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And! Amazon rank-stripped me

28K views 168 replies 59 participants last post by  Betsy the Quilter 
#1 ·
For those who care (not sure I do, but...)

I have a Bookbub today. I was at #4 free. This is the only time really that I check ranking.

Well, the ranking is gone.

Thanks, Amazon.
 
#8 ·
Alan Petersen said:
I see your rank. #4 right now. Am I looking at the wrong spot or maybe it came back?
I keep refreshing the page but am not seeing it. Amazon is totally throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this one.

To be sure, the main value to me is going to be the thousands of books on people's ereaders (and the thousands that will be reported on B&N, Apple and Google Play tomorrow), but this is really stupid.
 
#9 ·
Also seeing it here. Probably just some of the servers on Amazon's side not displaying all they should to everyone.

On the .fr site :
n°229 des titres gratuits dans la Boutique Kindle (Voir le Top 100 gratuits dans la Boutique Kindle)
n°1 dans Boutique Kindle > Ebooks Kindle > Ebooks en langues étrangères > Ebooks en anglais > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic
On .com :
#4 Free in Kindle Store
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror > Dark Fantasy
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic
(Edit : And now the rank is gone on .com for me too.)
 
#13 ·
SevenDays said:
The book's page shows its rank, but if you look at the Top 100 Free list, the #5 book is in the #4 slot, where Patty's book should be.

This stinks.
Ah, I wasn't looking there.
Patty Jansen said:
I keep refreshing the page but am not seeing it. Amazon is totally throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this one.

To be sure, the main value to me is going to be the thousands of books on people's ereaders (and the thousands that will be reported on B&N, Apple and Google Play tomorrow), but this is really stupid.
SevenDays explained that I was looking at the book page, not the top 100. Now I understand how the rank-stripping works. Stinks. Hope they fix it for you and everyone else soon.

It's on the page for me but not the Top 100 free list. I'm on the U.S. West Coast.
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror > Dark Fantasy
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic
 
#14 ·
Alan Petersen said:
I see your rank. #4 right now. Am I looking at the wrong spot or maybe it came back?
I see (saw) Fire & Ice ranked at #4 as of 5:36 EST in the US store (as of 5:45 the rank has vanished). Also see it at #3 in the UK store and #2 in the CA store. However, it's not on the Free Top 100 Bestseller chart in the US, whereas it is in the UK and Canada. Here's the US Top 100 Free as of 5:40 EST:



The book at #4 on the bestseller Top 100 Free in the US is also ranked at #4 when you go to its page in the US. Bizarre.

Nick
 
#16 ·
At times, Amazon will strip rank for a couple of hours only. Sort of a Tier 1 strip. I've seen it with many BB'd books -- some from trad publishers/mega names too -- including our anchor author's. Many of those books return to the ranks within 2-4 hours of being stripped. So hang tight. Yours may be one of those...
 
#17 ·
PhoenixS said:
At times, Amazon will strip rank for a couple of hours only. Sort of a Tier 1 strip. I've seen it with many BB'd books -- some from trad publishers/mega names too -- including our anchor author's. Many of those books return to the ranks within 2-4 hours of being stripped. So hang tight. Yours may be one of those...
I hope this is the case, Patty. I saw your BB today, and was going to wish you luck, but never in a million years thought this would happen to you. Unreal.
 
#18 ·
Patty Jansen said:
And you were right underneath me, Nick, weren't you?
Yeah, my book ran on BookBub yesterday and was still ranked at #14 (#13, now) at the time your book disappeared today. I used 7 other sites leading up to it, plus have been running BookBub + Facebook ads today to the free book (no AMS). Everything went fine yesterday (I checked a few times, but wasn't locked in, so I guess it could've disappeared for a little bit, but I don't think that happened). I peaked at #7 (I entered BookBub day ranked #100 on the chart). Just strange. Had 19,266 downloads yesterday; Supernatural Suspense is a little bit smaller category than Fantasy. Maybe there's a trip wire for when downloads spike above a certain amount with a certain velocity that flags a title for a manual check.

It seems the rank-stripping works on a store-by-store basis, because I'm still seeing the CA/UK ranks + chart positions for Fire & Ice. It'd be interesting to see if those disappear at some point, or whether whatever mechanism is causing this glitch/additional check only affects the US store.

Nick
 
#19 ·
I'm waiting for the "You are naughty" email.

I mean, seriously, why can't they employ a human to have a quick look *before* they start doing this nonsense?

How do you even FIND the free top 100 on the AU store /not an Amazon customer.
 
#20 ·
Craig Andrews said:
I hope this is the case, Patty. I saw your BB today, and was going to wish you luck, but never in a million years thought this would happen to you. Unreal.
I'm no more special than anyone else.

But. I just want to say this, for those who still suffer from Amazon Stockholm Syndrome: Amazon operations are run by computers. There is no human checking any of this. They feel nothing about you, about me, or anyone else. Please bear that in mind next time you feel anything towards Amazon in terms of loyalty or gratitude. They will NOT return your adoration. They're a big frikken steamrolling company. Use them, but be on your guard.
 
#21 ·
Patty Jansen said:
I'm waiting for the "You are naughty" email.
IF your rank isn't returned in a couple of hours and it's really strip-stripped, the 'naughty' mail won't come for another WEEK. Unless you're proactive. Then they'll send you boilerplate naughtiness in reply.

For those unable to find Patty's book: note that it is wide and permafree, not KU.
 
#22 ·
Patty Jansen said:
I'm no more special than anyone else.

But. I just want to say this, for those who still suffer from Amazon Stockholm Syndrome: Amazon operations are run by computers. There is no human checking any of this. They feel nothing about you, about me, or anyone else. Please bear that in mind next time you feel anything towards Amazon in terms of loyalty or gratitude. They will NOT return your adoration. They're a big frikken steamrolling company. Use them, but be on your guard.
Sucks this happened, but I think it happens way more than even we on kboards know about (there are tons of authors doing promos with bub that aren't on kboards, so they obvious never report getting deranked here).

The only safe way to play on zon anymore is direct paid. Everything else is a risk, as small or large as it may be.

The algos are clearly set to derank based on massive rank jumps. I know DG said that's not the cause, but I think it is. Too many bubs getting caught up in this crap for it to be a coincidence.
 
#23 ·
I actually saw your book earlier while checking the free ranking of my AMRC, but yeah, it's gone now. Sorry that happened to you.

I can only imagine waiting years and finally getting a BookBub, paying the big bucks, and then having most of the benefit stripped away. The programmers should have factored in BB ads--it wouldn't be hard. They are shooting themselves in the foot, missing out on the sales that would follow a BB.

Maybe I shouldn't try so hard for a BookBub.
 
#24 ·
Seneca42 said:
Sucks this happened, but I think it happens way more than even we on kboards know about (there are tons of authors doing promos with bub that aren't on kboards, so they obvious never report getting deranked here).

The only safe way to play on zon anymore is direct paid. Everything else is a risk, as small or large as it may be.

The algos are clearly set to derank based on massive rank jumps. I know DG said that's not the cause, but I think it is. Too many bubs getting caught up in this crap for it to be a coincidence.
Well, yeah, one can be overly alarmist about this, but hey. This book consistently sells better in the UK than the US. I still have my UK rank. This book sells well on Kobo when I promo it. Kobo hasn't reported my freebie downloads yet, and anyway, Kobo seriously downvalues free in their ranking (as in: to the very bottom of the charts). It will come back up once I put the price back up. I expect about 1000 downloads minimum at Kobo. Maybe more, because I've already got 300 from a promo I did with them last week. Sellthrough at Kobo is about 30%. Yes. From a free book.

I also expect about 1500-2000 downloads at Google Play. GP also de-ranks free books to make them invisible. It's all about sellthrough. About 300 people have managed to find this book there already.

I expect about 4-5000 downloads on B&N. The nook store is a mystery to me, but this book does quite well there.

I expect about 8000 downloads on Apple. The iBooks store is a mystery to me, except sellthrough is usually quite good, and this book sells well in mainland Europe and Australia on iBooks.

Point is: on average, about 25% of my sales on all platform are in the US. About half of my sales are on Amazon. So this affects 12.5% of my sales on a book whose sales are heavily skewed away from the US in the first place.

Long story short: there is a vast world beyond Amazon US.
 
#25 ·
TromboneAl said:
The programmers should have factored in BB ads--it wouldn't be hard. They are shooting themselves in the foot, missing out on the sales that would follow a BB.

Maybe I shouldn't try so hard for a BookBub.
Maybe the programmers have factored in BB :p

But you should still keep going for a BB. 1) Everyone who gets ranked stripped gets their rank back (or most do anyway). 2) It only seems to happen on zon US. 3) You'll still make a ton of money and get a ton of readers, so it's still a no-brainer.

And if you go 99c instead of free, you have nothing to worry about at all.
 
G
#26 ·
Wow... that is complete BS. Sorry to see that  :eek:
It's 5:30 central time here (US, Texas) and it's not showing rank or categories under product details as books typically do on .com.
I actually hope it's all incompetence & poorly programmed automation. Better that than Amazon monkeying with things to devalue marketing service competitors to incentivize preferential use of AMS...
 
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