I woke up to a strange sight:
This is the Product Details page for SLEEPER OF THE WILDWOOD FUGUE. At first I was confused because being in the 78,000 range shouldn’t have put me in any ranking list. Well, it didn’t because it seems Amazon has changed things to show your top 3 category rankings. All of my books are like this and I saw plenty others too.
Is this a good thing? I’ve no idea. The numbers are certainly eye-catching, but I wonder if seeing a book with a triple digit ranking will turn some readers off. We put a lot of stock in lists whether we realize it or not. This also means it’s another thing for indie authors to view and obsess about. I’m just nitpicking here since this could also help. A reader can see a book rise just as easily as they can see it fall. These also give a clear sign of genre and category without scrolling to the bottom.
Guess my big wonder is: WHY? I always wonder this when Amazon changes something and this is pretty soon after the auto-bundling thing. So I’m curious as to what their game plan is.
Legends of Windemere 
I saw that earlier today. It proves the value of using the right category, I guess, as some of my books do pretty well in obscure ones.
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True. Though a downside is that it only shows the Top 3 categories. So this book is ‘stuck’ in romance unless I change it to strict fantasy.
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Lol – well, Luke does have feelings, you know. *Romantic* feelings.
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And those always get him in trouble.
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Just like in real life, then 😀
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That is beyond strange! I hope Amazon fixes it. They, too, can make mistakes. Good luck with the ratings..
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Not sure it’s something they will fix. I guess I can see some logic in showing the ranking of every book from a business standpoint. Though it does make the page a bit more cluttered.
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Yes. Very puzzling
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Going to be interesting to see what comes next.
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Interesting! I guess if nothing else it’s a good way to see where they’re sticking your book if you want to focus on marketing to people who might buy from those categories. I wouldn’t know how to check beyond the top 100 otherwise. At least it looks like everything is ranking somewhere, I guess. O.o
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True. Probably more for the readers than the authors though. I think the only way to check beyond the Top 100 was through Author Central and readers can’t get there.
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I never even knew you could check it there. I just went by “hey, it’s in a top 100” or “Huh, there it goes.” 🙂
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I was doing that for a while until somebody pointed it out. Problem is that it isn’t a perfect system. Half of my books there are listed as eBook and the others as paperback, so the numbers aren’t helpful.
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I wish I understood the rankings.
Has the auto-bundling been helpful?
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Haven’t seen a change really.
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I hope it’s helping sales with books outside of the top 100. I think that’s the effect Amazon is hoping for. If the extended subcategory rank stays, I think it’s a good sign that it’s helping a little.
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Hoping so. Though I wouldn’t make them doing more than 3 categories. Four is such a nice number. 🙂
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They do it so Chris McMullen will figure it out.
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They need to keep him on his toes.
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We need him. They better make more changes soon..
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They’re definitely breaking out a bunch of shiny, new stuff. First the auto-bundling thing and now this. Hope Chris can find time to sleep with all this going on.
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They’ve been testing a lot of things lately. They show my stars as percents now instead of numbers starred. 28 five stars is 70% and so on. Chris said it didn’t show that way for my book on his puter though. Wondering why they would show me one way and others another? Chris said it could very well be that a test group saw it one way and another test group saw it another. Things that make you go, “Hummm.”
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I’ve seen those percentages for a month or two. Though it isn’t consistent, which means they might still be testing it out. It could also be that they are gradually changing things. Not sure about the group though. How would Amazon control that since they don’t have access to a customer’s computer?
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ISP #s???
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Maybe. That does feel a little invasive though.
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