Top 5 Myths About Amazon Kindle Sales Rank... BUSTED
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- Опубликовано: 21 июл 2024
- How is Kindle Sales Rank calculated on Amazon? It's time to bust some myths - about marketing too!
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This is SUPER helpful. I've especially heard that 50 review rule and it's nice to hear that it's not accurate.
100% agree on all these points. One thing to stress that was said is that when it comes to Kindle Unlimited having an 'effect' is that those who pay to use Kindle Unlimited, will choose books that have KU over those that don't. Hence this can make it feel like Amazon is giving them a boost, when in fact it is the market that is giving it the perceived boost.
For sure. And I think I didn't get into Ghost Borrows above - we get that rank credit from the borrow right away, but we don't know a borrow has happened until they start reading, IF they start reading, so that causes a lot of confusion. And I bet that was the original source of the idea borrows were worth 2x or 3x.
@@DavidGaughran That's exactly my theory on that 2x or 3x thing as well.
The salmon analogy had me cracking up. haha Great stuff. Not sure why I haven't been watching your videos. Well done!
Pure gold information from start to finish.
Thank you. I appreciate your calm clear delivery of important topics. I’m sure there are many aspiring authors like myself. ie: writing the book was the easy part compared to the crap you have to wade through afterward.
It might not feel like this now, but a lot of this stuff gets easier as you first grapple with it. I still think writing the book is the hardest part, personally. The rest you can figure out as you go, and assemble it piece by piece. Everyone starts from zero with all this stuff and nobody figures it out overnight. Just try and prioritize and take it one thing at a time.
As a reader, bad reviews sometimes make me buy, lol. Sometimes the things other readers, who weren't the right reader for a book, complain about is exactly what I'm looking for. 😊
I had a serious lightbulb moment at the end of this video, David. Thank you!
Incredibly useful, David. Thank you once again.
Your salmon analogy was amazing.
On the pushing KU thing, I think that equalizes out over time. Ive been in KU for years, but I still buy books at least half the time, and the recommendations I get are approximately 50-50. Basically, I think it's learned that, and acts accordingly.
Thank you for this - its super helpful. Would it be a good idea to do the slow promo with the launch if you're doing a pre-order for your book as well?
Thanks for a this useful training! These 5 myths were tripping me up. Now I know what REALLY works. I especially appreciated you busting the 5th myth, as so many people spread that misinformation that I believed it.
One of the interesting things about cognitive biases is that some of them seem to trap smart people particularly well. Misinformation can spread quicker than the truth, particularly if it confirms what people want to be true. Reality, unfortunately, is quite stubborn!
Thank you! Keep it this way!
I keep looking for Amazon Decoded 2 to come out but am devouring great info like this in meantime. Kinda fun to watch anyway. Your mustache with that shirt held my attention, but your beard mesmerized.
Come for the moustache, stay for the beard!
Thanks Dave! Great info - subscribed :-)
Great information. Thanks.
Good stuff. Thanks! :D
Thank you!
Thanks for the informative video! Some author friends and I have been speculating that since Amazon tracks where a browser has come from, that perhaps a conversion from an AMS ad might be worth more toward rank than a conversion from a FB ad. Have you ever tested that out?
It's an interesting theory, but I don't think there is any evidence for it. I've never seen any evidence that Amazon weighs by source of sale/traffic/conversion. And even if Amazon was going to do something like that, it wouldn't do it via Sales Rank, it would use more indirect means, like by applying a weighting to that sale on the Popularity List. That's what Amazon does with price, for example, to stop cheaper books just completely taking over the Kindle Store and crowding out all traditionally published authors. I also think Amazon very much likes us spending money on Facebook Ads - all those ads bring a ton of people to the site. Giving a relatively lower rating to those sales would be very counterproductive.
Hi David, thank you for your video, *very* informative. I posted a comment then deleted it because I was trying to work out if you'd answered it in this vid, but actually, I don't think I do have an answer...so I'm going to re-post to get your opinion on this! Something is driving me nuts, and has been for a while. Why is it, that some best-selling categories for ebooks have a bunch of books on that first 1-50 rank page which seemingly have NOTHING to do with that higher-tier category?! A good example (and my biggest bug-bear) is Romantic Comedy. If you go to that page right now, there are probably a dozen or more which have covers/blurbs/titles etc that do not scream COMEDY in any shape or form. And then hovering over their details, their three highest-placements are usually in obscure cats that have zero to do with comedy (I'm sure there might be a funny side to Espionage/Kidnapping or French Literature...but....!) I totally get that all the gazillions of lower-tier cats are buried under all the top-tier ones and maybe this is screwing with things, but how do some of these seriously end up in the Top 100 Romantic Comedy? Is it something to do with the author's metadata? Or am I seriously missing something? As a reader, you'd kind of expect to have a decent whack of the best RomCom in that top 25 at least to peruse, but when you're presented with such serious sh!t that you have no intention of reading, it kind of makes a joke of Amazon's categorization. Maybe I've answered my own question here, but I'd still love your opinion on it. It's frustrating.
Hi Darcy, I typed out an answer to you but you were too fast with that ninja delete! Let me try and remember what I said...
So there are two different things going on here. 1) Scammers started squatting in wholly unsuitable categories a couple of years ago, just to get that orange bestseller ribbon. Amazon did nothing about it, as is often the case with such things, and then the practise spread further to some genuine authors who had started embracing some shady practises. But it's not so easy to point fingers here because,
2) Amazon's current hodge podge of a category system means that by picking certain trigger keywords, you can end up in certain categories, and obviously this means it can (and does) happen by accident also.
Problem is 2) gives handy cover to those exploing 1).
I'll probably do a video on categories and cover this aspect a little more, but my HOPE is that Amazon might finally, slowly, be moving in the direction of cleaning all this up.
@@DavidGaughran Thanks! This DOES explain things. If I write a RomCom and pop in a few words like "espionage" and "thriller" into my 7 spaces, then chances are the book will get hospital-passed very efficiently into other genres if I have enough people reading it, right? And then all of a sudden I get recognized in a cat that my book doesn't 'theoretically' fit into. *sigh.* This is also along the same lines of the quick reads....the 15-minute quick reads are dominated by squatters who (purposely?) launch their pre-orders here. There are few ACTUAL 15-minute true "quick reads." If you were searching for a pithy little literary quick read, you'd be sadly disappointed by some chesticles and a two-sentence promise. I agree that some major tidying up is due!
@@darcyandrews4649 This blog post is out of date now, but you can see how the keyword categories worked by reading it - davidgaughran.com/2018/07/21/amazon-category-hacks-kindle-store-hack-keywords-categories/ - just keep in mind that my advice on categories has changed a lot since that was written. I'll do a video on it soon enough. Or if you are subscribed to my marketing newsletter, I cover that topic in a fair bit of depth. You can sign up to that here if you are curious: davidgaughran.com/amazon-decoded-landing-page
David, I have a question for you. Right now on Amazon, my book is ranked #1 in the category “Strategic Management”. And I have the screen pic to prove it! But...my book does not have that helpful “#1 Bestseller” orange flag on the sales page (which does help sales.) This also happened 2 days ago. Today, under the book details, it does not list the #1 there, 2 days ago it did. In both cases, no orange flag. Is this Amazon favoring books in KU? My book was in KU, and even when I ran a free promo, it gave the book that orange #1 bestseller flag, I just went wide and my book is free at the moment. Hope that’s clear. I also refreshed the page and checked before and after the hour. What do you think? Does Amazon favor KU books with the orange bestseller flag?
Sorry I missed your comment, Aurora. Did the tag appear? Sometimes it can be a little delayed. No favoring of KU books in this regard at all, I just had the tag myself recently for some non-KU books.
Hi David, I really enjoyed what you had to say about Amazon. However, I have had a serious issue with Anazon in that they will not, no matter how hard I have tried, address a mistake of their own making. I published my first book 2 years ago on e-kindle and have since published two further books on the same platform. The problem that I have, and still am, experiencing is that Amazon will not allow any reviews to be made to my books unless the purchaser has spent at least £40 or $50 during the previous 12 months. They sent me a copy of their regulations in which was stated this general condition. When I pointed out to them that there was a statement contained in these regulations that displayed that the regulations did not apply to the contents of a book, they absolutely refused to accept this fact. I attempted over a period of 6 months, which included dozens of emails and telephone calls, to alter their perspective but, in the end, they refused to communicate with me at all. I now find that I have 3 books that can gather no reviews and which are now sitting in limbo. I have 2 further books that I have written but am now loathe to publish on Amazon e-kindle as I can see no point in doing so. I would greatly appreciate any comments or suggestions you may wish to make.
Hi Alf. Dealing with Amazon on such things can be an exercise in face-clawing frustration. Amazon has brought in various rules and automated mechanisms around reviews because there were so many scammers gaming reviews to the point where readers were starting to distrust them. Problem is that these systems don't have much leeway for any genuine authors affected. However, not publishing your books is definitely not the answer! There are ways to get reviews - genuine reviews - directly from Amazon customers, and I think that might be a good topic for a video so look out for that soon. But definitely don't hold back from publishing because of this, no matter how frustrated you get. I know it's annoying, but Amazon wants to restrict reviewing abilities to actual customers, rather than fake accounts, and this is the mechanism they have chosen to help with that.
Book bombs sound like fun to me
Even more fun is stringing five days like that together and then watching the power of Amazon kick in as it takes over the job of selling the book for you, pinning your book in the charts!
David, is it possible to be on kindle unlimited and on other electronic platforms?
No, Amazon doesn't permit you to have your ebook edition on any other platform while you are in Kindle Unlimited - and this is something they are hypersensitive to, so don't be tempted into thinking there might be a loophole or that they won't notice - they have spiders crawling the other retailers constantly, looking for infringements.
Thank you sir!
You often talk about getting 50 sales to get the sales algorithms moving, but does that count free sales?
Honestly, we know far less about how Also Boughts work for freebies so some of this is speculation - just want to be clear on that. I also can't tell you what the threshold is for Also Boughts and freebies because I've never tried to measure it - and couldn't measure it, in fact, because any time I've used free I would have generated far more than 50 downloads in a very short space of time. What I do know is that Also Boughts which attach themselves to your book when you are free are WAY less sticky than regular ones - which is good, as they can get scrambled when you go free as you will attract a wider range of readers when you only cost a click. I also think Also Boughts are FAR less important for free books because Amazon doesn't seem to like recommending free books as much as paid books. That said, the general principles of always trying to market to core readers of your niche, so that Amazon has an excellent idea of who your readers are, is still applicable and should be followed where possible.
I love your beard. Shame it's now shorter. 💚
Time is on your side!
Please David could you make shorter videos? Don't misunderstand me, that is a great information, but summarize the info would be great
I'll be testing out a range of lengths, but some topics - like tutorials and the like - will definitely trend longer.