# B&N and incorrect rankings



## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

I alluded to this in another thread, but I thought I'd go ahead and post about it in its own thread.

My bestseller on B&N (an erotic romance written under my other name) sold 3300 copies last month. This month it appeared to be gearing up for bigger and better things, selling 365 copies in the first two days of April. It was #30 on the PubIt bestseller list, but when I looked at it on April 2, I was surprised to note that despite its sales, its overall Nookstore rankings had dropped from the high 100s to the 1100s. I also noticed that some other erotic romances (most notably Tina Folsom's _Lawful Escort_, which was the #1 PubIt book) were ranked in the 1100s. And yet they were still on the bestseller list, so I decided that either there were a lot more items being released on Nook, or that it must be a glitch of some kind.

That evening, however, my book dropped off the top 100 PubIt books (on a day it sold 200 copies). I noticed that most other erotica books had dropped out of the top 50 as well, including _Lawful Escort_. Strangely, there was still one erotic Tina Folsom book on the list (her _Venice Vampyr_ is currently #2 in the PubIt store, and #69 in the Nookstore), but everything else with erotic content seemed to be gone from the top 50 PubIt list. I've asked around, and a couple of other erotica authors have noticed the same thing-- their bestselling books have been inexplicably saddled with a ranking that doesn't match sales in the least, and their books have subsequently dropped off the PubIt top 100.

It's difficult to say exactly what's going on-- if it's another volley aimed only at erotica books, then why is Tina Folsom's _Venice Vampyr_ in the top 100 now?-- but it should nevertheless act as a reminder to us all that our sales are at the mercy of outside forces. I may have a few fans that look for my other name over there, but most of my sales depend on exposure, so my sales on that book dropped from 200 a day to 30 a day, and I expect they'll drop further today. I have written B&N, of course, but my book no longer "deserves" the higher ranking thanks to its sudden drop in sales, so there's no real chance they'll reinstate its ranking.

Anyway, it's something for everyone to be aware of. For all I know it may be happening to books outside the erotica genre as well. And even if it's not, it's a reminder that we as indie writers are vulnerable to the whims of the companies that carry our books, and that those whims are not always fair.


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## jessicamorse (Jan 31, 2011)

Very strange. We finally got also boughts for PubIt, and now more weirdness. 

It does seem strange that all of the sudden (aside from Tina's one book) all the erotic titles have fallen off the top 50. And as you said, Ellen, now that you're missing the exposure, sales will actually drop to match the ranking change, so there's no way to "prove" it was wrong.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

This happened to me as well.  

Friday, my books were ranked between 150 and 200. Then suddenly, they were 1200, and I noticed that some of the search results had changed. However, it didn't seem to change the browsing line up for Erotica. My Friday and Saturday sales were great. 

But then something did change and a whole new set of books too our places in Bestselling for Erotica. Either it was early Sunday morning or late Saturday, but my sales yesterday were roughly 10% of what they had been. It was a horrible shock. Today's numbers are looking even worse  I thought about contacting B&N but I doubt much can be done now. Like you said, now my sales don't justify the former ranking--thanks to the loss of the exposure. 

Extremely disappointing!


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## Tina Folsom (Sep 22, 2010)

Ellen, thanks for posting this thread. I was away on a writing retreat the last five days without internet access, and was only able to react to all this yesterday afternoon.

What Ellen is reporting is correct. For whatever reason, Venice Vampyr is holding its ranking while my other books all dropped into the 1000s. Lawful Escort was in the top 100 of Nookbooks (not just Pubit) for over a week selling several hundreds of copies a day. According to my husband who watched my sales while I was gone, I continued to sell the same amounts while on the Bestseller list, including on Friday, and Saturday, and apparently on Friday my rank dropped from #33 overall to #1,034, and has been sliding ever since. Which is completely impossible, because Venice Vampyr which was holding around 90 - 100 at the same time sold about 1/3 of what I sold on Lawful Escort.

Why Venice Vampyr is still holding onto its ranking (currently at 74), I don't know, because it's in the same categories (ie. Erotica) with very similar keywords as Lawful Escort. I can only assume that it slipped through the cracks.

Lawful Escort is now selling about 20 copies a day (instead of several hundreds) because it's disappeared from the lists it's been on. 

Needless to say, I'm furious about what B&N has done because empirical evidence (Lawful Escort vs. VV sales) suggests that they basically added 1000 to the rankings to penalize erotic authors once more.

Please, when responding to this thread, let's keep it on topic: this is about B&N manipulating the rankings to make certain books/genres less visible. It's not about whether we deserve it or not.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Tina, it appears BN only did this to some erotic books, not all. Specifically, it seems to have affected books ranked at or better than 200. I noticed, coincidentally that the sudden change in rank came at the precise time when BN reactivated a book that was temporarily unavailable due to content issues. When that book became available for purchase, our ranks plummeted. I wonder if BN manipulated our ranks to allow that book to maintain its position in the top 10 of Erotica. 

I'm so frustrated about this. I called BN. Talked to someone who told me to email her the details. Just did that. I'll let you all know if I get anywhere. But with the AWFUL sales I'm seeing now, I don't know what they can do  In a blink, 5 months of working and promoting is gone. Needless to say, I'm hoping for a miracle here.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Selena, you said "last time". Is this a regular thing at BN? Do they reset their rankings on a periodic basis? Knock the top down to give other books a chance to move up?

That was my theory yesterday...



Selena_Kitt said:


> They kept one in the top last time - Bella's book. It's like they're trying to create a decoy or something.
> 
> I sound like some crazy conspiracy theorist, I know.
> 
> I'm going to go pull my hair out, pace around my house and mutter now...


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2011)

It seems like we're talking about 2 different things: rankings and search results.

Rankings change all the time depending on how a book is doing, and you're saying they are manipulating the ranking to push erotica books out of the top spots. I'm not convinced that rankings in and of themselves mean sales. So I'm not surprised to hear your book was still selling hundreds even at a ranking of 1100. Like with Amazon, ranking seems to be pretty much just an ego thing.

Search results, which do a huge amount to influence sales, change all the time too, and our books are at the mercy of whatever algorithm they are implementing. I don't think this is something you can complain about (which you aren't, the OP makes the same point), because it is complete luck of the draw. Holly Hook who writes YA Fantasy was selling thousands a month because of good search results and then one day the algorithm changed and decimated her sales. That happens and you just have to enjoy it while it lasts. The motto here seems to be: "Live and die by the search results."

To say changes in search results "aren't fair" is difficult. There are tons of authors and books out there who would kill for that kind of exposure.


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## Tina Folsom (Sep 22, 2010)

foreverjuly said:


> I'm not convinced that rankings in and of themselves mean sales.


Actually they do, because they determine where you show up in the browsing areas. Lawful Escort was on the Top 100 B&N: it's not showing up on that list anymore. It also was on the first page when you go to the romance section in B&N: gone from there too. And my sales on that book are now at less than 5% of what they were before. Visibility is extremely important. And my visibility for this book has dropped to virtually zero because of the new ranking.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Forever, what I've personally noted on B&N is that ranking determines where your book falls within its category for searching, and eventually, for browsing (it seems to take a little longer for the browsing categories to reset). Therefore, when the top twenty erotic books went from 100's to 1100's, their positions were knocked off those first pages for searching. That caused a domino effect that has our sales spiraling downward.

If I was convinced my sales justified a sudden drop in ranking, then I wouldn't be compelled to contact BN. However, my sales on Saturday were better than Friday, and yet my ranking didn't go back up. And, in fact, some of my lesser selling books bypassed my best sellers in rank. This makes no sense to me.

I did contact BN, explained what happened and asked if there is anything they can do. I'm hopeful but not expecting anything.



foreverjuly said:


> It seems like we're talking about 2 different things: rankings and search results.
> 
> Rankings change all the time depending on how a book is doing, and you're saying they are manipulating the ranking to push erotica books out of the top spots. I'm not convinced that rankings in and of themselves mean sales. So I'm not surprised to hear your book was still selling hundreds even at a ranking of 1100. Like with Amazon, ranking seems to be pretty much just an ego thing.
> 
> ...


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Sorry to be a thicky, but where do you find the rankings on Barnes & Noble?


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## Lisa Hinsley (Jan 11, 2010)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Sorry to be a thicky, but where do you find the rankings on Barnes & Noble?


Thank goodness, I'm not the only one! I figured mine was selling so few, it didn't show up.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

On your book's page, the ranking will appear on the Overview tab, under Product Details.



Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Sorry to be a thicky, but where do you find the rankings on Barnes & Noble?


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## Scott Neumyer (Dec 8, 2010)

Something we also have to keep in mind with B&N rankings. I'm pretty sure they're based of profit rather than total number sold.

For example, a good friend of mine had a book at 7.99 and it was selling really well... Ranked 30 overall at the time. This friend changed the price of the book to $0.99 just to see what would happen. About two seconds later, the ranking had dropped to around 130. BIG difference. As soon as they changed the price back to 7.99, the ranking went right back up to where it was.

Interesting, no? My only conclusion is that they not only count in the overall sales but overall profitability. Who knows... Interesting idea though...


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Really, Scott? This is interesting!

I didn't change my price last weekend, so I doubt that played a role. I haven't seen the same effect when I've put my books "on sale" at a lower price in the past.

Very interesting.

Maybe I'll go take a look at the pricing of those top ranked books now...



Scott Neumyer said:


> Something we also have to keep in mind with B&N rankings. I'm pretty sure they're based of profit rather than total number sold.
> 
> For example, a good friend of mine had a book at 7.99 and it was selling really well... Ranked 30 overall at the time. This friend changed the price of the book to $0.99 just to see what would happen. About two seconds later, the ranking had dropped to around 130. BIG difference. As soon as they changed the price back to 7.99, the ranking went right back up to where it was.
> 
> Interesting, no? My only conclusion is that they not only count in the overall sales but overall profitability. Who knows... Interesting idea though...


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## AnneMarie Novark (Aug 15, 2010)

I'm very sorry to hear this. 

I know B&N's rankings and searches have affected the erotica genre the hardest, but something happened between January and February that affected the sales of my romance books, too.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what happened to make sales plummet.

I hope things will straighten out for everyone.


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## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

Interesting, because my BN.com ranking on my free ebook just improved A LOT. I used to always be at 1950-2000 (with very little change), but now I'm at 1,210 (and over the last couple days my ranking improved by about 150). So I think they have to be changing some things.

I noticed at one point that free books were always ranked 1000 or higher. So if you look at the top three free books for the Nook, they are currently ranked #1001, 1002, and 1003. That seems to suggest that they take whatever your ranking would actually be on a free ebook if they didn't rejigger the numbers and then add 1000 to it. 

So I'm guessing that's what just happened to erotica. They're adding 1000.

This would partly explain why my ranking just improved. It doesn't explain an 800 point leap for me, though, unless there were 800 erotica titles that just flew past me.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

I'm an ignorant bystander in this stuff, is the unspoken assumption that BN changed the rankings to penalize erotica, presumably because they think having it visible will offend people?  Per other requests in the thread, I'm not encouraging a discussion of whether this is fair or right, but I want to make sure I understand what is happening.


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2011)

Scott Neumyer said:


> Something we also have to keep in mind with B&N rankings. I'm pretty sure they're based of profit rather than total number sold.
> 
> For example, a good friend of mine had a book at 7.99 and it was selling really well... Ranked 30 overall at the time. This friend changed the price of the book to $0.99 just to see what would happen. About two seconds later, the ranking had dropped to around 130. BIG difference. As soon as they changed the price back to 7.99, the ranking went right back up to where it was.
> 
> Interesting, no? My only conclusion is that they not only count in the overall sales but overall profitability. Who knows... Interesting idea though...


My experience is the opposite of your friends. I bounce back and forth between 99c and $2.99. My search results sink at 2.99 and rise at 99c, so I think percentage of clickers or total percentage of purchases is part of what influences the search results. It seems like all of our conclusions here have equally valid counterpoints, meaning no one really knows what they're doing over there.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

No, actually I don't think that's what happened at all. If it did, then the top erotic book would have a ranking no better than 1000 and the relative ranking of all erotic books would have remained constant. That didn't happen. The top books, with the exception of a couple, were knocked down and others took their places.

My theory is a little more complicated, and it involves a book that was the second best selling erotica book (at that time). That book was inactivated for a while due to content issues (it was a book about incest). When that book was activated again, the fifteen to twenty books beneath it seemed to have had their rankings adjusted by adding 1000 to their previous rank. That pushed them out of the top twenty, caused a big shuffle of all erotic books.

Please keep in mind I'm guessing here, based on what I saw. I have no knowledge of BN's ranking systems.



The Hooded Claw said:


> I'm an ignorant bystander in this stuff, is the unspoken assumption that BN changed the rankings to penalize erotica, presumably because they think having it visible will offend people? Per other requests in the thread, I'm not encouraging a discussion of whether this is fair or right, but I want to make sure I understand what is happening.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Interesting. So it might be a side effect of BN innocently implementing a decision to bring a book back to sale. Though apparently nobody really knows. I'm glad I'm not a writer so don't have my emotions and finances tied up in something that can be shuffled at a keystroke!

Thanks, Tawny.



tawnytaylor said:


> No, actually I don't think that's what happened at all. If it did, then the top erotic book would have a ranking no better than 1000 and the relative ranking of all erotic books would have remained constant. That didn't happen. The top books, with the exception of a couple, were knocked down and others took their places.
> 
> My theory is a little more complicated, and it involves a book that was the second best selling erotica book (at that time). That book was inactivated for a while due to content issues (it was a book about incest). When that book was activated again, the fifteen to twenty books beneath it seemed to have had their rankings adjusted by adding 1000 to their previous rank. That pushed them out of the top twenty, caused a big shuffle of all erotic books.
> 
> Please keep in mind I'm guessing here, based on what I saw. I have no knowledge of BN's ranking systems.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

tawnytaylor said:


> On your book's page, the ranking will appear on the Overview tab, under Product Details.


Thanks. I was looking for some sort of page like a bestseller list.


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2011)

Guess I'm missing something.
If I suspected a store was manipulating my ranking numbers and it had a disastrous effect on my sales, then I would pull my book(s). Like today.
If several authors think they are being shafted, then band together in a petition to the store. A group is stronger than single e-mails.
There are other outlets for ebooks.
If B&N is hell-bent on going bust, then they could do it without my books (which wouldn't get B&N royalties when they are busted).
There is an old saying about getting burned twice. Just can't remember how it goes.
But I do thing they are other places to sell books.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Ah, I see what you're looking for.

I use the Browse feature, selecting a specific category and then sorting by "Best seller" to get an idea of how a book is performing. As a general rule, that works well. Books fall in line within the category, based upon their ranking.



Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Thanks. I was looking for some sort of page like a bestseller list.


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## yomamma (Feb 10, 2011)

Mine are not ranked as erotica, but I did notice over the weekend that all of my ranks jumped. My best-selling one has been hovering at 8000 for forever, and it jumped to 7200 this weekend. Granted, not a HUGE move but a sign that something changed. Sales remain in the same ballpark.

I have two others that hover around 30k and both improved a small bit - one to 17k and one to 27k. Again, this all happened over the weekend and I didn't really see a massive surge in sales to justify it? So either their rankings are calculated over a long period of time and we got an update over the weekend, or something was changed that gave us a bump.

Very curious. And here I thought I was doing something right.


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## Tina Folsom (Sep 22, 2010)

Selena_Kitt said:


> Not in those kinds of numbers there isn't. Some of us sell thousands a day on Barnes and Noble. It's easy to say "walk away" when it's imaginary or Monopoly money. Not so easy when it's real cash.


I second that - during March my B&N earnings were 2x my Amazon figures.


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## MosesSiregarIII (Jul 15, 2010)

jillmyles said:


> Mine are not ranked as erotica, but I did notice over the weekend that all of my ranks jumped. My best-selling one has been hovering at 8000 for forever, and it jumped to 7200 this weekend. Granted, not a HUGE move but a sign that something changed. Sales remain in the same ballpark.


Funny, because mine also jumped 700--800 spots this weekend.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> If I suspected a store was manipulating my ranking numbers and it had a disastrous effect on my sales, then I would pull my book(s). Like today.


As others have said, easier said than done. I sold 11,500 books there in February, and over 6000 in March. B&N is responsible for well over half my writing income now. I'm very ticked off, but walking away would only hurt me at this point... I mean, worse than B&N has already hurt me. 



> I'm an ignorant bystander in this stuff, is the unspoken assumption that BN changed the rankings to penalize erotica, presumably because they think having it visible will offend people?


I am refraining from having an opinion on why this has happened until I get more data. It is possible it affected other categories as well-- I just happen to keep an eye on erotica books as a matter of habit. And it only seems to have affected the highest-rated erotica books. It seems like a glitch, but a glitch that happens to have disproportionately affected erotica.



> I'm not convinced that rankings in and of themselves mean sales. So I'm not surprised to hear your book was still selling hundreds even at a ranking of 1100. Like with Amazon, ranking seems to be pretty much just an ego thing.


No, rankings over there equate to exposure. If you're in the top 100 or so PubIt books, you sell. If you're not, you tend not to sell (my book has sold ten copies today). Being in the top 50 also put my book high in the PubIt romance category (there doesn't seem to be a specific erotica category), which also clearly boosts sales. And my book was in the top 200 Nookstore books for a month, selling LESS than 200 a day. It makes no sense that it would suddenly plummet to 1100. Clearly something is not right here.


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2011)

Ok, don't walk away from those numbers.
Thought you said thos numbers were dropping because of messing with the rankings.
Guess I heard you wrong. Your sale numbers aren't changing.
Now I really don't know why this topic was posted to begin with.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Thought you said thos numbers were dropping because of messing with the rankings.
> Guess I heard you wrong. Your sale numbers aren't changing.


Obviously my sales numbers HAVE dropped to almost nothing, hence the thread. But I still don't know what's going on, or why B&N has done this. Why would I walk away from (possible) numbers like that without more info? If B&N comes back to me and says, "We've decided erotica can't be on our bestseller list and we will add a thousand to your ranking on every book to keep it out of the bestseller list forever," then I'll know I should pull my books. I doubt I'll get that clear a communication, but hopefully they will eventually communicate something that will be useful, one way or the other. But I'm not going to throw a tantrum and pull my books off the site without more data.


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2011)

If your sales figures have dropped to almost nothing, then what would you be walking away from?
And you and others are giving the impression that this affects the erotic genre.
But I ask again, if the ranking debacle drops your sales almost to nothing, then what would you be walking away?
Traditional publishers are going through a rough time now because if the way they "traditionally" treated authors and would-be authors.
Let's don't let the e-book distributors get way with sloppy dealings, too.
But if your sales aren't affected by a rankings drop, then don't get carried away. You don't want to walk away from good sales numbers.


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## Guest (Apr 4, 2011)

Best wishes, Ellen.


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## jessicamorse (Jan 31, 2011)

Okey Dokey said:


> If your sales figures have dropped to almost nothing, then what would you be walking away from?


The issue is no one knows exactly what is happening yet. They're sharing information so we can get an idea of that. It's way too soon to be talking about pulling any books. When they removed samples from most erotica titles it was fixed in a few days. If everyone had pulled their titles right away we'd all be losing out on sales for no reason.


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## Julie Christensen (Oct 13, 2010)

This is a very serious matter that BN needs to address.  We are talking about your livlihoods here!  (By the way, congrats on those sales - very impressive numbers from all of you!)  I also can't understand why BN would do this to themselves.  Are they worried that they have too many erotica books in their lists?  And, worried enough that they would give up on all those profits?  It's confusing.  A while back, when PubIt was having all sorts of problems, a PubIt representative responded to several threads on this site, and was very receptive to the comments that authors made.  I just tried to find the threads, but had no luck.  Does anyone else remember who that person was?  I thought you guys might be able to write to him.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> If your sales figures have dropped to almost nothing, then what would you be walking away from?


Obviously, the potential for sales if B&N fixes this. I can't make a decision based on incomplete data. It would be... illogical *needs pointy-eared emoticon*.



> And you and others are giving the impression that this affects the erotic genre.


Thus far, the only people reporting the issue have been erotica authors. There could be others I don't know about.

However, I think it is very important to realize that this is not just an erotica writers' issue. It has very real and unpleasant possible repercussions for all of us. It is very unnerving to realize that one of the sellers can play around with the rankings and alter them, and thus affect sales numbers. What if B&N or Amazon decides to alter the rankings of indies in general for some reason? What if they start introducing different "algorithms" for different genres or different publishers? It sounds paranoid, I admit, but then this entire situation breeds paranoia. I need to believe that the rankings on these sites are based on real and verifiable data, and not on someone's whim. If they aren't, then the the entire system's validity falls into question, IMHO.



> Best wishes, Ellen.


Thank you.


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## wildwitchof (Sep 2, 2010)

Is it possible that all self-pubbed titles--or all PubIt titles in the top 100--are affected, and that just happens to be erotica since they sell so well? Forgive me if this is addressed upthread.

Also, chiming in here to say my numbers actually took a huge leap since they changed their ranking system, whatever they did. I went from the multiple hundred thousands to 80K, just with 3 sales. I've never sold much over there (in 2 months of pub.) 

Good to post our experiences here, since it could be a mistake or random effect from them tinkering with something else.

By the way, should we nurture a group presence over on the PubIt boards? BN will be more responsive, given the reader presence, if it's not on a competitor-focused forum. If you are already posting over there, forgive me. I'll check it out.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Selena_Kitt said:


> I'm going to go pull my hair out, pace around my house and mutter now...


  Self awarenes is a terrible thing.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Is it possible that all self-pubbed titles--or all PubIt titles in the top 100--are affected, and that just happens to be erotica since they sell so well? Forgive me if this is addressed upthread.


I don't think so. As someone mentioned above, _Run _by Blake Crouch didn't change rankings. Amanda Hocking's books didn't change, nor Victorine's _Not What She Seems_, nor _Diary of a Fat Girl._ As far as I can tell, the change was centered pretty much exclusively on erotica ranked better than 200 (excluding Tina's _Venice Vampyr_, for whatever reason). Of course there may be exceptions I haven't noticed, but in general, the pattern seems pretty obvious.


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## JodyWallace (Mar 29, 2011)

If they keep stuff like that up, they will be hurting authors, yes, but also themselves. It's not like the readers who would have bought erotic romance if it caught their eye are automatically going to spend just as much $$ on something else. They don't surf over to B&N thinking, "I have 26.78 to spend on books today...let me fill in the slots with some widgets!"


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

I've been tracking my rankings daily in a spread sheet for a couple of months now.  

The only thing that is clear about B&N rankings is that they seem to be on a very long "rolling average." (This is not an uncommon ranking method.)  They may well weight recent sales over older sales, and have other ways of weighting averages.

The biggest thing I notice is that you can have a significant rise in ranking with ZERO sales.  A rolling average causes this kind of thing all the time.  If there was, say, a sale or promotion among a batch of books normally below you, they might all get a boost on a single day or two. That day would remain in the rolling average and keep them up high, until the day came when they fall off the chart... then they'd all fall at once quite a bit.  Your book, though it only had a trickle of sales in the rolling period, and none in recent days, would then be boosted above with out any sales of its own.

The behavior of my books, some of which are very slow sellers, so you can more easily watch this sort of thing, really fit this pattern of the rolling average.  

I also have experimented with free books, and I can testify that "income" is not a factor in rankings rises and falls.  They rise and fall rather slowly, compared to Amazon.  Their sales rise and fall quickly based on price.  (Another indicator of a rolling average method.)

When you get to the very top -- up in the hundreds -- there are way too many factors to really judge.  You aren't dealing with nearly as many competitors who can affect your ranking.  One author with several books could throw everyone off by quite a lot.  A slow day for romance, a promotion on horror, all that can make a big difference.

As for search -- I haven't a CLUE about how that works at B&N.  I can't find anything as a customer, sometimes even when I type in an exact title and or author.  I also find that categories are seriously wonked.

I assume part of what people are experiencing here could be indirect results of messing around with promotions and the search algorithms, and the weighting of the rolling average.  Amazon has had decades to sort this out.  B&N seems to be making it up as they go along.

Camille


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> I assume part of what people are experiencing here could be indirect results of messing around with promotions and the search algorithms, and the weighting of the rolling average.


I have to say that I don't think the rolling average has anything to do with it. To repeat what happened with my own book, it sold about 3300 copies in March. In the first two days of April, it began picking up steam and sold 365 copies. It makes no sense that it would suddenly drop to the 1100s. Furthermore, it is way too coincidental (IMHO) that all the erotica writers who've spoken up are invariably finding that 1000 ranking points were added to their bestselling books. (The exception, once again, being Tina's _Venice Vampyr_-- and Tina, just out of curiosity, is it possible your book was ranked ABOVE 200 before all this began? If so, that might explain how it avoided a higher ranking.)

At any rate, I don't know exactly what's going on with B&N, but I don't think what happened is the result of a fair and objective ranking system.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

EllenFisher said:


> I have to say that I don't think the rolling average has anything to do with it. To repeat what happened with my own book, it sold about 3300 copies in March. In the first two days of April, it began picking up steam and sold 365 copies. It makes no sense that it would suddenly drop to the 1100s. Furthermore, it is way too coincidental (IMHO) that all the erotica writers who've spoken up are invariably finding that 1000 ranking points were added to their bestselling books. (The exception, once again, being Tina's _Venice Vampyr_-- and Tina, just out of curiosity, is it possible your book was ranked ABOVE 200 before all this began? If so, that might explain how it avoided a higher ranking.)
> 
> At any rate, I don't know exactly what's going on with B&N, but I don't think what happened is the result of a fair and objective ranking system.


I'm not saying that that weighting isn't aimed to push erotica down lower in the rankings. But it could as easily be that they have been working to give advantage to something else or a combination of the two.

I guess a part of what I was saying is that when a few books weren't negatively affected, that doesn't mean you're wrong. It just means that things are more complicated than simple manipulation. I was merely adding data to the pile.

Camille


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## Tina Folsom (Sep 22, 2010)

EllenFisher said:


> Tina, just out of curiosity, is it possible your book was ranked ABOVE 200 before all this began? If so, that might explain how it avoided a higher ranking.)


Ellen, VV was ranked around 100 - 115 when it happened, and it stayed in that range and then improved (now somewhere in the 70s). However, Lawful Escort was ranked 33 when the change occurred, so why VV stayed in and Lawful Escort was catapulted into the 1000s is a mystery, particularly since VV only sold about 1/3 of what Lawful Escort did on those days leading up to the rankings change.

Also, my Scanguards books were ranked in the 200 - 300s and they catapulted into the 1000s too, as did my Greek God book.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

Thank you, Tina.  That's very informative.  I'm still not sure why some books' rankings were changed and others weren't *scratches head*.


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

Kind of discouraging because it shows how little control any of us have. We traded the old gatekeepers for new ones, and the new ones are still playing around with the rules -- their rules we have to live by. 

Royalty amount, how often our books get displayed, etc., -- we're really at their mercy.


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## lbcooper (Jan 19, 2011)

Okay, this is interesting....

Did a lookup by clicking on nookbook, fiction, erotica....  attached is a snapshot...

What i found very intriguing, is that the erotica category list 6740 titles, but when I add up the books in the sub categories...  i only get 2440 titles.  Where are the other 4300 titles, and how would anyone find them?


I also noticed that most of the *.99 cent books disappeared from almost every subcategory.  

Going to go do some search engine testing now....


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## Beth O (Jul 9, 2010)

Selena_Kitt said:


> Not in those kinds of numbers there isn't. Some of us sell thousands a day on Barnes and Noble. It's easy to say "walk away" when it's imaginary or Monopoly money. Not so easy when it's real cash.


Agreed. But if I wrote erotica (I don't), I would consider setting up my own site or a site together with a bunch of other erotica authors. There's no reason you can't do both.


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

Beth O said:


> Agreed. But if I wrote erotica (I don't), I would consider setting up my own site or a site together with a bunch of other erotica authors. There's no reason you can't do both.


It's worth looking into, but it's sort of like selling books out of the trunk of your car compared to having them on the shelves at B&N.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

lbcooper said:


> Okay, this is interesting....
> 
> Did a lookup by clicking on nookbook, fiction, erotica.... attached is a snapshot...
> 
> ...


One possible explanation is that a lot of books don't get put in a subcategory. Not sure about erotica, but I know in thrillers, in pubit you can't select the subcategories even though browsing will show you over a dozen of them.

In any case, there seems no question something fishy is afoot with erotica.


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## Jamie Case (Feb 15, 2011)

B&N, Amazon, Sony et. al. will always mess with erotica titles. At this point, I think writers should come to accept it as part and parcel of the business of selling erotica titles.

The stores are able to do so because the erotica market, though very lucrative, is also very, very fickle. For every one erotica reader who is willing to stand up and publicly protest the marginalization of these titles, there are a hundred who will cheer. Human nature being what it is, some of those cheering the loudest are the ones with the largest backlog of erotica titles on their e-readers. It's awful that people are hypocrites, but you really can't fault these stores for responding to the _*stated*_ wishes of their customers. They will continue to rejigger their lists as they see fit.

I think the idea of erotica authors banding together and creating an alternative storefront that offers non-DRM titles (in addition to keeping their titles listed with the mainstream e-stores and advertising this storefront like crazy in all of their titles) is probably the best way to weather the kindle/pubit drama that seems to flare up every couple of months.


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## Tina Folsom (Sep 22, 2010)

So, I closed out for today, and my sales are 50% of what they were on the last two Mondays (which is generally a better comparison for me than comparing to a weekend). Well, that totally blows. Is it time to write sweet romance?


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## Selene Coulter (Mar 4, 2011)

Tina Folsom said:


> So, I closed out for today, and my sales are 50% of what they were on the last two Mondays (which is generally a better comparison for me than comparing to a weekend). Well, that totally blows. Is it time to write sweet romance?


F***, no. Please don't. 
You deserve to write what you like/love/want to write.
And readers deserve everyone's best efforts, whether erotica or any other genre.

The issue here isn't just how to take business away from mainstream retail stores but how to take away enough to make them sit up and pay attention. If say, the Top 100 erotica writers banded to form their own retail front, would readers just settle for the next best B&N alternative? I guess that's really the question, isn't it?


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> So, I closed out for today, and my sales are 50% of what they were on the last two Mondays (which is generally a better comparison for me than comparing to a weekend). Well, that totally blows


My top seller was down from 200 units sold two days ago to 24 yesterday. It does indeed totally blow.



> If say, the Top 100 erotica writers banded to form their own retail front, would readers just settle for the next best B&N alternative? I guess that's really the question, isn't it?


I'd love to see this happen.



> B&N, Amazon, Sony et. al. will always mess with erotica titles. At this point, I think writers should come to accept it as part and parcel of the business of selling erotica titles.


Repeating what I said above--_ this is not just an erotica issue._ Based on the information we have, B&N is apparently manipulating its rankings system in order to change the composition of its bestseller lists. This should make all indie writers very, very nervous.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Yes. This.

The Best Sellers ranking is being used to manipulate the books within the system. I'm guessing they apply what I'd like to call "regulators" to certain blocks of books to move them off the front pages so that a new crop of books can take their place. The old books cannot move back into their former places because their ranks cannot drop below 1000. Thus, they're pushed to the back indefinitely.

I worry that writers will be caught by surprise when a book that has been consistently making them good money abruptly stops selling. The common bell curve for a book's sales doesn't apply at BN. There may be a gradual growth or a very sudden surge to the top. The length of time at the top can vary, from a week to a couple of months (or more?). And then the book's sales will steeply decline with no warning.

Amazon's sales, from what I've seen, are vastly more stable.

BTW, my former top seller didn't hit 20 copies yesterday. Plus, because the only two I had in the top 50 were both knocked down, and those books helped exposure for the rest of my titles, all my sales are decimated. I'm EXTREMELY disappointed.



EllenFisher said:


> Repeating what I said above--_ this is not just an erotica issue._ Based on the information we have, B&N is apparently manipulating its rankings system in order to change the composition of its bestseller lists. This should make all indie writers very, very nervous.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> The common bell curve for a book's sales doesn't apply at BN. There may be a gradual growth or a very sudden surge to the top. The length of time at the top can vary, from a week to a couple of months (or more?). And then the book's sales will steeply decline with no warning.


I agree that selling at B&N is kind of like riding a bull, and I have no idea what accounts for the odd sales patterns over there. But the abrupt sales patterns don't concern me as long as they're a natural outgrowth of actual sales (and until now, my rankings have followed my sales in a pretty clear pattern). Suddenly altering rankings by adding 1000, or whatever it is B&N did, however, is an entirely different situation. It makes no sense to "make room" for new books-- if the old books are selling well, then logically B&N should be pleased to sit back and rake in the dough. I don't know exactly what their motivation is, but I don't believe they're doing this because they want to make room for newer books.


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## yomamma (Feb 10, 2011)

That really stinks, guys. I'm so sorry.  

Has anyone heard from B&N? I never heard from them on the last issue.


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> Repeating what I said above--_ this is not just an erotica issue._ Based on the information we have, B&N is apparently manipulating its rankings system in order to change the composition of its bestseller lists. This should make all indie writers very, very nervous.


Isn't this what Amazon does as well through its recommendation system? I think every book company promotes its books in different ways that change over time. Monique was just saying how sales seem to be dropping off for no other reason than than Amazon is probably recommending her book less. Vicki is in the same boat. Isn't there always some rotation and change? The only difference is that instead of distributors managing the books they get from publishers, they're managing our books and making decisions about what they most want to promote. Part of the success of a book has always depended on whether or not those selling it decided to put it in the spotlight.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Isn't this what Amazon does as well through its recommendation system?


I don't think so. Amazon and B&N both recommend particular books, true. So yes, I suppose you could argue that's something of a manipulation of the ranking system (and I imagine trad publishers pay for the privilege, just like they pay for table space up at the front of a brick and mortar store). Even so, sales will still depend on the book's cover and sample to some degree-- putting crap in front of people doesn't necessarily make them buy it (Snooki notwithstanding). Monique and Vicki have both done well because of their awesome products.

But taking a book that's been selling well and suddenly adding a thousand to its ranking seems... well, dishonest. If they can do that, then they can presumably give a book the ranking of 1 and assure it massive exposure and probably massive sales. I suppose they have the right to do that if they want to-- it's their site. But it's a dishonest manipulation of the supposedly straightforward ranking system, and not an honest way to deal with authors or customers, IMHO. I'd at least appreciate it if they'd announce that their rankings are no longer based on actual sales figures, but on... whatever it is they're now based on.



> Has anyone heard from B&N?


I haven't.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

I completely agree.

Of course, B&N has a right to determine what books go where on their site. But using the ranking--a figure that's supposed to reflect a book's sales--seems like an underhanded way to do it. I mean, my publisher rotates books on its website every week. I know that. And I plan accordingly. But B&N's system seems erratic and unpredictable and arbitrary. That makes it very hard to plan releases, schedule promo/advertising, etc.

I haven't heard a word from B&N either 



EllenFisher said:


> I don't think so. Amazon and B&N both recommend particular books, true. So yes, I suppose you could argue that's something of a manipulation of the ranking system (and I imagine trad publishers pay for the privilege, just like they pay for table space up at the front of a brick and mortar store). Even so, sales will still depend on the book's cover and sample to some degree-- putting crap in front of people doesn't necessarily make them buy it (Snooki notwithstanding). Monique and Vicki have both done well because of their awesome products.
> 
> But taking a book that's been selling well and suddenly adding a thousand to its ranking seems... well, dishonest. If they can do that, then they can presumably give a book the ranking of 1 and assure it massive exposure and probably massive sales. I suppose they have the right to do that if they want to-- it's their site. But it's a dishonest manipulation of the supposedly straightforward ranking system, and not an honest way to deal with authors or customers, IMHO. I'd at least appreciate it if they'd announce that their rankings are no longer based on actual sales figures, but on... whatever it is they're now based on.
> 
> I haven't.


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

EllenFisher said:


> I don't think so. Amazon and B&N both recommend particular books, true. So yes, I suppose you could argue that's something of a manipulation of the ranking system (and I imagine trad publishers pay for the privilege, just like they pay for table space up at the front of a brick and mortar store). Even so, sales will still depend on the book's cover and sample to some degree-- putting crap in front of people doesn't necessarily make them buy it (Snooki notwithstanding). Monique and Vicki have both done well because of their awesome products.
> 
> But taking a book that's been selling well and suddenly adding a thousand to its ranking seems... well, dishonest. If they can do that, then they can presumably give a book the ranking of 1 and assure it massive exposure and probably massive sales. I suppose they have the right to do that if they want to-- it's their site. But it's a dishonest manipulation of the supposedly straightforward ranking system, and not an honest way to deal with authors or customers, IMHO. I'd at least appreciate it if they'd announce that their rankings are no longer based on actual sales figures, but on... whatever it is they're now based on.
> 
> I haven't.


Scary stuff, especially if B&N and Amazon might eventually take payments for boosting books into a bestseller category.

It's frustrating just how important it is to have your book displayed in front of a reader without being specifically searched for, and how little control over that we have. And it's only likely to get harder as the number of available ebooks grows.


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2011)

I dropped out of this discussion yesterday because I felt I was being too argumentative.

Mainly I was pushing 2 points.

If the store is manipulating my rankings, and I felt this is pushing down your sales, then I would pull my books.

But the response here was that folks didn't want to walk away from good sales. Well let me repeat: If your sales have taken a big drop and are now in the low 2 digits instead of a couple hundred, then what would you be walking away from?

I also said if this is affecting several authors, then they could band together in a petition, since a group tends to have a little more power than individual complaints.

I said there are other outlets for e-books.

But like I said, my comments were apparently being taken as too argumentative.

Now this morning I'm seeing comments like this:

"If say, the Top 100 erotica writers banded to form their own retail front, would readers just settle for the next best B&N alternative? I guess that's really the question, isn't it?"

"The issue here isn't just how to take business away from mainstream retail stores but how to take away enough to make them sit up and pay attention. If say, the Top 100 erotica writers banded to form their own retail front, would readers just settle for the next best B&N alternative? I guess that's really the question, isn't it?"

"I think the idea of erotica authors banding together and creating an alternative storefront that offers non-DRM titles (in addition to keeping their titles listed with the mainstream e-stores and advertising this storefront like crazy in all of their titles) is probably the best way to weather the kindle/pubit drama that seems to flare up every couple of months."

"I sell as much in a month on my own site as I do at BN in a day."

"I would consider setting up my own site or a site together with a bunch of other erotica authors.  There's no reason you can't do both. "

Sorry I was so too radical in my proposals yesterday.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> But the response here was that folks didn't want to walk away from good sales. Well let me repeat: If your sales have taken a big drop and are now in the low 2 digits instead of a couple hundred, then what would you be walking away from?


I thought I answered this yesterday. Until we have a better idea what's going on, it would be foolish to walk away. Obviously if they respond, "All erotica sucks and we eventually intend to rank it all in the 100,000s," then it will be time to pull our books. But that time is not yet. We have insufficient data to make a decision.

And banding together to create a sales site is an idea with some merit. However, as Selena said, sales are best through B&N and/or Amazon, due to the sheer number of customers. If even Selena can't sell fabulous amounts on her own website, then there's little hope for someone like me.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

The readers, the ebook buyers are at Kindle and Nook. Their ebook readers interface directly with BN.com/Amazon.com. It makes little sense to try to start a new site elsewhere, IMO. It's kind of like trying to set up a veggie stand next to a Super Walmart.

If they don't want to acknowledge the problem, my next step will be finding a way to work around the ranking issue.

Speaking of which....has anybody considered unpublishing the book and then republishing? I'm not talking about republishing by just clicking "publish" but by starting over, getting a new EIN, etc and either going through Smashwords or PubIt again?



Okey Dokey said:


> I dropped out of this discussion yesterday because I felt I was being too argumentative.
> 
> Mainly I was pushing 2 points.
> 
> ...


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

foreverjuly said:


> It seems like we're talking about 2 different things: rankings and search results.
> 
> Rankings change all the time depending on how a book is doing, and you're saying they are manipulating the ranking to push erotica books out of the top spots. I'm not convinced that rankings in and of themselves mean sales. So I'm not surprised to hear your book was still selling hundreds even at a ranking of 1100. Like with Amazon, ranking seems to be pretty much just an ego thing.
> 
> ...


While I would love the kinds of sales those authors have/had, I admit that it sounds pretty fishy to me. I'm wondering if they worried more about their reputation and when people pulled up the top 100, and saw 1/3 of it listing erotic romances, it scared some bigwig at B&N?

Ranking anywhere does more than just stroke the ego. Higher ranked books show up on the first few pages in searches rather than on page 40. Not many readers look that far for books because they usually find one in the first five pages or so or they stop looking. I noticed that all the highly ranked pubit books get a lot more exposure from Barnes and Noble too. I see the same books over and over in the Pubit Picks.

Pubit books, more so than Amazon, are dependant upon rankings, searches and placement as trying to promote them any other way is very difficult. There is no NookNation, or any of the countless blogs that highlight the inexpensive Kindle books. Sure, some of them name Nook books too, but I usually only see Amazon links to the books.


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

tawnytaylor said:


> The readers, the ebook buyers are at Kindle and Nook. Their ebook readers interface directly with BN.com/Amazon.com. It makes little sense to try to start a new site elsewhere, IMO. It's kind of like trying to set up a veggie stand next to a Super Walmart.
> 
> If they don't want to acknowledge the problem, my next step will be finding a way to work around the ranking issue.
> 
> Speaking of which....has anybody considered unpublishing the book and then republishing? I'm not talking about republishing by just clicking "publish" but by starting over, getting a new EIN, etc and either going through Smashwords or PubIt again?


They'd lose their ranking if they did that. So someone who was dropped from 80 to 1080 would then be ranked at 300,000 or something.

I can't imagine a workaround if B&N is going to rotate books out of the top 100 periodically. Writers simply may have to live with it.

In a sense I can understand if B&N is doing this. How many times do I want to see a Steig Larson Dragon Tattoo book? I'd rather they show me something else. And they should, because if I've been presented that book a dozen times and never once clicked on it, they should be smart enough to show me something else.

What I suspect is that their algorithms for displaying books aren't as subtle as Amazon and they take more of a brute force approach and simply show bestsellers. It may also explain why some writers do better on B&N than Amazon. B&N may not rotate the books being displayed as intelligently as Amazon, so the better sellers on B&N may be getting more exposure than they do on Amazon for a similar rank.

Just idle speculation on my part.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> I can't imagine a workaround if B&N is going to rotate books out of the top 100 periodically. Writers simply may have to live with it.


It doesn't seem that whatever they did applies to books in general, but erotica specifically. (And again, I will concede that there may be books involved in this that I'm not aware of, but as of yet, no one in this thread seems to have stepped up and said, "Hey, I have a thriller that this happened to!") This suggests to me that the motivation isn't as simple as, "Let's give the readers a break from looking at that darn Stieg Larsson book for a while!" It seems more likely that it's designed to stop erotica from filling up the bestseller list-- which, if erotica is actually selling that well, seems unfair. But again, we're just speculating, because B&N doesn't seem inclined to explain itself so far. Regardless, most of the top 100 PubIt books seem to have been left alone.

Also, I have to say again that I really do not understand why a company would want to shoot itself in the foot by finding books that are making them a boatload of money, and then handicap those books by altering their ranking significantly. None of this really makes sense to me.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Somebody upthread felt that B&N is acting as a new gatekeeper.  While from one perspective this is true (any way of featuring a subset of anything is going to be choosing some items over others), I think it's better to look at it from another perspective.

A real gatekeeping system actually blocks access -- you can't even publish the book at all.  Your book is published.  Readers can actually buy it. 

Rankings and internal features are tools the vendor creates for it's own benefit, not ours.  It's a tool we use when it works for us, but we don't control it so we should not rely on it.  The lesson here is not to be complacent or passive or expect that the system will take care of you.  Yes, when the system is working for you, use it -- but don't neglect the other ways people find your work.

So we work to get our links scattered as widely as possible so readers can find us.  And smile a little when you realize that this process (which is where more sales come from overall, if not necessarily for individual authors) is "not fair" to B&N. On most blogs, in most tweets, MOST links aim the reader to Amazon.  

They can disadvantage you, but things like this don't shut you down.  And at this point, the actions of one particular vendor CAN'T shut you down.

Camille


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Yes, that's what I would want. Because then the book would be able to break through that 1000 ceiling that was imposed on it. I'm concluding the book's ranking is similar to what someone upthread said about free books. The very best rank I could get would be 1001 as it stands now. I'm thinking starting over from scratch might be the only way to get around it.



Asher MacDonald said:


> They'd lose their ranking if they did that. So someone who was dropped from 80 to 1080 would then be ranked at 300,000 or something.


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2011)

Really, my only interest in this is that I've been paying a lot of attention to BN rankings lately because I've been doing well there. I'm sorry many of you are losing sales and that BN may be doing this deliberately. If they are knowingly manipulating erotica titles, here's a possible rationale:

They don't want a reputation like Smashwords.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> They don't want a reputation like Smashwords.


There's a simple solution for that which is far more honest and fair to authors. It's this statement: WE DO NOT ACCEPT EROTIC CONTENT. If they want to refuse erotica, that's fine, and they are certainly entitled to make that decision if they want to. What I am annoyed by is the fact that they accepted it and profited by it, and then abruptly switched the rankings around for no stated purpose. There's new erotica coming up the bestseller list now, so they are presumably still accepting it. If they have a problem with it, they need to refuse to carry it, not eff around with the rankings and the sample buttons and whatever else.


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## yomamma (Feb 10, 2011)

I might be missing something here. What is Smashwords's reputation in this context?

I am genuinely clueless, not trying to be a jerk.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

EllenFisher said:


> There's a simple solution for that which is far more honest and fair to authors. It's this statement: WE DO NOT ACCEPT EROTIC CONTENT. If they want to refuse erotica, that's fine, and they are certainly entitled to make that decision if they want to. What I am annoyed by is the fact that they accepted it and profited by it, and then abruptly switched the rankings around for no stated purpose. There's new erotica coming up the bestseller list now, so they are presumably still accepting it. If they have a problem with it, they need to refuse to carry it, not eff around with the rankings and the sample buttons and whatever else.


Or even an open policy in which they don't apply rankings to erotica (or have a separate ranking, like Amazon and free books). The key is OPEN policies.

Camille


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

foreverjuly said:


> Really, my only interest in this is that I've been paying a lot of attention to BN rankings lately because I've been doing well there. I'm sorry many of you are losing sales and that BN may be doing this deliberately. If they are knowingly manipulating erotica titles, here's a possible rationale:
> 
> They don't want a reputation like Smashwords.


Here's something that I've run into when looking at the Pubit top 100. Just the list mind, you, not even the actual book pages. I can't look at it while at work. The covers are way too risque and last thing I need is my boss to come in the office and see that up on my computer. So, makes me wonder if other people have the same issue? I'm not saying what B&N is doing is right, but just that they may have received complaints. Just food for thought.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> The covers are way too risque and last thing I need is my boss to come in the office and see that up on my computer. So, makes me wonder if other people have the same issue?


Could be. And there's no reason B&N can't provide guidelines for its covers and delete a book (preferably with a warning to the author first) if the book doesn't meet those guidelines. (I know Amazon deleted at least one book, back when they were busy deleting erotic stuff, that seemed to have nothing wrong with it except bare breasts on the cover-- which would certainly be an embarrassing thing to run across at the office.) Again, that's a very simple fix that doesn't require messing around with the rankings.

ETA: And in case anyone thinks these particular books might have had their rankings changed due to their covers, my erotic romance covers are no more risque than the covers in my siggy.


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

MaryMcDonald said:


> Here's something that I've run into when looking at the Pubit top 100. Just the list mind, you, not even the actual book pages. I can't look at it while at work. The covers are way too risque and last thing I need is my boss to come in the office and see that up on my computer. So, makes me wonder if other people have the same issue? I'm not saying what B&N is doing is right, but just that they may have received complaints. Just food for thought.


If B&N is doing this deliberately it's a safe assumption that they have a business reason for doing so. They're worried about their reputation, they're getting complaints -- something.

They still have their erotic bestsellers list, but the writers who have had their sales hurt won't be helped if erotic books are banished to that list.


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## nobody_important (Jul 9, 2010)

tawnytaylor said:


> But B&N's system seems erratic and unpredictable and arbitrary. That makes it very hard to plan releases, schedule promo/advertising, etc.


Out of curiosity, how does arbitrary ranking affect your releases, promo, ad schedules, etc.? I thought you'd go ahead and do promo as scheduled regardless of ranking?


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Out of curiosity, how does arbitrary ranking affect your releases, promo, ad schedules, etc.? I thought you'd go ahead and do promo as scheduled regardless of ranking?


Right now, I'm reluctant to do much of anything involving B&N. They don't seem to be doing this to new erotica as of now, but for all I know it will happen again and again. I have a book I'm about ready to put up, but I can't help but wonder-- if it sells well, might they just do this to me again? Might I see another book drop abruptly from the 100s to the 1000s and quit selling as a result? If my books were mostly selling on B&N, I'd be wary of spending money on promo right now... it might just be money down the drain.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

No, I won't spend money to advertise a book that has absolutely no chance of earning back the cost of the ad.

I Googled "B&N ranking drop" this morning and found some interesting threads on the PubIt Help forum. From what I'm reading, I'm gathering that abrupt shifts in sales ranks have happened before. So have abrupt drops in sales. And so far, I'm not seeing any authors recover once those shifts have happened. If that's the case, there's no point in advertising those books.

And regarding new releases: I try to time a new book's release to maximize sales for both the new book and any other books in the series. I had the timing just right for Wicked Knights. I released it on March 22, and rapidly climbed in rank. But sadly, it enjoyed only 9 days before its ranking was adjusted and tumbled to the bottom. I'm going to do some more reading, see if there's any consistency in the timing of rank adjustments (1st week of month, perhaps?) before I plan any more releases.



NadiaLee said:


> Out of curiosity, how does arbitrary ranking affect your releases, promo, ad schedules, etc.? I thought you'd go ahead and do promo as scheduled regardless of ranking?


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> I Googled "B&N ranking drop" this morning and found some interesting threads on the PubIt Help forum. From what I'm reading, I'm gathering that abrupt shifts in sales ranks have happened before. So have abrupt drops in sales.


How interesting. Were the books involved always erotica? Is there some sort of pattern to this, as far as you can tell?


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2011)

Ellen is spot on about B&N. It should post explicit guidelines about erotica.

During a visit to B&N last week I spotted several erotic paperbacks on the display tables. Same language, graphic sexual scenes, suggestive covers and titles.

And B&N carries the hot Harlequin and Silhouette erotic paperback series.

Any kid can brouse these books in the B&N stores.

B&N needs to be up front with its e-book authors.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Hi Ellen,

No, the books involved were YA. One author, I think I've seen here on the Kindle Boards--Holly Hook: http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/PubIt-Help-Board/Anyone-else-s-sales-rank-rapidly-getting-worse/td-p/790072 It seems hers didn't drop as far down as ours, but it did drop and it doesn't seem to have recovered.

There are also a lot of other writers on the PubIt board complaining about plummeting sales after steady sales for months. I haven't taken a look at all their links yet, but I'm guessing they aren't all writing erotica.



EllenFisher said:


> How interesting. Were the books involved always erotica? Is there some sort of pattern to this, as far as you can tell?


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

I could be wrong, but I *think* Holly Hook thought the problem with her book was keywords?  I think B&N screwed up and removed the keywords, or something?  In any event, it wasn't quite the same issue.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Ah! Okay. That's what happens when your search hits old, outdated forum posts. Thanks for the update!



EllenFisher said:


> I could be wrong, but I *think* Holly Hook thought the problem with her book was keywords? I think B&N screwed up and removed the keywords, or something? In any event, it wasn't quite the same issue.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> I could be wrong, but I *think* Holly Hook thought the problem with her book was keywords? I think B&N screwed up and removed the keywords, or something? In any event, it wasn't quite the same issue.


The keywords were just the only way she could think of to fix it. For months she was getting great search results and thousands of sales that led to great rankings, and that stopped suddenly, and there was nothing she could do about it. The more you talk about new books coming in to replace old ones, it sounds like a cyclical thing of out with the old and in with the new. Full Disclosure: My revenue has dropped a lot at BN too.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2011)

This is starting to sound like the old traditional publishing habit of bookstores returning books before they have had a chance to sell.
Now B&N can't return e-books so it just screws with the rankings.
That system of quick returns helped put traditional publishers on thin ice. The pubs had to eat their expense of publishing the books, while the stores did not have money at stake since the books were stocked on consignment.
Now the store's phony rankings are playing havoc with the indie authors' time and expense of producing their e-books.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> The more you talk about new books coming in to replace old ones, it sounds like a cyclical thing of out with the old and in with the new.


But I repeat, that makes absolutely no sense. If B&N gets 60% of the sales price, then I calculate my books have earned them over $10,000 in the past two months. I can't even imagine what they're earning from authors like Tina and Selena. Why shoot your bestsellers in the genre down in the hope that some other book _might _come up the list and sell as well? I just can't see any logic there.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2011)

If the indies don't get a handle on this thing, we could end up in the same mess as the traditional publishers.
A lot of our time and money invested, but no income.


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> But I repeat, that makes absolutely no sense. If B&N gets 60% of the sales price, then I calculate my books have earned them over $10,000 in the past two months. I can't even imagine what they're earning from authors like Tina and Selena. Why shoot your bestsellers in the genre down in the hope that some other book _might _come up the list and sell as well? I just can't see any logic there.


The problem is we have no rationale as to why they are doing it so we're just guessing about possible reasons. Is it because of the content? Is it because of something else?

We look at it from an author-centric POV and the idea of virtual shelves holding our books forever is a happy one, but perhaps from a booksellers POV they feel it's healthier if they rotate new books into prominent spots periodically? Perhaps B&N sees an overall increase in sales when they do this?


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> I'm wondering if perhaps they're dropping their highest ranking/highest selling books for the same reason?


I suppose it's possible, and it did happen right at the beginning of the quarter, which does make you wonder. But if this were the case, surely _all _genres would be involved, and not just erotica? There are plenty of bestsellers up there on the PubIt list from other genres.



> If the indies don't get a handle on this thing, we could end up in the same mess as the traditional publishers.


I don't know what we can do beyond what we've already done, which is to email B&N for info. I still want more information on why this has happened, and if it'll happen again. Whether any of us will hear back from B&N is another question entirely *shrugs*.



> Perhaps B&N sees an overall increase in sales when they do this?


People on the Help boards have been complaining about a steep drop in sales this week. Whether that's related or not, I couldn't tell you (and it's far from a statistical sampling, anyway). But I honestly don't see how it makes good buseiness sense to shoot down a sure thing-- a book that's already selling well-- in the hopes that something else might sell better.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

What does this mean? Is BN trying to reduce its income? Trying to look less profitable than it really is?


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> People on the Help boards have been complaining about a steep drop in sales this week. Whether that's related or not, I couldn't tell you (and it's far from a statistical sampling, anyway). But I honestly don't see how it makes good buseiness sense to shoot down a sure thing-- a book that's already selling well-- in the hopes that something else might sell better.


It doesn't on a micro level. It may on a macro level. If you walk into a bookstore once a week, you want to see different books on the front tables from time to time. It's boring otherwise.

I think it's telling that Amazon doesn't seem to do this. Amazon seems to really know what they are doing. I bet if Amazon wants to refresh the rankings they probably simply cut down on the number of times the better ranked books are displayed in front of customers in favor of lesser ranked books that are showing sales growth. Amazon knows how to fine-tune. B&N may not.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2011)

Selena_Kitt said:


> Someone very smart said something in the "worried about BN thread" about BN paying out so early - you know those two months they paid together? They said they wanted the money off the books, that it was creative accounting.
> 
> I'm wondering if perhaps they're dropping their highest ranking/highest selling books for the same reason?


I do know a bit about business and read news about it plenty, and I don't think there's even the most remote possibility that a company would try to earn less money. There might be clever accounting things or tax loopholes or what have you, but for a company to willfully do something to decrease revenue when there are stockholders holding them accountable is beyond conceivable. To respond to Ellen, from what you say it sounds like the only thing that determines a book's sales is how much they promote it, therefore it wouldn't be much of a risk at all if they just shove a new book into the spotlight. Maybe they do have some kind of rotation in mind. Maybe this is a really widespread thing affecting their entire catalog.

@Emma: Yes, I'm arguing that Amazon does the exact same thing through more obscure means.


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> People on the Help boards have been complaining about a steep drop in sales this week. Whether that's related or not, I couldn't tell you (and it's far from a statistical sampling, anyway). But I honestly don't see how it makes good buseiness sense to shoot down a sure thing-- a book that's already selling well-- in the hopes that something else might sell better.


One thing that could be going on is the Borders fire sales occurring right now. Could be a lot of e-book customers buying some 50% off paper books this week in the stores that are being shut down. I was thinking about doing that, but today's the last day for one here where I live and it's about 30 miles away.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> It's boring otherwise.


In which case you'd think Amanda Hocking would be first on their list of authors to drop to the 1100s . Honestly, there are a number of books that have been in the top PubIt sellers longer than my book. Amanda Hocking is a noteworthy example, but Victorine and Nancy Johnson have also been up there a while. But it appears that everything except erotica was safe from the rankings ax, so I have to believe this isn't just about keeping the bestseller list fresh and new.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Okey Dokey said:


> This is starting to sound like the old traditional publishing habit of bookstores returning books before they have had a chance to sell.
> Now B&N can't return e-books so it just screws with the rankings.





tawnytaylor said:


> What does this mean? Is BN trying to reduce its income? Trying to look less profitable than it really is?


This actually makes a twisted kind of sense: B&N more or less invented the practice of "churning" the line in bookstores. Other distributors and stores certainly made use of the returns system, but nobody went after it the way Barnes & Noble did. I've always considered them the killer of the mid-list. It was insane. Back in the nineties their policy was so draconian that publishers started changing their author's names every three books to try to keep a career alive.

And we have to remember that B&N is still largely a brick and mortar business. The upper management still has this mindset of paper books -- that you churn them, and also that THEY control where the books appear in the store. (Which they do, but in a store, the store manager knows the local audience better than the publishers. With ebooks, the authors and publishers have a better idea of their audience.)

Camille


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> In which case you'd think Amanda Hocking would be first on their list of authors to drop to the 1100s . Honestly, there are a number of books that have been in the top PubIt sellers longer than my book. Amanda Hocking is a noteworthy example, but Victorine and Nancy Johnson have also been up there a while. But it appears that everything except erotica was safe from the rankings ax, so I have to believe this isn't just about keeping the bestseller list fresh and new.


I don't think Amanda Hocking, Victorine, or Nancy Johnson have ever been in the top 100. I'm all for getting to the bottom of this, but you seem to be ignoring the case of Holly Hook because she doesn't fit into your premise that BN is out to drown erotica. That'll make it awfully hard to get an accurate sense of what is happening. @Camille, I didn't realize they had that kind of turnover at BN.


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

daringnovelist said:


> This actually makes a twisted kind of sense: B&N more or less invented the practice of "churning" the line in bookstores. Other distributors and stores certainly made use of the returns system, but nobody went after it the way Barnes & Noble did. I've always considered them the killer of the mid-list. It was insane. Back in the nineties their policy was so draconian that publishers started changing their author's names every three books to try to keep a career alive.
> 
> And we have to remember that B&N is still largely a brick and mortar business. The upper management still has this mindset of paper books -- that you churn them, and also that THEY control where the books appear in the store. (Which they do, but in a store, the store manager knows the local audience better than the publishers. With ebooks, the authors and publishers have a better idea of their audience.)
> 
> Camille


Yes, but they suffocated the midlist writers by whittling down orders for subsequent books based on sales -- if they ordered 5000 copies of book 1 and it sold 4000, they only ordered 4000 of book 2, and so on. That logic shouldn't apply to ebooks.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

I don't quite understand this "churning". Could someone please explain it?

Do you mean they keep the inventory moving briskly? Out with the old, in with the new? Or is it more complicated than that?



daringnovelist said:


> This actually makes a twisted kind of sense: B&N more or less invented the practice of "churning" the line in bookstores. Other distributors and stores certainly made use of the returns system, but nobody went after it the way Barnes & Noble did. I've always considered them the killer of the mid-list. It was insane. Back in the nineties their policy was so draconian that publishers started changing their author's names every three books to try to keep a career alive.
> 
> And we have to remember that B&N is still largely a brick and mortar business. The upper management still has this mindset of paper books -- that you churn them, and also that THEY control where the books appear in the store. (Which they do, but in a store, the store manager knows the local audience better than the publishers. With ebooks, the authors and publishers have a better idea of their audience.)
> 
> Camille


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Emma Midnight said:


> Yes, but they suffocated the midlist writers by whittling down orders for subsequent books based on sales -- if they ordered 5000 copies of book 1 and it sold 4000, they only ordered 4000 of book 2, and so on. That logic shouldn't apply to ebooks.


Logic has nothing to do with it. This IS just speculation, but it makes psychological sense that the leadership of a company that was built on push marketing -- basically built on absolute control -- is not going to feel comfortable with a paradigm in which they give up control.

Camille


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

tawnytaylor said:


> I don't quite understand this "churning". Could someone please explain it?
> 
> Do you mean they keep the inventory moving briskly? Out with the old, in with the new? Or is it more complicated than that?


It's slightly more complicated than that, but the main tool was what Emma described.

The theory behind it is that they make their real money pre-chosen best sellers -- books they predict and order in quantity and push out to a specific schedule. This is like how Walmart does it, and early B&Ns were small news stands which had limited choice. They didn't even offer midlist or backlist titles.

But consumers like choice, so in order to compete with Borders and local bookstores, B&N came up with the concept of the superstore... but they didn't change their business model or philosophy. They wanted to keep up with the profitability of limited choice, so they intentionally mismanaged the rest of the line. (They wouldn't call it mismanagement, but I do.)

Basically, they order oodles of cheap books by new authors from publishers, and rotate the inventory quickly and then blacklist those authors in favor of more new authors. Theoretically if one of the new authors makes it to best seller status before the blacklist hits, then they "break out" -- but that isn't so much due to unexpected sales because the inventory limits how many books are available. It depends more on the publisher's ability to sell B&N on the author being ready to break out, so that B&N will make enough books available for an author to break out.

Some publishers are much better at dealing with this than others. As a reader, I am bitter because this practice completely killed my favorite kind of mystery series. I was incredibly frustrated to discover a new author who showed some promise, and then the series would die JUST as the series started to hit its stride. And the author might keep her career going by changing her name... but she couldn't keep up with the same series.

SF survived better because books tended to be sold in trilogies, so it was easier to jump from churn to churn. (Also, their publishers didn't just drop them because of B&N. Baen books in particular made a strong effort to keep careers alive.)

IF B&N is still stuck in this paradigm, it does explain why books seem to do well for no reason at all as well as for the unexpected dives.

Camille


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2011)

Other alternatives to B&N ?

Has anyone tried allromancebooks.com

It has all genries. Author sets price and gets 60% paid quarterly.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

They don't have the readership that BN does.

At the moment, Kindle/Amazon has the biggest share of the ebook market. BN.com is number two.


Okey Dokey said:


> Other alternatives to B&N ?
> 
> Has anyone tried allromancebooks.com
> 
> It has all genries. Author sets price and gets 60% paid quarterly.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> I don't think Amanda Hocking, Victorine, or Nancy Johnson have ever been in the top 100.


I'm not talking about the top 100. My book was in the 100s, specifically hovering around 170-190. Amanda Hocking's top rated book is currently at 134.



> I'm all for getting to the bottom of this, but you seem to be ignoring the case of Holly Hook because she doesn't fit into your premise that BN is out to drown erotica.


I'm not ignoring it at all. But if you'll read her post (linked above), you'll see that it really doesn't sound like the same sort of thing. She says, "Today, though, my sales rank has lost about 100 places even though my book shows up the 5th one down in the teen fantasy section, and has been for some time. It's been stable around 200 for a while, and I don't see a reason for it." So yes, her sales rank slid for no reason she could discern, but it dropped by a hundred places, not by a thousand (at least at first). Furthermore, it appears there weren't several books in the same genre that suddenly and mysteriously dropped into the 1100s. Our books did not slide-- they simply suddenly switched from the 100s to the 1100s, even while still selling as well or better as they were previously. Then they were removed from the bestseller list despite their good sales figures, due to the incorrect new ranking. It's hard to be certain, of course, but it doesn't sound like this is precisely what happened to Holly.

But again, if someone can come up with some empirical proof that this switch-up of rankings has happened before to other genres, that would be very helpful. I have no idea if this is specifically targeted at erotica or not, but so far, the available evidence seems to suggest it has something to do with the erotica genre. If we can come up with evidence otherwise, that would be great-- because frankly, people tend to pay more attention and get more concerned if they think a problem with B&N might affect _them_.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2011)

EllenFisher said:


> I'm not talking about the top 100. My book was in the 100s, specifically hovering around 170-190. Amanda Hocking's top rated book is currently at 134.
> 
> I'm not ignoring it at all. But if you'll read her post (linked above), you'll see that it really doesn't sound like the same sort of thing. She says, "Today, though, my sales rank has lost about 100 places even though my book shows up the 5th one down in the teen fantasy section, and has been for some time. It's been stable around 200 for a while, and I don't see a reason for it." So yes, her sales rank slid for no reason she could discern, but it dropped by a hundred places, not by a thousand (at least at first). Furthermore, it appears there weren't several books in the same genre that suddenly and mysteriously dropped into the 1100s. Our books did not slide-- they simply suddenly switched from the 100s to the 1100s, even while still selling as well or better as they were previously. Then they were removed from the bestseller list despite their good sales figures, due to the incorrect new ranking. It's hard to be certain, of course, but it doesn't sound like this is precisely what happened to Holly.
> 
> But again, if someone can come up with some empirical proof that this switch-up of rankings has happened before to other genres, that would be very helpful. I have no idea if this is specifically targeted at erotica or not, but so far, the available evidence seems to suggest it has something to do with the erotica genre. If we can come up with evidence otherwise, that would be great-- because frankly, people tend to pay more attention and get more concerned if they think a problem with B&N might affect _them_.


Oh! If your books weren't even in the top 100, then what kind of special promotion are you talking about? My book was ranked the same as yours and that was just because of good search results, which could vanish with the snap of someone's fingers. It has since lost some ground. I'm not disputing that something happened to your books, but something seems to have happened to most books. And whatever they did that caused this, I'm having trouble understanding how it's a fault of their's for doing so, other than that it sucks for those authors. Stores can do whatever they want with the the products they stock, as all stores can. The only difference now is that instead of impacting the revenue of another company, their actions affect the revenue of an individual. This whole thing reminds me of reviewers getting an earful from angry authors. BN should be able to shrug and say, "that's business." We should all be concerned because these kinds of decisions can and probably will affect all of us, and we should know that when we publish this way.


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## Emma Midnight (Feb 19, 2011)

Forever, they had their sales rankings dropped a thousand places overnight while sales were still strong. It seems likely that it is the "fault" of B&N because it seems that it had to be intentional. How else do you explain dropping a thousand spots in a single night, and not just one writer but a number of them. And all of them were writers with erotic fiction books.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Oh! If your books weren't even in the top 100, then what kind of special promotion are you talking about?


I think I'm confusing the issue here. Let me try to spell this out more clearly. There are two rankings that are relevant here-- the Nookstore ranking (which was in the high 100s to the low 200s for most of the affected books) and the PubIt list (my book was around 30 on that list). The PubIt list (both general and romance) seem to be where I was getting most of my exposure. As long as that book was on the list, it sold well. The minute it dropped off the list, its sales plummeted, because people were no longer selling it. It dropped from 200 sales on April 2 to 7 sales yesterday.



> I'm not disputing that something happened to your books, but something seems to have happened to most books.


Really? I can't seem to find anyone saying that this has happened to their books except myself, Selena, Tina, and (according to Selena) Laura Cooper. As I said before, Blake Crouch's _Run_, Amanda Hocking's books, and Victorine Lieske's book all seem unaffected. If this specific occurrence has happened to others, they don't seem to be talking about it.



> And whatever they did that caused this, I'm having trouble understanding how it's a fault of their's for doing so, other than that it sucks for those authors.


What? It's not a fault of B&N that books selling 200 copies a day were suddenly changed to add a thousand to their ranking? I don't think I'm understanding you here.



> This whole thing reminds me of reviewers getting an earful from angry authors. BN should be able to shrug and say, "that's business."


Again, I disagree. If they're going to randomly play around with the rankings figures, they need to make a public statement to that effect. Otherwise people naturally assume that the rankings figures actually reflect sales, which is apparently not always the case.



> Stores can do whatever they want with the the products they stock, as all stores can.


Sure they can. And the reason I'm making a big deal over it is because I think indie authors need to know this can happen to them. We all discuss whether or not we should go with trad pubs or indie publishing-- isn't this something we all need to be aware of before making that decision? *Sellers can manipulate the rankings. They can artificially create and destroy bestsellers. And there's absolutely nothing you as an indie author can do about it. * This is something that everyone here needs to be aware of, IMHO, which is why I'm still yelping about it.



> We should all be concerned because these kinds of decisions can and probably will affect all of us, and we should know that when we publish this way.


And now I agree with you. This is absolutely something authors need to be aware of, and concerned about, before they turn down contracts and go 100% indie. This is a very big issue, and everyone needs to know about it.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Let's say they are adding 1,000. Under what circumstances might that work for them?

1. Erotica sales are relatively constant, or increasing at a fixed rate.
2. Erotica buyers are very dependable and will buy something on a visit.
3. Total erotica sales are not effected by knocking erotica out of high rankings.
4. They don't care whose book is sold, they just want a sale.
5. They don't want erotica showing up in high ranking listings.

So they keep their sales constant (or increasing at the same rate) but get eri\otica off the high ranking lists.

[The above does not imply approval or disapproval of anything.]


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

It happened to me too, Ellen. I had two books, one ranked at about 150 the other at about 200. The one ended up being 1100 the other 1200.



EllenFisher said:


> Really? I can't seem to find anyone saying that this has happened to their books except myself, Selena, Tina, and (according to Selena) Laura Cooper.
> And now I agree with you. This is absolutely something authors need to be aware of, and concerned about, before they turn down contracts and go 100% indie. This is a very big issue, and everyone needs to know about it.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

I'm sorry, Tawny, I didn't mean to leave you off the list.   But yours are erotica, too, right?  So thus far, we haven't found anyone in a different genre that this has happened to.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Yes, they were both erotic.

You know, I hadn't thought to check out the PubIt list to see where they were falling on there.

Perhaps the erotic books were comprising the majority of the books on that PubIt bestseller list, and BN decided they didn't like that? What's the PubIt bestseller list look like now?



EllenFisher said:


> I'm sorry, Tawny, I didn't mean to leave you off the list.  But yours are erotica, too, right? So thus far, we haven't found anyone in a different genre that this has happened to.


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## WhizCat (Oct 2, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Let's say they are adding 1,000. Under what circumstances might that work for them?
> 
> 1. Erotica sales are relatively constant, or increasing at a fixed rate.
> 2. Erotica buyers are very dependable and will buy something on a visit.
> ...


Except that as others have (repeatedly) said, B&N does NOT keep its sales constant. Without the exposure, the book sales of erotica plummet. Therefore, B&N is LOSING money by doing this.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

S. V. Rowle said:


> Except that as others have (repeatedly) said, B&N does NOT keep its sales constant. Without the exposure, the book sales of erotica plummet. Therefore, B&N is LOSING money by doing this.


Except that we don't know if they have some sort of deal (or some sort of delusion) which allows them to make more money on some of the other books.

Not condoning it, but if they're doing this intentionally they have a motive. For instance, (and this is just a made up example) if they were working on a deal to sell Nooks to schools, and one division would want their image to look "cleaner. That division would want to control what appears on the front page. Another division, of course, would fight to keep the automated systems because they're making money on it -- but the deal with schools would mean big bucks too. So they compromise on a hare-brained scheme to game the automated system. (Which doesn't work well for anyone, but DOES work for corporate politics.

That was a totally made up example, but it's the sort of thing that happens all the time in big companies. You just never know what's behind some things. (Including secret attempts to sabotage some department head.)

Camille


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## wildwitchof (Sep 2, 2010)

Thanks, Ellen, for starting this post and keeping it going. You must be really upset by the loss of so much income--with no clear understanding why. 

It's critical that we share all this with each other, no matter the genre. I think they're manipulating their best-selling list the same way the NYT does. I think they do want to keep the sexy books off the front pages. I think they might do the same if all the best-selling books were, say, Captain Underpants. I agree with Camille (or as I now think of her, Cha-million): BN is driven by their corporate culture, perhaps a few personalities.

My title is close enough to erotica, and I'm so convinced it is the erotic titles that are being penalized, that I've removed all the keywords and categories except contemporary romance. This might hurt me, it might not--my sales are so small it's impossible to judge--and if it were real erotica, I wouldn't do it. My new title and the following ones are mainstream, totally not-erotica, so it makes sense for me.

Best of luck. Keep us posted.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Alrighty...the rank of one of those books jumped to 408 just now, after being frozen at 1898 for days.

Thinks seem to be moving in the right direction. But will it last?


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

I've heard from someone else that her rankings have moved up, too, so apparently these books aren't perpetually frozen beneath 1000.  So that's good news.  Alas, mine hasn't moved-- I think I'll have to get a new book up to restimulate interest.  I just hope this doesn't happen again!


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Oh dear. I hope your start moving up soon too!

I am so relieved that things are actually moving again. But you bet I'll be looking for the rating to plummet without warning.


EllenFisher said:


> I've heard from someone else that her rankings have moved up, too, so apparently these books aren't perpetually frozen beneath 1000. So that's good news. Alas, mine hasn't moved-- I think I'll have to get a new book up to restimulate interest. I just hope this doesn't happen again!


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

I've read through all the posts, and I didn't see one thing mentioned.

It seems that over the last week there has been a huge influx -- HUGE -- of free erotica titles at B&N, and they aren't segregated free from paid in the rankings the way Amazon does.

That might account for pushing everybody down.


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## nobody_important (Jul 9, 2010)

EllenFisher said:


> But I repeat, that makes absolutely no sense. If B&N gets 60% of the sales price, then I calculate my books have earned them over $10,000 in the past two months. I can't even imagine what they're earning from authors like Tina and Selena. Why shoot your bestsellers in the genre down in the hope that some other book _might _come up the list and sell as well? I just can't see any logic there.


Because sales volume of each indie is tiny for B&N, no matter how well you sell. B&N Nook must move like millions of books per week, if not per day. $10k in 2 months is nothing to B&N given the size & scope of their business. It's a BIG deal to individual writers though.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

_"Except that as others have (repeatedly) said, B&N does NOT keep its sales constant."_

I realize many repeat that. So how do we know aggregate spending on erotica? Where is that data available? We can certainly see individual book sales going up or down, but I don't know where we see the erotica, thriller, romance, western, or mystery aggregate sales.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Actually, that was my first thought--that a publisher like Ellora's Cave had uploaded dozens of free books into the system and pushed my books out of the top selling positions. However, when I checked to see what books were ranked better than 1200, I didn't see the dozens of free books that I was expecting. And I saw the books that had been ranked below mine maintaining their ranks. Surely, if my book slid 1000 places, a book that was ranked 400 would take a slide south too...right?

Whatever had happened, it appears things are shuffling around again. My book has been selling better today than it has the last couple. The rank didn't budge until tonight then jumped from the high 1800's to the low 400's. Now it's fluctuating up and down a few points, much like it did before last Friday.

I don't know what to make of it all.



LKRigel said:


> I've read through all the posts, and I didn't see one thing mentioned.
> 
> It seems that over the last week there has been a huge influx -- HUGE -- of free erotica titles at B&N, and they aren't segregated free from paid in the rankings the way Amazon does.
> 
> That might account for pushing everybody down.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

I have a few erotica titles up under a different pen name, and I had a very weird jump with a book today from the 15,000s to the 1,000s in rank. And I sell nowhere near the amount of books that you all do.

I never have understood the rankings or search results at B&N


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Has anyone found out anything about what's going on at B&N? My erotica sales are still half or less what they have steadily been. It's a serious drop-off. 

Has anyone recovered?


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## Debra L Martin (Apr 8, 2010)

I was going to ask the same thing?  What is happening with BN the last couple of days?  I wrote to pubit, but got no reply.


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## Guest (Apr 8, 2011)

One of my books had been around 500, slipped to 1400, and then I woke up to find it at 5,525 today, which has pretty much killed its sales.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

I never received a response from BN.com. Not a word. However, both of my books' rankings returned to close to their previous positions on Wed. The sales aren't as strong as they were last Friday, and Wild Knights is slowly sliding south in rankings, but they're both still selling better than they were on Monday. I'm glad for that.


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

My rankings haven't changed significantly, but sales have come to a screeching, grinding halt. In March, I averaged 28 sales per day (not a ton, but put a jingle in my pocket). Today I've sold *TWO*. Fridays are usually my 2nd best sales days, too. Sunday 4/3 was my best sales day ever at BN (59 sales), then by Tuesday it went splat. It makes no sense that sales would drop way off like that, while my ranking changes so little.

Argh!


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Just one thing I noticed today (which might have been going on for a week or so), search is messed up.  Today I couldn't find my name via search, even though it could find my books -- and a bookmark I did on an earlier author name search worked. (I usually use the bookmark, so I don't know how long this has been acting weird. 

(Just now I checked again and search seems to be working.)

I think they're messing around under the hood.

Camille


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## Debra L Martin (Apr 8, 2010)

daringnovelist said:


> I think they're messing around under the hood.
> 
> Camille


Well, I wish they would stop. My sales are 2/3 down and even if they recover, I don't believe the rankings will be so quick to go back up which means I won't be on any of the best-selling lists.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

Oh Deb, that sucks! I hope your sales perk up!


Deb Martin said:


> Well, I wish they would stop. My sales are 2/3 down and even if they recover, I don't believe the rankings will be so quick to go back up which means I won't be on any of the best-selling lists.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

Well, last Friday I had my best day ever at B&N, and the last few days have been dismal. Very disheartening. I suspect it's the slew of freebies they poured into the system - but I don't really know, of course.

Esp if Jason's mainstream novel is suffering too.

Wacky B&N! Let's hope things start making sense soon.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

I am so sorry to hear so many authors are watching their sales grind to a halt. Mine haven't been all that great, compared to what they were in March. But I'm still earning a LOT more than i was when my books were with the epub. All in all, I'm very happy with how things have gone.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

kcmay said:


> My rankings haven't changed significantly, but sales have come to a screeching, grinding halt. In March, I averaged 28 sales per day (not a ton, but put a jingle in my pocket). Today I've sold *TWO*. Fridays are usually my 2nd best sales days, too. Sunday 4/3 was my best sales day ever at BN (59 sales), then by Tuesday it went splat. It makes no sense that sales would drop way off like that, while my ranking changes so little.


The preponderance of evidence suggests that they are screwing around with something (maybe more than one thing).


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

My sales seem to be recovering a bit-- 40 sales of my bestseller today, and ranked in the 350s.  Not awesome, but it does seem to be improving.  I'm sorry to hear others are slipping.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

In the last several hours, my sales seem to have picked up too.

This isn't confidence-building though. One day, there will have to be routine independent audits of the Amazon, B&N et al platforms.


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## tawnytaylor (Feb 19, 2011)

So glad to hear this Ellen! May they continue climbing!


EllenFisher said:


> My sales seem to be recovering a bit-- 40 sales of my bestseller today, and ranked in the 350s. Not awesome, but it does seem to be improving. I'm sorry to hear others are slipping.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

This morning my sales rank is #271, and I've sold 17 copies of that particular book.

I do notice a surprising dearth of erotica books in the top fifty PubIt books (and a larger quantity of public domain books than usual), but that may simply reflect the fact that quite a few of us took a beating, rankingswise.  Still, I'm paranoid now.   Those of you who write erotica-- do your sales seem more or less in line with your rankings?  I'd say my sales seem to be reflected in my current ranking, based on my prior experience.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

My sales seem to be slowly coming back. Nothing like even a week ago. And yes, there are surprisingly few erotic titles in the top 50 Pubit books - though they make up for it in the next 50!


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

LKRigel said:


> In the last several hours, my sales seem to have picked up too.
> 
> This isn't confidence-building though. One day, there will have to be routine independent audits of the Amazon, B&N et al platforms.


How are you going to make that happen? Amazon and B&N would kick you out before they agreed to open their books.

To me it looks like they instituted some changes in the way rankings work and it's possible they botched things a bit. We'll probably never know what they did.


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## Michelle Muto (Feb 1, 2011)

There's a whole thread over at B&N where everyone is complaining about sales. I have to admit, I usually do much better there than here, except the past three days. It seems my sales have done what others are complaining about - fallen off a cliff. 

My book is YA, and very clean at that.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

After another dismal day of sales, I'm about 80 percent convinced that this is caused by the bombardment of erotic freebies B&N just poured into the chain.

It's completely screwing up the search results and pushing the rest of the titles down. Since B&N never responds to complaints or questions, I don't know what any of us can do about it. The only thing I can think of is if somehow all the erotic romance authors would agree to put their titles "off sale" for a few hours all at once -- just to get B&N's attention -- and then "suggest" that they segregate the free titles the way Amazon does.

Otherwise, Samhain and Ellora's Cave are going to trash the indies consistently whenever they decide to dump a bunch of free stuff into the channel. I'm not looking forward to that.

Or maybe I'm just reading this completely wrong.


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## lbcooper (Jan 19, 2011)

I just did a search on Erotic books, priced lowest to highest...  there are 167 books on there for free, and 2 for $.95....  Do you think this influx of free material is what is driving the decline in sales? 
Also, just checked a random selection of those books, and the publisher is Smashwords.

Thoughts?


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

lbcooper said:


> I just did a search on Erotic books, priced lowest to highest... there are 167 books on there for free, and 2 for $.95.... Do you think this influx of free material is what is driving the decline in sales?
> Also, just checked a random selection of those books, and the publisher is Smashwords.
> 
> Thoughts?


That's a lot of free stuff. As a reader, if erotic was one of my categories, why not load up on it? Now, 167 free erotic books is a lot and I might die of a massive orgasm, but otherwise why wouldn't readers pick free over paid?

I don't know enough about B&N, though -- how many free titles do they normally have up? And why would they have so many? Are those publishers actually paying B&N to offer free titles? Every free download costs B&N the bandwidth expense. Not sure I see the business model for B&N in offering so many free books.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

It sounds like a control valve. Let's say they don't want erotica in the best seller list for some reason. So, rather than ban it or fudge the rankings, they just release free stuff to drive down erotica sales. Seems like it worked.


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## SuzanneTyrpak (Aug 10, 2010)

My sales have dropped too, for no apparent reason.


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## lbcooper (Jan 19, 2011)

I don't know.  I seem to go in to orgasm overload simply writing my stories...  lol...

Seems to me, B&N would find a better way to keep Erotica out of the Best Seller lists, if that is their intention...  I guess they give away enough free bandwidth, that model will change again...


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

That theory would make sense if the freebies weren't erotica, but they are. I think it's just B&N not thinking through the consequences of their actions. Amazon wised up pretty quickly and put the free stuff in a different track.


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## SuzanneTyrpak (Aug 10, 2010)

I think something else is going on with them too. My book isn't erotica. And I know a thriller writer whose sales suddenly dropped. Like Ellen and me, the first two days of April were terrific, and then they dropped suddenly. I just wrote to Pubit, hoping to get some information.


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## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

yeah, my first few days of April were my best ever, then ... splat. Something's going on, because it seems to have happened to everyone. 

I did notice 5 new sales showed up in my report for earlier in the month, so maybe they're having another reporting issue like they did a few months ago. Though 5 is no where near enough to offset the drop.


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> It sounds like a control valve. Let's say they don't want erotica in the best seller list for some reason. So, rather than ban it or fudge the rankings, they just release free stuff to drive down erotica sales. Seems like it worked.


If that's the case, why not just exclude erotica from the normal sales rankings and let those books have their own erotica sales rankings?


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

They could do that. They could do lots of things. Lacking sales data, it's difficult to see how the alternatives compare to each other.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> I just wrote to Pubit, hoping to get some information.


Good luck on that.  They don't seem to be terribly communicative, for the most part.

The low sales don't appear to be solely impacting erotica this time. There are lots of people complaining on the Help Board, and I'm getting the impression they're all in varied genres.


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## Will Write for Gruel (Oct 16, 2010)

These companies are not going to get in conversations with the likes of us. It's good to email and ask because if enough do, it may start to sound an alarm, but they will never share their reasons for changing anything going on behind the scenes. The best we will get is low level CS people saying what they've been told to say.


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## lbcooper (Jan 19, 2011)

i agree.  There is no real up front benefit to divulging certain information.  Bottom line, we don't make money, they don't make money, unless they are spreading the wealth, and total book sales remain constant for them...

I dunno, my first two days, sales were nearly 10 times what they are now.  

Nevertheless, i will concentrate on what I do, which is writing.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

Sorry to resuscitate an old thread, but this seemed to be the most appropriate place. Tonight I noticed that Bella Andre's _Love Me_ and Tina Folsom's _Lawful Escort_ (two books which I believe were hit hard by the "re-ranking" B&N did) have more or less regained their place on the PubIt list. Both are in the top hundred Nookbooks. My bestseller is back up in the top forty PubIt books, too, so that's a nice thing to see personally.

Selena reported on another thread that they said they wouldn't re-rank books again. Fingers are crossed!


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