Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion
VII. Support GR Authors
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Amazon won't list me...what?!
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Doesn't make sense to me, A.M., my author name and books are listed, and show up whenever I enter the Amazon sites, and my books have not made it to the top 1,000 in sales, to my knowledge.Doug Oudin
I was wondering why I was not showing up in historical fiction but just one other category but I did a promotion this weekend and it got bumped up so I then showed up in historical fiction as well as non-fiction (??). Once my ranking dropped it no longer showed me in HF. I think the book is there but it won't rank until you get high enough.
I don't think he means it's not available to search, but that whatever list of authors Amazon makes available to browse doesn't include anyone who hasn't made the top 1000 at least once.
I wasn't sure he'd found himself at all, since he seems to have tried to use the author's list as a shortcut. I'd usually consider that a long cut, but I was aware that those lists don't have everybody (presumably because it would be unwieldy).
Perhaps part of the issue is the book has zero sales? There is no rank for the kindle edition, implying it has no sales, which is probably why Amazon is not displaying it on any lists. Many of the lists and categories have a minimum rank you need to achieve before a book is displayed.
Thanks to everyone who has weighed in so far. I am going to follow up with Amazon to get better clarification on this policy, because it seems to be oddly scattered how the policy is applied. I am able to find myself (herself, btw) by searching, but I don't think ranking should have anything to do with whether an author - ANY author - is listed on the site. After all, libraries list all the names of authors with an item in the collection, regardless of whether anyone at all has checked the book out.
Amazon, with it's much larger staff, can't manage that, too?
I can see an argument for why an author wouldn't be listed in the top 10 choices under the "Refine by" author list, but to not list an author in the All Authors list seems rather discriminatory to lesser-known authors, those of us still trying to claw our way up.
- A.M
A.M. wrote: "herself, btw"Ah, sorry, that's the danger of never clicking to enlarge a picture or explore a profile.
Sadie/Zarah wrote: "A.M. wrote: "herself, btw"Ah, sorry, that's the danger of never clicking to enlarge a picture or explore a profile."
I'm guilty of that too. :P
I clicked on your book link. Your name is right above the title. Clicked on your name and got your author info. If you haven't already done so, setup your amazon author central page. It is a good tool.
Background: I was making sure that my book, Into the Darkness, shows up correctly on Amazon the one day, and as everyone has probably experienced once or twice on Amazon, there are a TON of books to sift through. So, I went into the category I knew it should be under and tried to take a shortcut by finding my name in the Author's listing (Books > Last 90 Days > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Refine by Author). To my surprise, I found my name - A.M. Rycroft - WAS NOT LISTED in the author's list, among the hordes of other authors in this section.
In an attempt to remedy what seemed to be a simple error of omission, I emailed customer service. Here's what I got back this afternoon: "I've checked with the appropriate department and they've informed that in order for the Author name to be listed, the book must be in top 1000 sales ranked books at least once". Say what?
Has anyone else gotten this from Amazon, or is this the first you're hearing of this? And, can someone explain to me how an author is to even begin to get into the top 1000 in sales, if their name isn't even in the main author listing?
- A.M.
P.S. I also posed this question on the Literary Darkness group. I'll re-post any interesting feedback I get from there here.