[L_Loryn]

I am excited to finally add my 2 cents to this thread.

I've seen a little bump in rankings (I don't know if I'm a prawn or not-- my paid books rank around 100ks).

My free romance novelette is ranked just barely in the 2ks when it was 3ks earlier today and I haven't had an increase in downloads.

The other two books attached to the first went up like 10-20k spots but are still in the 100ks.

I noticed something else interesting-- my ams budget took forever to spend completely today which is unusual. It's usually spent just after noon (my budget is small and CPC is high because romance) and it wasn't spent until nearly 8-9 pm here. I don't know what amazon is doing, but they need to leave well alone.

 

[Lady TL Jennings]

I'm currently in contact with KDP and I'm trying to move my Gay Romance titles into the romance categories (where they actually belong). I've been meaning to do this for quite some time, but never got around to actually doing it until now...

I write both romance and erotica (my short stories are more erotica, while my novellas and novels are romance).
I want to be fair and keep my erotica short stories into the erotica, but to be honest the Amazon erotica categories are quite messed up (Victorian erotica 100 list is now filled with modern stories about hot mothers or stepsiblings, etc.).

On a brighter note, my latest novel that I just released has increased in ranking and my free erotica short story has had an unusual high number of downloads.

 

[avppublishing]

I want to be fair and keep my erotica short stories into the erotica, but to be honest the Amazon erotica categories are quite messed up (Victorian erotica 100 list is now filled with modern stories about hot mothers or stepsiblings, etc.).

Yep, all it takes is one keyword! I see erotica authors stuffing them all the time. I'm pretty liberal about using the category keywords myself, but no part of my nerd-gets-the-girl stories are even vaguely Victorian...or Westerns.

 

[KelliWolfe]

Yep, all it takes is one keyword! I see erotica authors stuffing them all the time. I'm pretty liberal about using the category keywords myself, but no part of my nerd-gets-the-girl stories are even vaguely Victorian...or Westerns.

I miss the old days when you could see all the categories a book was in, and you'd see the same one listed under Victorian/Western/action/urban/poetry/science fiction.

 

[Lady TL Jennings]

I miss the old days when you could see all the categories a book was in, and you'd see the same one listed under Victorian/Western/action/urban/poetry/science fiction.

Yes, sometimes I wonder how on earth Amazon's algorithm (or gremlins?) works. It is clear that some people are trying to game the system, but then again sometimes things just go wrong...

I've recently published a new book and I added a handful of keywords to my new book that seemed relevant (e.g. romance, historical, gay, Victorian, London, LGTB fiction) and the two categories: Romance> Historical and Romance>Gay.

I honestly don't know what went wrong, because although the book is listed:
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Gothic (which is correct), it's also listed:
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender eBooks > LGBT Studies > Gay Studies
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Special Groups

Gay studies? Non-fiction? Social science? It's clearly Historical Romance!
Needless to say, I've been in contact with KDP and they've said they're going to change the categories within 72 hours. :-/

 

[Laran Mithras]

My rankings are mostly gone (on my erotica books) but sales are up.

Really, I don't think rankings really mean a sh... er poop. Other than an ego-stroke for the author, readers are going to search and find erotica books no matter what the "ranking." Personally, I'm glad they're gone. 

 

[Tymber Dalton]

My author ranking as Lesli Richardson (non-erotic) has inexplicably (or not so inexplicably now) shot up over the past couple of days, while my Tymber Dalton author ranking has dropped despite a new release hitting Kindle and a lot of promo.

 

[WhiteWitch519]

The loss of erotica rankings on Amazon and other book retailers, as well as pulling of personal ads on dating sites, Craigslist and dozens of other websites is apparently the result of the SEPTA/FOSTA legislation overwhelmingly passed by both houses of the American Congress by both parties. Amazon and dozens of other websites/companies are preemptively taking action because of the broadly vague language contained in this legislation that’s supposed to deter sex trafficking. While the American president hasn’t yet signed this legislation into law, he’s expected to do so in the coming days. The ACLU and other organizations espousing victims’ rights with respect to sex trafficking victims have condemned this legislation as nonspecific and useless. It’s a violation of the First Amendment for Amazon or any other website to curtail freedom of expression in any way. The ACLU is already preparing lawsuits all companies who have used this legislation as an excuse to remove erotica categories and rankings, as well as removal of personal ads or similar information on dating and other websites. The ACLU is also preparing a separate lawsuit to be filed once the president signs the legislation into law as being unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

 

[Gentleman Zombie]

I think we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions. SEPTA/FOSTA is legislation specific to sex trafficking. While personal ads have been used as a cover for human trafficking, there's no evidence that erotic e-books are open to that kind of activity. I've seen this theory coming up on various forums and there's no real evidence this has anything to do with SEPTA/FOSTA.

 

[Ceramic]

EDIT: Erotica author ranks are now gone as well. Interestingly, no one is reporting seeing massive jumps in the rankings of all non-erotica titles in the store that should happen if hundreds of thousands of erotica titles suddenly disappeared from the ranking lists.

Is that what happened? Oh crap.I'm sorry to hear it.
I wrote about it the other day. My books all jumped rank a few days ago. The highest was 150k I think, now they are back down to 3-400k.
My poetry titles barely changed. They are now ranked between 1-2 mil each I think.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,261867.msg3642955.html#msg3642955

 

[Simon Haynes]

Had this from KDP support yesterday (Just to be clear, I only redacted the titles because I don't want to self-promote. I'm not putting erotica into T & YA):

Thanks for writing back to us.

The below category path has been assigned for your book "X" & "Y" on both US and UK

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Humorous

Please be informed that Amazon is making some changes to Kindle pages to better match the page layouts and shopping experience across book formats. The "Look for Similar Items by Category" feature will no longer appear at the bottom of the Kindle page.

May be related. 'Making some changes' could be relevant.

 

[ubu roi]

The loss of erotica rankings on Amazon and other book retailers, as well as pulling of personal ads on dating sites, Craigslist and dozens of other websites is apparently the result of the SEPTA/FOSTA legislation overwhelmingly passed by both houses of the American Congress by both parties. Amazon and dozens of other websites/companies are preemptively taking action because of the broadly vague language contained in this legislation that's supposed to deter sex trafficking. While the American president hasn't yet signed this legislation into law, he's expected to do so in the coming days. The ACLU and other organizations espousing victims' rights with respect to sex trafficking victims have condemned this legislation as nonspecific and useless. It's a violation of the First Amendment for Amazon or any other website to curtail freedom of expression in any way. The ACLU is already preparing lawsuits all companies who have used this legislation as an excuse to remove erotica categories and rankings, as well as removal of personal ads or similar information on dating and other websites. The ACLU is also preparing a separate lawsuit to be filed once the president signs the legislation into law as being unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

The First Amendment applies only to government censorship. Any priviate company or private individual can legally censor whatever they like according to their own interests.

 

[It's A Mystery]

Had this from KDP support yesterday (Just to be clear, I only redacted the titles because I don't want to self-promote. I'm not putting erotica into T & YA):

Thanks for writing back to us.

The below category path has been assigned for your book "X" & "Y" on both US and UK

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Humorous

Please be informed that Amazon is making some changes to Kindle pages to better match the page layouts and shopping experience across book formats. The "Look for Similar Items by Category" feature will no longer appear at the bottom of the Kindle page.

May be related. 'Making some changes' could be relevant.

It could also be related to that 50% royalty option we saw...
*Plays dramatic music*

 

[Becca Mills]

Stepping in with a reminder that, due to our prohibition on political argument, KBoards is not the place to debate the merits of the U.S. FOSTA/SESTA legislation. Discussing the bill's possible effects on book retail platforms should be okay, but the focus needs to remain tight.

 

[AaronShep]

Those of you who have lost your ranks: That usually means Amazon has flagged your book with a Content Rating of "Adult." You can check that with Sales Rank Express, which displays Amazon's Content Rating as Adult, Safe (technically, "Not Adult"), or None (usually for print books).

http://www.salesrankexpress.com

 

[Mercedes Vox]

Those of you who have lost your ranks: That usually means Amazon has flagged your book with a Content Rating of "Adult." You can check that with Sales Rank Express, which displays Amazon's Content Rating as Adult, Safe (technically, "Not Adult"), or None (usually for print books).

http://www.salesrankexpress.com

Nope, not the same thing. In this case, ALL .com titles where the author/publisher placed the title in an EROTICA category in the BISAC listings has been stripped of a store-wide ranking. ALL of them. Not just self-publishers, or small independent presses. ALL erotica titles.

Of my 31 titles, I have 5 that I categorized as erotica because that's what they are. Those books have had their store-wide ranking stripped, but they are NOT in the dungeon.

This happening, as others have posited, is likely only the first phase of something else. I'm hoping that the Something Else is Amazon creating a separate erotica store where writers can place their books without constant worry of yanking, and readers of such books can find what they're looking for without having to jump through circus-poodle hoops to get there.

 

[SherylNantus]

Those of you who have lost your ranks: That usually means Amazon has flagged your book with a Content Rating of "Adult." You can check that with Sales Rank Express, which displays Amazon's Content Rating as Adult, Safe (technically, "Not Adult"), or None (usually for print books).

http://www.salesrankexpress.com

Nope. "Strictly Business" has a "Safe" rating, when it's clearly marked as BDSM, Domme, etc.

But interesting to know!

Guess we'll all just have to wait and see...

 

[Dpock]

Is there a reliable way to estimate the total number of erotica titles on Amazon? Searching for "erotica" on Amazon brings up a page saying "1-16 of over 300,000 results" ("romance" brings up "1-16 of over 500,000 results": "new adult romance" brings up 70k). I'm guessing those numbers are off in terms of total books in each category, but they do suggest that relatively speaking, erotica is a huge market. It makes me think Amazon may be working to optimize rather than diminish the category and removing it from general rankings might be the first step. 

 

[Tymber Dalton]

When I checked Author Central this morning, not only is my author rank not showing like it used to under erotica, now when I look at the Sales Rank under the Sales Info tab, those are gone now as well for books listed as erotica. (They were still showing up there although the ranks were stripped from the books on the book pages themselves.)

 

[Dpock]

If their aim is to completely separate erotica from the main store, it might be logical to assume erotica titles, if we have them, will no longer be shown on our Author Central bookshelves.