# Amazon is at it again...



## RachelSilbes (Apr 28, 2015)

I heard from a source that works in publishing Amazon is hiring editors and they're going to "rate" books into tiers. If they think your book is going to sell, they'll promote it more. If it's on a lower tier, you're SOL. Amazon wants to become more like a publisher since they're under fire so much.

That's all I heard from my source... sorry I can't go much into detail other than that.

Just want to let you all know this might be a possibility in the future.

EDIT: This is in talks. It's not going to be a thing yet but Amazon wants to control the eBook industry a little more.


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## Guest (May 31, 2015)

It doesn't sound plausible.

If they thought they were under fire now, this would lead to anarchy. Plus it would be expensive ... plus how would the editors know ... It'd be much cheaper and smarter to just wait and see what sells rather than guess.


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## RachelSilbes (Apr 28, 2015)

ideeli028 said:


> It doesn't sound plausible.
> 
> If they thought they were under fire now, this would lead to anarchy. Plus it would be expensive ... plus how would the editors know ... It'd be much cheaper and smarter to just wait and see what sells rather than guess.


I forgot to mention these are in talks and not going to be a thing yet, but they want to control more of the ebook industry.

It might not sound plausible now, but they could think of a way to do something like that.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

RachelSilbes said:


> I heard from a source that works in publishing Amazon is hiring editors and they're going to "rate" books into tiers.* If they think your book is going to sell, they'll promote it more.* If it's on a lower tier, you're SOL. Amazon wants to become more like a publisher since they're under fire so much.
> 
> That's all I heard from my source... sorry I can't go much into detail other than that.
> 
> ...


Isn't that what trad publishers do? They promote books they think will sell? I've read that they are right about 20% of the time. 1/5 books take off; 2 fail and 2 break even.

I think the current system works best-going the way of trad publishers is foolish.


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## Guest (May 31, 2015)

But why when they can just look at the numbers? 

I guarantee even if something they thought was a lox without a bagel started selling, they'd push it.


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

It's an interesting concept and certainly I see reader complaints all the time about hit and miss quality of e-books. But, given there is something like 2,000,000 e-books, I wonder how long it would take a group of editors to read and rate all of them? Talk about a job for life! lol


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## Ghost Flight (Aug 16, 2011)

RachelSilbes said:


> a source that works in publishing


IME, this is a euphemism for ADS* Headquarters when the conversation topic mentions Amazon. I wouldn't give the claims any weight unless I could verify them with Amazon's management.

* ADS = Amazon Derangement Syndrome


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## RachelSilbes (Apr 28, 2015)

dianapersaud said:


> Isn't that what trad publishers do? They promote books they think will sell? I've read that they are right about 20% of the time. 1/5 books take off; 2 fail and 2 break even.
> 
> I think the current system works best-going the way of trad publishers is foolish.


^ Exactly. They're thinking of ways to become more like a publisher and not just a site that sells ebooks. I don't know their final plan but that's one step they might take.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Amazon already has several imprints.  So yes they have editors.  
We shall see.  
Sounds like the things x y and z said then less than 3 days after the talks were resolved,  some of their ebooks were put on sale cheap.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

And the tiering meme raises its head yet again. Not that Amazon doesn't throw the occasional title into Thunderdome and let it play, but Rachel, look at how you've phrased this.

Amazon is hiring editors and will be tiering books!
Well, this is just in talks right now.
Well, it's something they _could_ do.

This thread starts off with a breathless declaration that *it's happening*, then devolves into an admission that well, no, there's nothing definite about anything. Why would you even lead with a statement of "fact" that really isn't even close to reality?

Amazon could cut royalty rates, start charging for alsobot visibility, let indies buy marketing real estate that doesn't suck, or a hundred other things that would make a lot more sense than this. They have a publishing arm that is separate from what they do, which is, well, distribute. So long as they distribute they will be a distributor. What "fire" are they under that joining the "enemy" would suppress? What is the issue that something like this would even address?

Frankly, I think Ghost Flight has the right of it...


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## AllyWho (May 16, 2015)

Or here's another "it could happen scenario..."

Amazon already has a number of imprints, maybe they will continue to acquire those indies & titles it thinks will sell, promote them, and let everyone else who self publishes continue to fight for visibility in an increasingly crowded pool?

If Amazon want to tier, they already have that ability by pushing their own imprints & titles.


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## RachelSilbes (Apr 28, 2015)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> And the tiering meme raises its head yet again. Not that Amazon doesn't throw the occasional title into Thunderdome and let it play, but Rachel, look at how you've phrased this.
> 
> Amazon is hiring editors and will be tiering books!
> Well, this is just in talks right now.
> ...


You're right, I worded it very poorly. "It's in talks" and "something they could do" are aligned I think. They are thinking about doing it, thus putting it on the table and talking about it.

And I disagree with you. Hiring editors can be a reality.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

This doesn't sound scalable.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

AliceWE said:


> It's an interesting concept and certainly I see reader complaints all the time about hit and miss quality of e-books. But, given there is something like 2,000,000 e-books, I wonder how long it would take a group of editors to read and rate all of them? Talk about a job for life! lol


That's what I was thinking. Trad pubs only take a handful of manuscripts a year, and good luck getting them to even read one that wasn't solicited by agent, so they can pick and choose. Amazon doesn't have that much time and their hands. I'd be worried about them if they did.


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## JeanetteRaleigh (Jan 1, 2013)

I can't see Amazon killing their indies.  One thing Amazon excels at is customer service.  I am much more loyal to Amazon now that they offer the KDP program.  Multiply my loyalty by the thousands of others who have seen success.  There are plenty of items that in the past I would have purchased at another vendor, but chose to buy from Amazon because I want them to succeed to continue my success.

Maybe it's a program where they give a boost to a select few, because I am fairly certain that the incoming tide of material is too great otherwise.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)

Tiers already exist. Called "sales rank determined by reader purchases." Does a damned good job.


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

If Amazon started to promote books based of their evaluation of the content - and it would not surprise me if they did - they could do so in a way that none of us would even know.  Simple. No dissing indie authors. If a book sells on its own, promote it. If the editorial staff thinks it will be a good seller, promote it.

I see nothing inherently nefarious in this approach.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I heard it from my source that this wasn't going to happen. But then my cat's been known to be wrong.


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## RachelSilbes (Apr 28, 2015)

Monique said:


> I heard it from my source that this wasn't going to happen. But then my cat's been known to be wrong.


Drats, my plans of world domination have been spoiled yet again by a cat.


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

I don't consent


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## The Bass Bagwhan (Mar 9, 2014)

katrina46 said:


> That's what I was thinking. Trad pubs only take a handful of manuscripts a year, and good luck getting them to even read one that wasn't solicited by agent, so they can pick and choose. Amazon doesn't have that much time and their hands. I'd be worried about them if they did.


I don't think it's entirely implausible that Amazon might be considering some kind of "quality control" process. After all, any retailer will stock cheap products, but no one wants to be known as stocking _bad_ products. At the moment it has no means of preventing people publishing anything, but it might be keen to put in a tier system that promises a better shopping experience for its customers by guaranteeing a so-called level of quality. Amazon could even offer a paid service to authors that provides some kind of qualifying certificate. Like "Guaranteed Amazon Good Read" or something.
As for checking a couple of million books, editors have used systems for decades that very quickly and somewhat cruelly dismiss manuscripts after just a cursory look. Amazon might even try an arbitrary cut-off - like no reviews or sales for 2 years (or something) to automatically be put in the lower tiers.
More than anything, if Amazon was seriously considering any sort of thing along these lines, it's the enormous growth of the indie and self-publishing industry that be forcing Amazon to look at possibilities now before the sheer magnitude of the "problem" gets any bigger.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

ideeli028 said:


> It doesn't sound plausible.
> 
> If they thought they were under fire now, this would lead to anarchy. Plus it would be expensive ... plus how would the editors know ... It'd be much cheaper and smarter to just wait and see what sells rather than guess.


NEVER SAY NEVER WHERE BUSINESS IS CONCERNED. Maybe not the same, but it could be a paid service they are going to trial.

A distributor in Brazil already does this, but they charge for the service. You're free not to use their editing services, but some retailers won't stock or sell self-published ebooks/POD in Brazil without the seal of approval. Besides editing, they check that any translations to Portuguese conform to the translators rights and laws. They also check that spellings and accent usage conform to the new concord between Brazil and Portugal, so that you get a special badge. (Obviously that part of it relating to spelling and accents will be automated as it is for Amazon)

Amazon wouldn't need to rate all existing books, just those new ones who pay for the service to get a seal of approval on the book's sales page.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Graeme Hague said:


> I don't think it's entirely implausible that Amazon might be considering some kind of "quality control" process. After all, any retailer will stock cheap products, but no one wants to be known as stocking _bad_ products. At the moment it has no means of preventing people publishing anything, but it might be keen to put in a tier system that promises a better shopping experience for its customers by guaranteeing a so-called level of quality. Amazon could even offer a paid service to authors that provides some kind of qualifying certificate. Like "Guaranteed Amazon Good Read" or something.
> As for checking a couple of million books, editors have used systems for decades that very quickly and somewhat cruelly dismiss manuscripts after just a cursory look. Amazon might even try an arbitrary cut-off - like no reviews or sales for 2 years (or something) to automatically be put in the lower tiers.
> More than anything, if Amazon was seriously considering any sort of thing along these lines, it's the enormous growth of the indie and self-publishing industry that be forcing Amazon to look at possibilities now before the sheer magnitude of the "problem" gets any bigger.


Your no review idea won't work. I will tell you exactly why. Please take a look at this book. It has 56 reviews. 50 are 5 stars.
http://www.amazon.com/AMERICAN-COOKBOOK-Delicious-American-Ingredients-ebook/product-reviews/B00NVIA422/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

You will note the title. The first recipe is couscous and the second is Vietnamese Fried Rice. Neither of which are American dishes. 
This is one of many I have found like this in various genres so books like this would game a review system.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

Never going to happen. Besides, that's the purpose of the reviewing system. Even with the problems that it has, it is still easier to find something readable on Amazon than it is to walk into a bookstore and start looking at covers and reading blurbs.

If they were going to do anything to make it easier for readers to find quality reads, it would be a million times easier to overhaul their review system than to start having editors read millions of existing books.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

David S. said:


> Amazon's third-world, English-as-a-second-language censors, can't even agree on what's porn.
> 
> How are they going to "rate" an actual book?


This.


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## Logan R. (May 13, 2011)

Two or three years ago an agent friend of mine told me that according to his sources Amazon was going to buy Barnes and Noble. That never ended up happening, so I wouldn't freak out about this yet. Sources can be wrong.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

The REASON Amazon is successful is that they LET THE MARKET decide what is good and what is crap. What is good SELLS. What is CRAP falls down to the millionth rank. And it doesn't really cost Amazon any $.

Trad pubs on the other hand....spend a lot of $ marketing certain books and printing them. Then they have to pay to have unsold books destroyed/returned. Wasteful system. Do you really think Amazon is going to follow the foolish trad publisher model? I don't. Bezos is no fool.

Their algorithm system seems to be working fine. Why would they spend $ to upset readers and authors? No one would win in that situation.


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

If I were running the book business at Amazon, I would absolutely be promoting books that I thought would sell better than others - not just books that the author had already managed to promote.

I wouldn't necessarily tell authors about it, but I would certainly promote books - since my business is selling books.

Today, I think we all agree, most promotion that Amazon does is for books or authors that already sell well.

Adding an internal editorial staff who make decisions on which books to promote from unknown authors based entirely on the quality of the book - in the option of the editorial staff - sounds like the next approach.

I would think that as unknown, independent authors, we would embrace this model...


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

Mcoorlim said:


> The sky is always falling, yet it never seems to land.


Maybe I don't get it, but if Amazon was to start promoting books based on their quality, as determined by their editors, how would that even be a bad thing?

Write a quality book, get promoted by Amazon.

I would rather see that than simply see Ann Rice get the top billing in Fantasy because her last book sold well.


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## Logan R. (May 13, 2011)

thewitt said:


> Maybe I don't get it, but if Amazon was to start promoting books based on their quality, as determined by their editors, how would that even be a bad thing?
> 
> Write a quality book, get promoted by Amazon.
> 
> I would rather see that than simply see Ann Rice get the top billing in Fantasy because her last book sold well.


Ann Rice is gonna get top billing because she's Ann Rice, and has an audience. Same with Stephanie Meyer, E.L. James, and any other author who most consider to write bad books, yet still are at the top of the charts. Because they have an audience, and will be successful with or without Amazon promoting them.


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

Logan Rutherford said:


> Ann Rice is gonna get top billing because she's Ann Rice, and has an audience. Same with Stephanie Meyer, E.L. James, and any other author who most consider to write bad books, yet still are at the top of the charts. Because they have an audience, and will be successful with or without Amazon promoting them.


Doesn't address my question at all.

Why is it a bad thing if Amazon reviews the content of submitted material by unknown authors and promotes those books it sees as quality?


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

This is already happening. It's called Kindle Singles.

Maybe they're thinking of creating an additional program for book-length titles?

Rue


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## Logan R. (May 13, 2011)

thewitt said:


> Doesn't address my question at all.
> 
> Why is it a bad thing if Amazon reviews the content of submitted material by unknown authors and promotes those books it sees as quality?


I wasn't trying to. I was just pointing out that to people like Ann Rice or other established authors this (totally theoretical, hypothetical, take-with-a-grain-of-salt, program) wouldn't affect them at all. They'd still be at the top of the charts and selling like mad because they have an audience. It was a digression. 

However, to address your question, at face value it wouldn't be a bad thing at all! I agree with you. However, I highly doubt it will happen at the rate that books are being published. They'd have to pick and choose, and if they're only picking and choosing which books to read, then how do you get them to read yours? There's just too many hypothetical and unknown variables right now to say whether or not this would be a 100% without a doubt "good thing".

They're already doing this to some extent with Kindle Scout, Kindle Daily Deals, Editor's Choice, and things like that. I doubt they'll roll it out on a massive scale and read every single newly published book though. If they did though, I wouldn't be totally opposed to it, but I'd have to know more about this (totally theoretical, hypothetical, take-with-a-grain-of-salt, program) before saying with certainty that it would be good.


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

I suspect if they did this, we would never know it was in place.

Books that were deemed "higher quality" would simply be promoted, sell more, and then be promoted more...

It would just be a side effect of publishing a higher quality book, not a program.

I don't know how they would screen books, at the rumored 3500 new titles a day it would not be all books for sure...  I just don't see how this whole concept would cause panic in anyone - unless they plan to publish rubbish.


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

The problem with chatter like this is that it runs counter to everything Amazon has been doing - and doing successfully - for the past four or five years.

Why would Amazon use a subjective system to tier books when it has been such a failure in trad publishing?

The market system has worked very well for Amazon, coupled with their extensively researched and well implemented algorithm. Why would they abandon a system that they themselves developed and that has a proven record of success, for a failed work practice from a part of the industry that is fast becoming obsolete?

I'm not a gambling man, but if I were, my money would be on Amazon further refining their successful and effective algorithm to maximize ebook sales going forward (I love management speak  ).


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

Why would Amazon start promoting good books instead of simply leaving it up to the author?

Sales.

It's just that simple.

They are in the business to sell books.  If the author is not promoting his own books, and Amazon thinks that the book has sales merit, why WOULDN'T they promote the book?

I don't see this as a significant change from what they are doing, and I don't see this as hurting ANYONE who is already promoting their own book.

No one has even hinted that they will start rejecting books like Trade publishers do - only that they will PROMOTE good books, even if the author does not.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

They already do this. Their imprints often will approach authors who have a book that sold okay but not spectacular and make an offer on it. I know multiple people this has happened to. Then the person, if they take the deal, gets it republished by Amazon through an imprint.

As for tiering self-pub books? They already do. What sells, they help sell better. What doesn't sell sinks like a stone. I don't see them changing a system that already works fine.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

thewitt said:


> Doesn't address my question at all.
> 
> Why is it a bad thing if Amazon reviews the content of submitted material by unknown authors and promotes those books it sees as quality?


It is a bad thing because it is one person's opinion, and is no different to a traditional publisher which I, for one, am hoping to move away from. How many 'editors' reading 50 Shades of Drivel would have thought it quality and promoted it? Only the ones who couldn't read, I suspect. As we keep getting told, Amazon is not a publisher; it is a bookstore and like any bookstore, it will put its stock on display and see what sells. That suits me fine. I've found in the short time I've been with Amazon, that good books promote themselves.

Amazon also has a computer thingy which promotes the books that sell already. It is called also viewed or also bought. Besides all this, I would like an insight into how someone who works in publishing has any idea of what Amazon is likely to be doing. As said, Amazon are not publishers and I think publishing house employees who say things like this are just trying to scare people because they know they are on their way out.


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## Logan R. (May 13, 2011)

Doglover said:


> It is a bad thing because it is one person's opinion...


I hadn't even considered this, and yet it seems so obvious. 

A very good point, Doglover.


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## Scatterdown (May 3, 2015)

Something to sort your illiterate, cut n paste KU scammer from serious writers would be a thing to wish for, if it could be effected.


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## Jill Nojack (Mar 7, 2014)

thewitt said:


> Why would Amazon start promoting good books instead of simply leaving it up to the author?
> 
> Sales.
> 
> ...


The way I see it is that Amazon isn't going to expand the available pool of money that people have to spend on books. So, promoting x book over y book makes no difference. Each individual who choses to buy ebooks from Amazon has a limited budget to do so. And most people who buy books are specifically looking for books at the time. Non-readers aren't cruising Amazon, see a book and go, "hey, you know, I should take up reading!"

Their only options to increase their income from ebooks are:

1) Get a larger piece of the ebook market. (Which they do with aggressive pricing.)

2) Take a larger share of the take from ebooks they would have "on the shelves" anyway. (Which they are doing with own imprints and Kindle Scout.)

3) Use cheaper ebooks as a draw to get people to buy more of the other stuff people buy on Amazon (which they do through Amazon Prime and Kindle Unlimited.)

I don't see where editors fit into any of that in terms of increasing income. People's income for buying books doesn't increase just because different books are being promoted. And people don't stop buying books because they got a bad one once in a while.

Otherwise, for the most part, what people want to read does get to the top. Not all of it, by any stretch. I continue to find gems of books that no one much is interested in but me, usually on free promotion days. But certainly enough ends up there to allow people to spend all of their book money for the month.

Ny two cents. In the wild and wooly west of Amazon publishing, it makes no sense to expand the sheriffin' when the most rascally varmints (whom we all believe we are not ones of!) end up shooting their own selves soon enough.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Amazon's form 10-K said that they have almost $15B in cash, so if they (meaning Mr. Bezos) wanted to hire editors to cover every ebook submitted, they easily could. It would only take a few thousand editors, and that would be maybe a 1% increase in their headcount. I don't think they'll do this specifically, but I do think you're going to see more push toward in-house content which seems to be the new trend in media companies. The same thing is happening in audio - their in-house studio now competes for talent with both indie and trade publishers, as well as video. 

I thought you were going to post that kindles will now be delivered by drones.


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## Mxz (Jan 17, 2015)

I think they are already doing this on a lower level.  Now instead of just writing the review they ask readers to rate concrete things about the books.  (Maybe they could use the info to create tiers or use them as suggestions to narrow books to review.)  Last week I saw the changes.  Back then it asked asked me to rate the quality of the writing and the level of suspense.  I clicked on the same book today and now it asks if there is sexual content and violence.  They give four choices per question.  The rest of the questions pop up after you click on the first choice.  Then they post your answer (or at least the automation says it did).  These answers can easily be put into an algorithm to tier books based on writing quality.  It seems as though they are also making questions specific to categories to tier books within the category.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Monique said:


> I heard it from my source that this wasn't going to happen. But then my cat's been known to be wrong.


I have seven cats in my house right now. They're telling me that Amazon is going to make eating fish necessary before publishing.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Mitns said:


> I think they are going to take reader suggestions as well or at least use them to narrow books to review. Last week I reviewed a book and they asked to rate the quality of the writing and the level of suspense. I clicked to review the same book to see the questions and now it is asking if there is sexual content and violence. They give four choices per question. The rest of the questions pop up after you click on the first choice. Then they post your answer (or at least the automation says it did).


Audible does that now. Some reviewers get "guided questions" which ask for specific information on the title, performance, and so forth. For example, "What other book might you compare to <insert title> and why", or "what did you like best about this story?" There's a short list of questions which both draw out more information from the reviewer but also tend to allow for comparative evaluation of titles. Doubtless there are algos reading the responses to structured reviewer questions and making decisions based on content of those reviews.


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

I believe that Amazon WILL increase the pool of money being spent on eBooks, and they know they have the power to do so.  How and where they advertize, and the quality of work that they sell, will both impact this.

Readers have to be able to find high quality, affordable books quickly and painlessly load them on their reading device.

I see Amazon already going in this direction, and see them continuing to do so.

As for one person making the decision on which books to promote, I also believe that will happen.

It won't prevent you, the self-published author, from promoting your own books, but as a book seller, I see Amazon doing this in the future as just smart business.

Print book stored have been doing this for decades, where the store decides what books to put on the entrance table, at the checkout, on the ends of the aisles, anywhere they can put books for better visibility.

If they were not playing this game already, all books would simply be sitting on the shelf organized by genre and title or author...

It would surprise me greatly if Amazon does NOT have a system like this in the works.


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## Scottish Lass (Oct 10, 2013)

Tuesday Chase said:


> Something to sort your illiterate, cut n paste KU scammer from serious writers would be a thing to wish for, if it could be effected.


This was my thought as well.

There will probably be automated ways to pick up on these (length, known scammer accounts, length of title, genre?) and it wouldn't take very long to look at books that trigger an alarm and determine that they're rubbish. Even if they have 50 5* reviews out of 56.

Making this rubbish drop to the bottom of the pool (or maybe even sink into the mud) will make the water a little clearer for both prawns and big fish. From the readers' pov it should make them less likely to be duped and waste their money on a scamlet, and Amazon are all about the readers, aren't they?


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I read over 400 books a year (and buy more than that, sigh)... I have yet to be duped into buying a scamlet. I almost never even end up buying books so bad I can't finish them. It's ridiculously easy to find good things to read. I wish I could quadruple my reading time/speed, because then I might have a chance of getting through my TBR pile and making a dent in all the great books out there I want to read.

I buy books almost solely through Amazon (I do get paper ones from my local bookstore because Powell's is amazing though) and never run into problems or get duped by bad books. It's insanely easy to tell when a book is cruddy or a scamlet at a glance 99.9999% of the time.

It is possible I'm missing out on great reads because I'm sure there are great books out there with covers that don't work or blurbs that don't really convey what they should etc, so that those books don't get visible or if I do see them I write them off as being bad before ever checking them out.  But that's not a problem Amazon can fix, since they could push a book I don't want to read in front of me all the time and I still wouldn't read it...

(In fact, this happens a lot in some ways. I am a Prime member and can have my choice at the beginning of each month to get a book free from one of four choices Amazon gives me. FREE BOOK! But... I almost never get one, because free isn't enough. It has to be something I want to read. Price matters so much less than time to me.  Even Amazon can't make all their imprint books bestsellers. Readers decide, ultimately. A book nobody wants to read could get all the marketing help in the world and people still wouldn't read it. That's part of the biz.)

But this supposed issue with scamlets? I don't see it. Amazon takes a lot of those down pretty quickly when reported and most of them don't sell and sink away anyway. They are pretty much never visible in alsobots that I've noticed and it's very easy to glance at a book listing and tell if it is a book that might be good. That's why things like proper keywording, a great blurb, and a professional genre-appropriate cover are so important. I'll always focus my efforts on things like that, not on worrying about what Amazon may or may not do or what scamlets might or might not pop up or whatever. 

Harsh as it is... if a book isn't selling, it's probably something to do with the book itself (could be a huge number of factors) and way less to do with Amazon somehow being clogged with bad books or somehow magically deciding what sells or not.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

Given the quantity of books published on Amazon, there is no way that Amazon is going to pay for the manpower required to read and rate every single one.  No way.

However, what might make sense, would be to hire a few people to look over books that suddenly spike in the rankings to see whether they are popular because readers are enjoying them, or popular because someone has put a bot network to work.  If readers are genuinely loving 'Hot Vampire Barristas' then Amazon might want to boost its visibility to improve their profits.  

If '101 Ways to Clean Your CTRL Key!' has hit the top ten with a host of five star reviews from people who also bought '101 Ways to Clean Your Space Bar!' and 'Your CTRL Key for Beginners!' and these books consist of some badly formatted scraped content, then Amazon would be harming their own interests if they gave them additional publicity & they might even want to tweak things to reduce the visibility of those scamlets on their site.

General official Amazon reading & rating of all titles though?  Not going to happen unless they institute a sizeable fee for every title listed, which they aren't going to do while their competitors don't.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Yes, it's just like Amazon to hire lots and lots of humans to manually do a laborious job that is already being handled more than adequately by automated algorithms and user-generated content.

Because... source.


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

thewitt said:


> Write a quality book, get promoted by Amazon.


Define quality.
What sells is not always 'quality' in the eyes of others. Bestsellers are often merely books that tell stories that readers want to read.
IMO Before e-books came along the books that became bestsellers were the ones that publishers decided to promote. It was often the author that got promoted as much as the books (that's why I joined a public speaking club  ) . I remember one publisher saying that there was a certain author that they'd never allow near the public .


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## Guest (Jun 1, 2015)

Amazon doesn't need to hire "editors" to determine what will and won't sell. It already has something more powerful: algorithms.

Yes, Amazon has imprints. But Amazon is a RETAILER first and foremost. It is able to be a successful retailer because it knows its customers. Ir knows its customers because it has a powerful set of algorithms that it uses to identify what people may or may not be interested in.

I don't know who your "source" is. But I work in contract packaging. We work with major retail chains. Let me tell you, nobody with half a brain in retail would exchange genuine consumer data with "editors" to determine what will sell. Some of the stuff that I see would make your head explode. These retail outlets can identify which books will sell in which stores to the point that they customize inventories to different locations. That's why a Walmart in City A will have different books for sale than a Walmart in City B. Or why a Target near a mall will have different books than a Target in a stand-alone plaza. Retailers understand their customer demographics in ways that are downright creepy. And Amazon has one of the best customer data systems in the industry.


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## ET (Oct 23, 2014)

katrina46 said:


> That's what I was thinking. Trad pubs only take a handful of manuscripts a year, and good luck getting them to even read one that wasn't solicited by agent, so they can pick and choose. Amazon doesn't have that much time and their hands. I'd be worried about them if they did.


I think you hit the nail on the head. I just don't see Amazon funding the manpower for this. They might be able to give a small number some attention (and those would be the ones that are already selling); but every indie book in the catalog? Probably not doable.

I think that before Amazon would attempt this, they would probably institute a "pay to publish" model: Not hundreds of dollars per book, mind you, but perhaps a "nuisance fee" of ten dollars per title per year.

I'm not advocating this, mind you; but if Amazon's aim is to pare down the catalog and disincentivize the publication of poorly edited, poorly conceived books, that might be one way. (Plus, it would be another Amazon revenue stream!)


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Making people pay to publish beyond the 30-65% they already take wouldn't really stop scammers. Scammers would just pay the 10 bucks or whatever. It would probably cull legit people who aren't stupid enough to want to pay to publish when they could go elsewhere. The last thing Amazon wants to do is drive the best writers to other platforms, heh.


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## edwardgtalbot (Apr 28, 2010)

Edward Trimnell said:


> I think that before Amazon would attempt this, they would probably institute a "pay to publish" model: Not hundreds of dollars per book, mind you, but perhaps a "nuisance fee" of ten dollars per title per year.


If this is indeed a problem then yes, this would be a MUCH more logical next step.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

***********


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## ♨ (Jan 9, 2012)

"Pay to publish" wouldn't solve anything.

Let's say they decided to charge $10/year/book to list your books.  If an author is making money with their books, no problem.  If they aren't, then many would pull their books rather than pay the fee and lose money.

But Amazon is all about the customers.  Storage space is negligible.  The average eBook probably costs them fractions of a cent to store on their system.  I would imagine Amazon would see it as preferable to have a book available if a customer wants to buy it than to have that customer have to go somewhere else to buy it.  So, from that perspective, anything that reduces customer satisfaction (such as eBooks being unavailable) is not something Amazon is going to be too keen on.

And it won't get rid of low quality books pumped out by certain marketing types.  They make money on the books they pump out, else they wouldn't do it.  You might eliminate some of them, but that only increases the profitability for those that stick around, making it easier for them to get sales to pay the fees and pump out more books.

As a real world example, I know of a forum which some of you may be familiar with.  They had problems with people flooding their marketplace with low quality products.  So, they doubled their fees.

It didn't work.

Those skilled at selling crummy products will continue to be able to make money.  Double the fee?  No problem.  But those that might have good products but are less skilled at marketing may not even make enough money to cover the fee.  So, those products won't be available.

I would imagine it would be the same for eBooks.  Someone could write a quality book and not generate $10/year in royalties, which means they would pull their books from Amazon if they had to pay a fee like that.  Meanwhile, those who manage to earn $1/month in royalties from a crummy book will continue to do so.  Even if they pay $10/year/book, they would be earning $2/year/book.  And that's just assuming they only earn $1/month/book in royalties.

So a pay to publish model would reduce the availability of quality books while maintaining or increasing the availability of crummy books.  I think it's safe to say that's something Amazon would not want.

Thus, a pay to publish model wouldn't be in Amazon's (or their customers') best interests.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

thewitt said:


> ...As for one person making the decision on which books to promote, I also believe that will happen.
> 
> ...Print book stored have been doing this for decades, where the store decides what books to put on the entrance table, at the checkout, on the ends of the aisles, anywhere they can put books for better visibility.


FYI, Print bookstores SELL those placements to publishers. It's called co-op placement in industry jargon. It is paid advertising, not curation.

http://pimpmynovel.blogspot.com/search/label/co-op


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

Amazing how everyone loves to talk about how the sky may or may not be falling. 

Everyone, go write some more books!


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/60029428?trk=jserp_job_details_text

They are hiring an editor for a new content curation initiative.



> Editorial Manager
> Amazon - Seattle, WA, US





> Amazon is seeking *an experienced editor/content curator to support a new initiative* that will improve the book-shopping experience by helping customers discover books they will love.





> As the *lead content curator on the book discovery team*, you will be responsible for implementing our book discovery strategy. You will help select which books we will feature; help decide how to present them to customers so they are easy to discover;


So there's going to be a "book discovery team."


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## Anna Drake (Sep 22, 2014)

Wow. That certainly answers that question. The job sounds massive, though.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Not quite. 

There already "book discovery" people/teams, but it's not some army of people classifying millions of books into arbitrary tiers, as imagined in the OP.

Amazon already has plenty of people working on curation who work alongside, and in tandem with, the automated processes that rank books, recommend books, order them on things like the popularity lists, pair them with readers based on browsing habits, purchasing habits, etc. etc.

For example, Amazon has lots of different promos like the "100 for $3.99" promo. Those books will be manually selected, but most likely from a pool which has previously been winnowed automatically. I bet they use all sorts of metrics: sales, velocity, price, reviews, etc. Same goes for bigger promos like the Kindle Daily Deal.

Other promotional/visibility opportunities are 100% automated and controlled exclusively by algorithms, some obvious and deductible, others a little more opaque and mysterious. The Top Rated list is an obvious one - appearance on that is solely determined by number of reviews and review average. Movers & Shakers is exclusively based on amount of Sales Rank improvement in 24 hours. And then something like Popularity is more complicated. But they are all 100% automated and have no human intervention.

In other words, I don't think this job posting indicates any real shift in Amazon's approach.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

dgaughran said:


> There already "book discovery" people/teams, but it's not some army of people classifying millions of books into arbitrary tiers, as imagined in the OP.


When did the OP ever say this was to be the case?


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

> Responsibilities
> 
> Review/vet all of the books that will appear in *our curated experience* to make sure:
> They are categorized appropriately so customers can easily search for them
> ...


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Eh, in the OP.



> I heard from a source that works in publishing Amazon is hiring editors and they're going to "rate" books into tiers. If they think your book is going to sell, they'll promote it more. If it's on a lower tier, you're SOL. Amazon wants to become more like a publisher since they're under fire so much.


The above states that these editors are going to rate books into tiers. There are four million books. Ergo, an army would be needed to do this supposed rating. This "tiering" idea is a zombie meme which comes around every so often. There's no evidence to support it, and it doesn't make any sense, for reasons that have been explained at length by others on this thread.

The job posting you linked to, and then quoted, proves nothing whatsoever. You haven't made any argument in favor of your position, so I'm not sure what there is to say.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

I guess you and I are reading different things into that.

I see that saying they will pick out some books for their "curated experience." That will be the top tier. Other stuff is in a different tier.

*ETA: I also think it's possible that "tier" could have been chosen by the OP or her source, and doesn't accurately reflect what will happen.*

I don't see an army sifting though everything. I see automation and "buzz" bringing certain books to the attention of a team of people.

ETA: Remember Amazon is calling this a new initiative, so they do see it as something different.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

dgaughran said:


> The job posting you linked to, and then quoted, proves nothing whatsoever. You haven't made any argument in favor of your position, so I'm not sure what there is to say.


Are you getting me mixed up with the OP, by any chance? We're different people.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

I'm not mixing anything up. I know you are two different people. You seem to be alluding to something similar to the OP, but that's a guess based on limited information as you haven't really advanced a detailed position.

However, you might making the same mistake as the OP: Amazon doesn't need to introduce any system of tiering. As a commenter already said, it has that already. It's called Sales Rank - an automated system which perfectly tiers each book in order depending on current sales, historical sales, and velocity of sales.

Amazon already does all sorts of curation - both human and automated. Amazon staff hand-pick books for promos all the time, and (it is generally assumed) they use all sorts of metrics and tools to both pick and discover these books - sales, reviews, appearance on various lists throughout the site, etc. And then there is plenty of automated curation, deciding what appears on Popularity Lists, Top Rated Lists, Best Seller Lists, and what books appear in the millions of emails that go out to customers every day.

In other words, while this particular job posting may well be for a new initiative, it's perfectly understandable within the broad swathe of current initiatives involving both human curation and automated curation and combinations thereof - initiatives that are already happening. Therefore, this is no evidence for any system of tiering or any major change in how things are already happening.

I'll give you an example of the kind of thing it could be. You can tell me if this is plausible or not.

Amazon has a new feature that you might have seen, where it asks you to recommend what book to read after Book X. It currently seems to be fully automated, but Amazon may wish to introduce a human curation element to sift through the user-generated data and do some on-site promotion for titles that crop up regularly as a recommended read after Book X.

I'm not saying that's what this is. The above is purely an illustrative example to show what this _could _be - without the need to posit tiering or some other shift in how things are currently done.

Or it could be something else. It could be tiering. It could be a huge change in how Amazon does business. What I'm saying is that there is no evidence for that - either advanced by the OP, or in this job posting.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

> as you haven't really advanced a detailed position.


This is accurate. I see how someone could look at this new initiative and think "tiers." I also think it's possible the person might have gotten a little mixed up. Let's just wait and see.


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## S. Elliot Brandis (Dec 9, 2013)

Why would they do this?

The current system -- letting the market decide -- is working perfectly well. They have no need to make judgement choices over what's good or not. They'd basically be spending money regulating a self-regulating market. They're not going to move to a less efficient model.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

I don't see why it would be in Amazon's interests to curate all self-published books. it just doesn't seem to make any sense. There is a lot of crap out there and I don't see why Amazon would think it'd be a good idea to pay people to sift through that crap when the readers will do it for free. Stuff that doesn't sell will drop. Stuff that sells well will catch their attention and they'll have someone from one of their publishing imprints take a look and see if they can do something with it. The rest of the stuff will or won't sell and Amazon will get a cut off every single one of those sales. 

Offering optional editing and formatting services like CreateSpace does is something I could see them doing. But hiring people to look through every submission just seems like such a massive waste of time and money, time and money that could be better spent elsewhere. 

Not only that, but can you imagine how quick the other retailers would be to jump on this opportunity? "Hey, Amazon takes a month to review your book to have someone grade it for tier placement. But here at iBooks/Kobo/Google/Nook/etc. we don't use tiers and you can have your book live within twenty-four hours."


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## Guest (Jun 4, 2015)

From reading the job description, they are not looking for an editor, i.e. not a CONTENT EDITOR. They are looking for a project manager (like the "editor-in-chief" of a newspaper who runs the paper but doesn't actually do any reporting/editing. This is a PROCESSES position, not a publishing position. Look at the very first responsibility listed in the job listing.



> They are categorized appropriately so customers can easily search for them
> Selection within categories makes sense and we aren't missing any major books, topics etc


One of the major issues on Amazon is miscategorization of books. This is something that is widespread and directly harms the ability of readers to find books. I recently joked around about this issue regarding the book selections offered to Vine reviews and the hilariously wrong categories books are in. Part of the job of this team, it sounds like, is to make sure people are putting books where they are supposed to be and not just ramming them any-old-where.

An editorial manager position would be a processes position. Amazon sounds like they are putting processes in place to IMPROVE SEARCH and make it easier for people to find what they are looking for. Not that they are going to be manually reviewing each book for "curation" like a library would.

It also appears this project will be looking at how the ratings and reviews are used. Again, the review system is broken on Amazon currently and this is something they really need to address.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

I can see how a rumor like this might have started.

Amazon probably has some form of tiering *for customer service purposes*. I worked at Google, where incoming emails from advertisers would be automatically tiered - and that would determine the level of support they would get. It has changed a little since I worked there, but, back then, an advertiser spending at the lower level would get email support only. Someone spending a lot more would get phone support. And the top spenders would have a dedicated account rep. And this is a pretty common approach to customer service in large firms, especially tech firms.

But this tiering didn't have any effect on how advertisers' ads were served, their general visibility, or anything else like that - Google's system and its algorithms were blind to that customer service tiering. It had no effect on those systems at all.

Amazon probably has some form of that. Big selling authors get reps. Those not selling as much get KDP email support and no one they can call if their book gets yanked for some reason.

But there's no evidence to support the view that there is some top-down tiering system in place which determines how visible your book will be to readers - and that runs against Amazon's core philosophy of using (mostly) automated systems to display to readers the book they are most likely to purchase. It doesn't make sense for a whole bunch of reasons.


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

I heard Amazon was going to start paying in Benjamins. Yippee!!!


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## sugarhit (Feb 9, 2015)

Anything is possible. I don't doubt that they'd have 'Editor's Picks' and the like.

However, if I'm a mega retailer, I'd want to see to it that all the products in my store sold. Even if it was a lowly ebook.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

I think this is (mostly) good and, with all due respect, you'all who are saying that the sales ranking system for book discovery is working are wrong. I find it hard to find books that I want to read using Amazon search - basically I have given up on it, and that means a lot of other folks have, also. And that means people are giving up on reading.  

I think the structured review concept is a great idea and I'd love to see that get rolled out more thoroughly.

I don't, however, like competing with in-house developed content.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Really? you can't find book to read so you quit reading books?  How sad for you.

Somehow I don't think this is a widespread problem. Every reader I know complains they wish they had more time to read because there are too many things out there they want to read.  I read 400+ books a year as I said. I still can't keep up with all the good books I find that I want to read.  Perhaps if someone is having trouble finding something they want to read, the issue isn't the market but the person's own search parameters or taste?


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

I'm with others who think this change sounds unlikely. But just to play devil's advocate, the manpower required wouldn't be overwhelming, any more than slush piles overwhelm(ed) agencies. You get a bunch of cheap labor (for Amazon, workers in developing nations) and have them spend a minute looking at each new title as it comes in. Have them check the blurb, cover, formatting, and the first page of text. Eighty percent of the books get put in the "don't bother promoting this" tier; 19 percent get up in the "bury this awful thing" tier; a few books that look especially promising would go in the "wow!" tier and get some extra algo love. If 3,500 new books are being published a day, they could handle the load with ten hires -- peanuts.

All this is to say, agencies and publishers have never "read" submitted books to judge their quality. They've "glanced at" them. Amazon could do the same. I don't think they will, but they could.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I can only speak for myself. I used to love spending some time each week to browse through the categories on Amazon. I would browse up and down subgenres, I would browse by publish date, both to look for what is coming out the next few months and what has just been released that week. I would browse sometimes by best selling. They took away my option on that to go down to the 1000's and beyond.

Now? I have basically stopped doing all of that. Genres I like reading are flooded with miscategorized stuff. I look at new releases and if feels like pages of pages of what I consider dreck. Most I can identify just by the covers, most of that does not belong in the genre I am looking at. I think the sheer number of stuff being put up has gone up so much, its impossible to find the interesting stuff that way anymore. Its probably genre based too.

Do I stop reading? Of course not. But what I don't do anymore is find new authors, new stuff like that on Amazon. I can't even find back list titles that way anymore. I am talking about stuff re-released by the authors after many years out of print. The only way I now find gems is from the threads here on KB in the book corner, RT magazine, known publishers and authors, genre specific blogs and other reader forum. Meaning, its back to "gatekeepers" for pretty much everything. So unless an author appears on what of these items, I won't see you anymore. I used to. 

I used to have a healthy percentage of reads I found on my own just by somewhat randomly browsing on amazon. I don't believe I am the only reader having these issues, I read about this all the time on reader forums, so its real.

Once in a while I find some neat stuff in the editor emails from Amazon. Those are genre and subgenre specific emails of curated picks. 

Only way I'll stop reading will be when I am pushing up daisies.


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## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

Atunah said:


> I can only speak for myself. I used to love spending some time each week to browse through the categories on Amazon. I would browse up and down subgenres, I would browse by publish date, both to look for what is coming out the next few months and what has just been released that week. I would browse sometimes by best selling. They took away my option on that to go down to the 1000's and beyond.
> 
> Now? I have basically stopped doing all of that. Genres I like reading are* flooded with miscategorized stuff. *I look at new releases and if feels like pages of pages of what I consider dreck. Most I can identify just by the covers, most of that does not belong in the genre I am looking at. I think the sheer number of stuff being put up has gone up so much, its impossible to find the interesting stuff that way anymore. Its probably genre based too.
> 
> ...


Books in the wrong category can be the author's fault or it could be Amazon's fault. I try to put my books in the right category and a few months ago, I found that one of my books had been placed in BDSM. By Amazon. I think I figured out what keyword made it appear in that category. Amazon picks words for certain categories and the computer automatically assigns it, even though it might not belong there. Amazon has to clean up on their end.

Having clear rules would help authors when they are trying to place their books in the right categories/sub categories.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> From reading the job description, they are not looking for an editor, i.e. not a CONTENT EDITOR. They are looking for a project manager (like the "editor-in-chief" of a newspaper who runs the paper but doesn't actually do any reporting/editing. This is a PROCESSES position, not a publishing position. Look at the very first responsibility listed in the job listing.
> 
> One of the major issues on Amazon is miscategorization of books. This is something that is widespread and directly harms the ability of readers to find books. I recently joked around about this issue regarding the book selections offered to Vine reviews and the hilariously wrong categories books are in. Part of the job of this team, it sounds like, is to make sure people are putting books where they are supposed to be and not just ramming them any-old-where.
> 
> ...


I interpret the part about category maintenance to be only for the "curated experience."


> Review/vet all of the *books that will appear in our curated experience* to make sure:
> They are categorized appropriately so customers can easily search for them


Also: 


> Use sales data to determine what parts of the assortment aren't performing and make recommendations for what we should replace them with


If the editor will have to replace books, I think these categories will be somehow separate.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

sugarhit said:


> Anything is possible. I don't doubt that they'd have 'Editor's Picks' and the like.


A special "Editor's Picks" section...yeah. That's how I see this. With its own browse categories.



> You will help select which books we will feature; help decide how to present them to customers so they are easy to discover;


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

They've had an Editor's Picks section for quite some time.

http://www.amazon.com/Editors-Picks-Kindle-eBooks/b/ref=kbhp_nb_edpicks?ie=UTF8&node=353898011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Atunah said:


> I would browse sometimes by best selling. They took away my option on that to go down to the 1000's and beyond.


Yeah, this is something that's bugged me for a long time. I get the need to have a Top 10/100 in physical stores, but online? It's silly and unnecessary. A book that would be at 101, for instance, will disappear from view simply because the book at 100 gained one extra sale.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Monique said:


> They've had an Editor's Picks section for quite some time.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Editors-Picks-Kindle-eBooks/b/ref=kbhp_nb_edpicks?ie=UTF8&node=353898011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER


So they do. Huh. I guess that's it for me as far as speculation. I got nuthin'. I guess I'll just take my earlier advice and wait and see.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

The way I read the job listing is they are looking for someone to make sure books are where they are supposed to be and they can promote the wheat as it should be.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Ps: I would apply but I don't have the qualifications they are looking for.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

I found an earlier version of the listing off of Google Cache. "Founding member of the book discovery team." This is definitely new and different.



> Amazon is seeking an experienced Product Manager to help improve the book-shopping experience by helping customers discover books they will love. We are looking for a books expert with excellent communication skills to help us create a world-class customer book discovery experience.
> 
> As the founding member of the book discovery team, you will be responsible for defining and implementing our book discovery strategy from end to end. You will help create a selection process that determines which books to feature, you will decide what ratings/reviews information we should share with customers to help their purchase decisions (and lead the creation of new content if the right content doesn't exist) and you will measure customer response and conversion and iterate in response to the trends you see. To do this you will work closely with the Amazon Book Review team and other editorial resources in the company. You will also be responsible for cultivating outside resources, including a network of freelancers, where necessary.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Ava Glass said:


> I found an earlier version of the listing off of Google Cache. "Founding member of the book discovery team." This is definitely new and different.


      



> (*and lead the creation of new content if the right content doesn't exist*) and you will measure customer response and conversion and iterate in response to the trends you see. To do this you will work closely with the Amazon Book Review team and other editorial resources in the company. You will also be responsible for cultivating outside resources, including *a network of freelancers, where necessary*.


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

Surely someone here would qualify for that job? Imagine that. A Kboards mole, buried deep in the bowels of Amazon, feeding the denizens of the writer's cafe with juice tidbits of information. Then he or she could recruit the rest of us as 'freelancers'. Before long, some of us would have worked our way up the organization, possibly far up enough to get the buggers to pay 70% on books under $2.99. I mean, 35% is a joke, and not one that makes me laugh. Not that I'm hung up on that or anything.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> Surely someone here would qualify for that job? Imagine that. A Kboards mole, buried deep in the bowels of Amazon, feeding the denizens of the writer's cafe with juice tidbits of information. Then he or she could recruit the rest of us as 'freelancers'. Before long, some of us would have worked our way up the organization, possibly far up enough to get the buggers to pay 70% on books under $2.99. I mean, 35% is a joke, and not one that makes me laugh. Not that I'm hung up on that or anything.


Make it so!

LOL!


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## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

Now that Amazon has truncated the book descriptions, it becomes just a little clumsier to find books which you might find interesting. 

The price of the books is also well hidden, in mice type under a KU promotion.

And of course the KU banner is front and center, and this option becomes more and more appealing for a reader to simply go the all-you-can-eat approach. 

Going exclusive with Amazon is becoming more and more painful.


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

It's called gating a category. I did this job, but for third party vendors. I could get through hundreds of requests a day, categorizing them by quantity of products, quality of images, and overall product selection. I was the lead in a small team, so we were able to get through thousands a day. Gated categories included apparel (biggest offender), shoes, and jewelry. I could go into more detail as I'm fairly confident that I've already been black-balled from ever returning to Amazon.

But, I can see this happening... especially if they are moving towards a pay to play model.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

David Chill said:


> Now that Amazon has truncated the book descriptions, it becomes just a little clumsier to find books which you might find interesting.
> 
> The price of the books is also well hidden, in mice type under a KU promotion.
> 
> ...


Where are you looking? On the book page I still see the price. Matter of fact it is easier to see. 
I find where they put the blurbs much better than having to scroll. I am glad Amazon changed it. The reader now gets everything at a glance. And some promo sites have always used the amount of blurb Amazon now shows. Why I have been saying for years make the first part of your blurb count.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> Surely someone here would qualify for that job? Imagine that. A Kboards mole, buried deep in the bowels of Amazon, feeding the denizens of the writer's cafe with juice tidbits of information. Then he or she could recruit the rest of us as 'freelancers'. Before long, some of us would have worked our way up the organization, possibly far up enough to get the buggers to pay 70% on books under $2.99. I mean, 35% is a joke, and not one that makes me laugh. Not that I'm hung up on that or anything.


I thought about it, but can't do the job remotely. And if I move back to the States, it's Hawaii or nothing.


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2015)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> Surely someone here would qualify for that job? Imagine that. A Kboards mole, buried deep in the bowels of Amazon, feeding the denizens of the writer's cafe with juice tidbits of information. Then he or she could recruit the rest of us as 'freelancers'. Before long, some of us would have worked our way up the organization, possibly far up enough to get the buggers to pay 70% on books under $2.99. I mean, 35% is a joke, and not one that makes me laugh. Not that I'm hung up on that or anything.


Because THAT wouldn't violate the Non-disclosure contract the employee would no doubt have to sign lol

And again, not sure why anyone thinks this position has real power. Even looking at the cached ad Ava found, it says Project Manager. "Project Manager" is corporate code for "Administrative" but with a quasi-management title to avoid having to pay OT (look up the laws regarding exempt and non-exempt employees to understand what I mean.) There are a dozen people with the Project Manager title in my office. I assure you, NONE of them have actual power.

Amazon is seeking an experienced Product Manager to help improve the book-shopping experience by helping customers discover books they will love. We are looking for a books expert with excellent communication skills to help us create a world-class customer book discovery experience.



> As the founding member of the book discovery team, you will be responsible for defining and implementing our book discovery strategy from end to end.


Corporate-speak for: We will give you a set of SOPs that we expect you to follow.



> You will help create a selection process that determines which books to feature,


Based on a limited number of options we will provide you.



> you will decide what ratings/reviews information we should share with customers to help their purchase decisions (*and lead the creation of new content if the right content doesn't exist*)


Writers: read the bold IN CONTEXT. Content in the context of this clause is referring to the ratings/reviews information. It is not referring to books. Context matters. They are talking about rating and review tools. NOT new books.



> and you will measure customer response and conversion and iterate in response to the trends you see. To do this you will work closely with the Amazon Book Review team and other editorial resources in the company. You will also be responsible for cultivating outside resources, including a network of freelancers, where necessary.


Again, this is all Project Management jargon. I could do this position because it is what I already do in my day job. Coordinating with other teams to consolidate data and draw conclusions. But this is an administrative position, not an authority position. The person would be responsible for implementing SOPs coming from higher up the food chain, not creating the rules.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

***********


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2015)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Dang it, if I keep agreeing with *****, my life is gonna get a lot more boring.


I'm sure we can find SOMETHING to argue about lol


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

What is the #1 focus of discussion in the KBoards Writers' Café? It is writers discussing various ways to get their books discovered by readers. Promotions, marketing gimmicks, genre choice, magic keywords that will get one's book discovered by readers-these threads are all over the place. I have always posited that there is no competition among authors. The more good books there are, the more people will read. The more people read, the more books they will want to buy.

The important word in Amazon's job posting is the word _Curator_.

For every "Hugh Howey" who can sell 1 million copies, among the bottom feeders there are easily 100 who can sell 500,000 copies or more. Yet for whatever reason, they haven't been discovered yet. If those 100 undiscovered books sold at $5 each, that means a potential $250 million total in sales of which 30% goes to Amazon.

That's well worth investing on a team to go digging through the lost and forgotten books for those with high star rankings but haven't been noticed by the general population, and then look through them to see if they really are worthy of hard promotion to kick up sales. Some of these books just might require some extra editing or rewriting to truly bring them up to snuff.

A single, hot book could have the potential to rake in unimaginable amounts of money. All that team has to do is overturn the right rock and pull out of the muck the next J.K. Rowling or Margaret Mitchell, two authors who were largely ignored for years until their books caught on. Both authors' books were made into movies which made _billions_ of dollars.

Yes, my fellow writers, we really are worth that much!

It behooves Amazon-and Apple and Kobo and Barnes & Noble and others-to do everything they can to find the hidden gems and get them to sell. So far there has been no evidence that an automated algorithm has worked in getting people to discover other books. Not even the Book Lamp project which was bought out by Apple has borne fruit in this direction. The best way still for people to discover books has been through word of mouth by other people. The clerk at the bookstore who loves to read is still the best recommender of books for potential readers.

For this reason, Amazon wants to build a team to sift through the offerings and find those books that could become the next big thing.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Update: the "founding/lead member of the book discovery team" ad is now gone. I guess it was filled.

Now they're posting another ad for the new book discovery initiative, but this time for a children's book editor.

http://www.amazon.jobs/jobs/337676/editorial-manager

So the first ad was for the lead, and this new children's editor will work under that person?

The ad for the founding/lead editor wanted someone with "deep knowledge" of one or more book categories. It seems they're now filling in the others.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

http://www.amazon.jobs/jobs/348248/editorial-manager

Now they're looking for a literary fiction editor for their new book discovery team.

Whatever this new initiative is...Amazon is taking their sweet time on it.


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## Ava Glass (Feb 28, 2011)

Ava Glass said:


> Responsibilities
> 
> Review/vet all of the books that will appear in our curated experience to make sure:
> They are categorized appropriately so customers can easily search for them
> ...


I now believe these job ads were for the physical book store. Was the OP's info ultimately about this too? Maybe. *shrug*


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Ava Glass said:


> I now believe these job ads were for the physical book store. Was the OP's info ultimately about this too? Maybe. *shrug*


Hmph. Now that you mention it, that sounds about right.


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## Bbates024 (Nov 3, 2014)

AliceWE said:


> It's an interesting concept and certainly I see reader complaints all the time about hit and miss quality of e-books. But, given there is something like 2,000,000 e-books, I wonder how long it would take a group of editors to read and rate all of them? Talk about a job for life! lol


Actually I saw a book ranked in the five millions the other day, Scary Stuff.

I think Amazon could very well put some time into reviewing some books, but just to make the scale of their promotions better. I think they would review it more like the way a Bookbub does then having an editor read the book.

Anyways isn't that why they created Kindle Scout to try and get a shot at books that might otherwise have gone undiscovered....


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