising right now, so maybe something will come of that, but probably not enough to make Amazon really take notice. Of course, Rakuten is another massive company like Amazon that might also lose interest in ebooks when it has so many irons in the fire. The same is probably true of Google, which might also have had the clout to compete more with Amazon if it had really wanted to.
> 
> In last five years, Amazon has moved from 60% of the US ebook market to over 83%. It's even higher than that in the UK, despite all the Amazon boycott activities a few years ago. Even in places like Canada and Australia, where the Amazon presence was a lot lower five years ago, Amazon has something like 60%. Authors can go wide--but it would be pretty hard to make a living from all the other outlets without Amazon.


Absolutely, Bill -- we're in agreement. It's extra frustrating that the companies that really want to compete with Amazon (such as Kobo and B&N) are way out of Amazon's league when it comes to resources, while the two companies that might be able to bury Amazon when it comes to ebooks (Apple and Google, because they power the devices people read on and run the stores those devices automatically connect to) aren't interested in competing in any significant way. Such a bummer.


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## jaehaerys (Feb 18, 2016)

Becca Mills said:


> Absolutely, Bill -- we're in agreement. It's extra frustrating that the companies that really want to compete with Amazon (such as Kobo and B&N) are way out of Amazon's league when it comes to resources, while the two companies that might be able to bury Amazon when it comes to ebooks (Apple and Google, because they power the devices people read on and run the stores those devices automatically connect to) aren't interested in competing in any significant way. Such a bummer.


You never know, Becca. Amazon may come to dominate so much that they'll be broken up under anti-trust legislation. Here's hoping.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Anarchist said:


> I'm officially coining the phrase "rank yank."
> 
> *noun*
> 1. the removal of one's sales rank
> ...


My grammar-gut says the verb should be rank-yank.


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## TellNotShow (Sep 15, 2014)

dgaughran said:


> I keep repeating this:
> 
> I've had direct reports of something like 40 different authors who were ranked stripped. Most shared comprehensive details of what promo was involved.
> 
> ...


This seems a fairly comprehensive list. And it's been added to by others during the thread, for instance even new releases can be rank stripped.

Also, someone (can't find it now, sorry, but it was a great point) noted that even Amazon Imprint authors have had their self-pubbed books rank stripped.

So it seems that the only books that aren't subject to rank stripping are those from actual Amazon imprints.

Hmmmm.


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## Guest (Nov 24, 2017)

and I wasn't rank-stripped on my International BookBub despite getting to No.1 in UK and CA. So, go figure.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

TobiasRoote said:


> and I wasn't rank-stripped on my International BookBub despite getting to No.1 in UK and CA. So, go figure.


Was that #1 overall in UK/CA or a sub-category?

Also... I thought you were against inorganic spikes? How does applying for a BookBub jive with that? It's the most inorganic spike of all.


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## Guest (Nov 24, 2017)

dgaughran said:


> Also... I thought you were against inorganic spikes? How does applying for a BookBub jive with that? It's the most inorganic spike of all.


Who said I wasn't interested in advertising. Difference is I'm in it to sell books, not gain rank. I don't usually bother with rank at all and was only monitoring it [because of this thread and a few others] to see if I was 'spiked'. As it was I'm very pleased with book sales of Mutant Hunter and I didn't see any 'spike' issues at all. So, maybe there's something else going on here?


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

TobiasRoote said:


> Who said I wasn't interested in advertising.


Literally nobody. I said you were against inorganic spikes, based on your repeated statements here and the _nudge nuge_ comments that something fishy must be at play.

And yet here you are advertising on BookBub, which generates the most inorganic spike of all. Just trying to understand that apparent contradiction. Seems pretty strange to be advancing a theory that Amazon hates paid advertising and big promotions and "inorganic spikes" and then seek to generate one yourself by placing an ad on the biggest ad platform in the industry.

(To avoid confusion: I think this theory is ludicrous. Amazon doesn't want people to promote their books? LOL.)


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## Guest (Nov 24, 2017)

dgaughran said:


> I think this theory is ludicrous. Amazon doesn't want people to promote their books? LOL


Your entitled to your opinion (I hate repeating myself). Where did I say Amazon didn't want you to promote your books? I put forward some ideas about why people were being spiked along with a few theories about what's occurring.  What you think is none of my concern.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

TobiasRoote said:


> Where did I say Amazon didn't want you to promote your books?


Here.



TobiasRoote said:


> In the end the authors 'en masse' are all trying to 'spike' or 'game' the Amazon system. Amazon will fight back in whatever way it deems applicable to ensure that it remains in control of its own platform. If you cannot see the massive impact that all of these very powerful promotions are having, then you're not going to see it from Amazon's perspective at all.


Here.



TobiasRoote said:


> it's ramping or spiking and Amazon don't appear to like it.


Here.



TobiasRoote said:


> Now, look at it from Amazon's point of view. They want to give their readers/buyers customers a good experience, so they try to create a system that rewards the products that are steadily selling good numbers of items on a week in week out basis, then they come across these spikes, thousands of them which upset Amazon's attempts at presenting a cogent and reputable system for putting good material in front of the reader.


Here.



TobiasRoote said:


> and yet authors still try to 'spike' the system instead of accepting a more natural progressive growth of sales on the back of actual popularity of the book and organic take-up. Which I believe would not warrant any reaction at all by Amazon's 'spike bots'


You don't seem to understand what the basic terms mean.

The punishment is "rank-stripping" not "spiking" (Amazon refers to it internally as rank stopping).

A "spike" is a "sales spike" - i.e. a large one-off increase of sales, like a BookBub ad.


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## Guest (Nov 24, 2017)

I think I proposed that they rank strip to stop the rank from spiking. And I don't think they DO like it. Hence my comments. Anyway, it's Friday night here, and I'm a social animal so have to go out and enjoy myself. Have a Great Thanksgiving weekend for those of you who enjoy that feast.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

TobiasRoote said:


> I think I proposed that they rank strip to stop the rank from spiking. And I don't think they DO like it. Hence my comments. Anyway, it's Friday night here, and I'm a social animal so have to go out and enjoy myself. Have a Great Thanksgiving weekend for those of you who enjoy that feast.


If that's what you think, why would you advertise on BookBub? That seems an odd contradiction. Not that I think much of the theory that Amazon doesn't want people to advertise their books in ways that drive people to the Amazon storefront.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Lynna said:


> A person could have a hypothesis for why something is happening and still think it's worth the risk for the benefit to the individual despite the rank stripping.


As David Gaughran documented above, the poster has gone on the record as being hostile toward "rank spiking" (aka "advertising"), and thinks that the only kind of sales growth the matters is the organic kind, whatever that means. That he then is running paid advertising on the biggest, best-known advertising platform of all seems logically inconsistent, if not downright hypocritical.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

A.G.B said:


> Universal basic income, shorter working weeks and more job shares help to solve that.
> 
> We need to start focusing on social time rather than working constantly all our lives. We should be embracing it, not smashing the machines.


I agree with you, but what alarms me is that the machines-removing-jobs piece is moving forward. The other pieces aren't, at least in the US. It's a lot easier for people to adopt technology than it is to adopt technology and change their whole economic philosophy to accommodate that change.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Tobias having a BB is a delicious twist in an otherwise bland thread.

Priceless.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I have just asked the moderators to kill this thread, because the discussion here has gotten ridiculous.

What flippin right does anyone have to suggest that because it happened to me (and I got my rank back, thanks) I must have done something nefarious because... I dunno? 

Just take a hike.

I'm signing off.


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## It&#039;s A Mystery (Mar 14, 2017)

Bill Hiatt said:


> I agree with you, but what alarms me is that the machines-removing-jobs piece is moving forward. The other pieces aren't, at least in the US. It's a lot easier for people to adopt technology than it is to adopt technology and change their whole economic philosophy to accommodate that change.


Totally agree, my comment was more aimed at the world than you!


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## Guest (Nov 24, 2017)

MonkeyScribe said:


> As David Gaughran documented above, the poster has gone on the record as being hostile toward "rank spiking" (aka "advertising"), and thinks that the only kind of sales growth the matters is the organic kind, whatever that means. That he then is running paid advertising on the biggest, best-known advertising platform of all seems logically inconsistent, if not downright hypocritical.


Ditto ^

And its coming from a poster who has stated numerous times he's just here to use info/data that will benefit him with no intention to share, help, or pay it forward. Good use for the ignore button right there.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Licking, errr, locking this thread while we review and discuss Patty's request. The thread does seem to have derailed for now. Check back later--lots of other threads.

Betsy

Edited to correct typo


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