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Was there another algorithm change on Amazon?

28K views 199 replies 81 participants last post by  Jonathan C. Gillespie 
#1 ·
So to a great suprise, I went to look how my books were doing on Amazon and found out that they all had a huge jump in ranking and the started to think what happended.

My new release How (Not) to Kiss Ghost is:
#1 on Best Sellers in Psychic Romance
#1 on Hot New Releases in Psychic Romance and
#4 for Best Sellers in Paranormal Witches & Wizards Romance

and one of my other books Baerhly Breathing which I changed to .99 for a limited time is
#3 on Best Sellers in paranormal Witches & Wizards Romance

But the weird thing is that all of my other books had a huge jump too, like from the 80's and 90's to the 30's. The jumps just seem to have been huge within their perspective categories. Another thing I noticed was in the New Release for Paranormal Witches & Wizards Romance category there were more books on this list than there is now. Now there are only 24 books listed for New Release before I though there were at least 50 or more.

I should also let you know that my sales have not seen a massive increase like one would to get to those rankings. I was just wondering if anyone knew whether Amazon changed something or if its genuine good news?
 
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#3 ·
Edward W. Robertson said:
A lot of books had their categories trimmed down today. As a result, a lot of categories have shrunk. No idea if it's permanent or a glitch in the Matrix.
Do you mean categories were removed from certain books? I noticed my free book (which is in the sub genre post-apocalyptic and always ranks in FREE since there aren't many there) is completely off the list and my ranking has disappeared. If I recall, this sub category used to have like 60 books or so and now it is only showing 15.

Hoping this is a system glitch.
 
#6 ·
Looks like they are messing with the permafree. This could be a disaster for me.
 
#7 ·
They're definitely messing with the permafrees.

On the other hand, I've read somewhere that when a book goes off permafree, and a few days/weeks later back on again, it gets picked up again by the free sites.

Silver lining?  ::)
 
#9 ·
It does appear to be something to do with the free books. I have a short story prequal Baehrly Beginning that is free. It was being ranked and not it is not showing any rankings. I wish they could send out some kind of memo just letting us know what they did.
 
#10 ·
I still have my space opera, first contact etc categories and, even better, the "sword and sorcery" category is finally gone from the stand-alone title!

However, sales have tanked since yesterday morning, the book I pulled out of select and put into Smashwords STILL hasn't shipped, nothing happening at Kobo, it's all very dismal.

HOWEVER, I'm having a super writing day with words pouring out of my head to the point that I'm barely stopping for dinner. So all is good :)
 
#12 ·
This looks like it could be a bad thing.  ???

I'd listed the smaller category names in my Keywords which helped gain a bit of visibility and a few sales. Now I'm back to only having two categories and visibility is zero again and so are sales. Can't buy what you can't see.

BTW - this is hitting all books, not just perm-free.

EDIT: Flip side is that some of my books have been bumped up in rank. I'm assuming this is because other books fell out of that category.
 
#13 ·
Whew, I'm kinda glad others are reporting this since I'm seeing the same thing. My book is no longer appearing in two categories where it was on category bestseller lists and its keywords are no longer working (It is no longer appearing when its keywords are entered). This is making it kinda invisible, which is in turn affecting sales.

My book is neither free nor perma-free, so the problem is wider than that.

I hope it's a glitch that quickly get fixed.
 
#14 ·
Brian Spangler said:
This looks like it could be a bad thing. ???

I'd listed the smaller category names in my Keywords which helped gain a bit of visibility and a few sales. Now I'm back to only having two categories and visibility is zero again and so are sales. Can't buy what you can't see.

BTW - this is hitting all books, not just perm-free.
That's exactly where I am now. Further, Lacuna is no longer free.

I hope this is a glitch, or yeah, this is going to kill this month's sales pretty good.
 
#16 ·
Ack!!!!! I've been on the top 100 free list for a week with my Flirts! collection thanks to a Bookbub ad.  I hit #1 last week, and the past few days I've been bouncing between #40 and #50.  I just checked the list and I'm not on the top 100.  I was #43 this morning. I don't think you fall from #43 to over 100 in a few hours.  I was counting on a few more days on the list.  On my book page, I show no ranking and no categories, although it's still free.

However, I have a short story that's free and it's at #425, and it's still showing a rank along with placement in two categories on its page.

Both of these titles are permafree, and I'm pretty sure I have both listed in the same categories.

Color me confused and seriously bummed that I got booted off the top 100 free list.  And as always, thanks to all you KBers for chiming in so we can compare notes.
 
#17 ·
I'm so glad I saw this thread before checking my Author Central page (where I check a couple of times a day to see my rankings). My two perma-free books (which so far are still free) which are usually ranked around 300, are now 200,000+. The rank isn't showing on the product page, just on the Author Central page. Though I'm pretty certain this is a glitch Amazon will soon fix, I can't help but feel the panic building! The perma-free books are key to my good sales as they are both first books in a series.

In the back of my mind I'm always worried that Amazon will take away perma-free. But it would be dumb if they did as they are making much more money off of me with the way things are than if they force me to charge for the first book in each series. Anyway, hopefully this gets resolved SOON!
 
#18 ·
I'm guessing this is a glitch. My rankings are jumping all over the place, sometimes even within a few minutes. So far it seems to be only my permafreebies being hit, but we'll wait and see.

If it does happen to be some game changer on the part of Amazon, which I don't think it will be, then I'll adjust and deal with it one way or another.
 
#20 ·
I checked when this thread started and everything was fine. The first Descendants Collection had even hit #13 in Superhero.

No I've lost Sword and Sorcery for Rune Breaker 1 and there's no ranking for either book.

Given the other hiccups, I'm wondering if Amazon isn't getting hit by a hack attack.
 
#21 ·
My rankings are all screwy too.

And last night, when I was checking my sales, a third of my book's titles disappeared from the Sales Report. This morning they're all fine.

They're doing something, I think. Whether it will affect us or not is yet to be seen. Could just be routine maintenance or something. Maybe they're messing with the code that figures the ranks, thus making calculate improperly?
 
#26 ·
This isn't just affecting free books. My book has been dropped from 3 of the 5 categories it was in, with a corresponding disappearance from the hot new release lists it managed to get on since I published less than 30 days ago. I've already seen a drop in sales so this isn't going to be pretty.
 
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