Bias With Amazon Rankings--They Rank Their Own Authors Highest

[Virginia]

Amazon does not disclose that it ranks its own Indie authors higher than authors that do not use their service. Amazon needs to disclose this but does not, FYI. Whatever you do, do not get stressed out by their ranking--it is, indeed, THEIR ranking and not statistically clean. John Scalzi has written a great post about this.
Now go back to writing and forget about it.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/10/10...

[Milena]

https://www.amazon.com/Ukrainka-Story...

Read and comment "Ukrainka")

[Jonathan]

Thanks Virginia for sharing this information. I am an independent author and your post tells me that the playing field is stacked against us. Sigh.

[Virginia]

Yes, it is absolutely stacked against us even by "independent" media in terms of getting reviews, interviews, etc. National Public Radio will not review any indie books yet they are "commercial free, independent "public" radio" and they will feature the occasional indie musical artist. Many independent magazines (Mother Jones, The Nation, many others) will only review traditionally published books which is really bizarre since they pride themselves on not being from the trad pub world. They also review Indie music but not books. Until this changes, and I feel it will over time, you have to write because you love it and keep writing. I am very grateful to Goodreads (which I guess Amazon owns now ironically) because they do offer a forum for Indie authors. Keep writing and don't get discouraged. I will check out your books too.

[Jonathan]

Thanks Virginia. When the field is stacked against us, we need to band together to help each other. For eg. I found your synopsis of BirdBrain interesting. It hints at something deep, an awakening of a self-awareness, a re-evaluation of internal values. Do you want to swap reviews?

On my part I have written a 300+ page novel and then split it into part 1 (Escape to Temasek) and part 2 (Fall of Singapura). It is a historical fiction based on the high drama of a young prince (rich and up there at the pinnacle of his society) who eventually loses 2 wars, loses his empire. He runs through the forests, he is confronted with infidelity by his own young consort, he kills his consort, and he is exiled from Singapura, he is disillusioned and he abandons his religion. Yet, after all that despair, his followers still support him. He goes on to found the Kingdom of Malacca which prospers and eventually becomes more powerful than the enemies who destroyed his previous empire.

This novel presents this high drama seen through the eyes of a fictional Ming Dynasty princess. Our princess' life is just as spectacular. Her emperor sends her to marry an aging king of Palembang, she runs away to Temasek find her young prince. And in doing so, she precipitates the decline of the Srivijaya empire and its eventual demise. Can a prince love a woman who causes him to lose his empire? And as our princess grow from a fugitive into a master politician, can a prince love a woman who has become more powerful than himself? Is a woman's happiness measured by whom she loves and whom she marries? Or is her happiness measured by what she achieves with her life?

Please email me at admin@jonathanleebooks.com if you would like to review my novel or swap reviews. Thanks.

[Jane]

Amazon also have criteria that they will remove any paid-for reviews, but obviously not when said reviews result in books getting in the top ten and hence hundreds of sales. Conversely, they will remove hard-earned reviews from struggling authors lower down the chain for no apparent reason and will refuse to enter into discussion over it.

I have had several reviews removed from people who I know have bought and read my book, and yet one book which was number one in the kindle charts (and which I read) had over 3000 reviews and they were coming in by the hundreds while I was reading. Clearly they were paid for and I queried with amazon but they were rock solid on saying they saw nothing irregular. We don't stand a chance, quite honestly.

Rant over.

[Virginia]

Jane, I absolutely agree. A few of us from my writing group emailed Amazon asking them straight out if they bias their rankings towards their own authors (KDP/Kindle Publishing. etc.). We have emailed them three times and NO RESPONSE. We also looked at the top 100 Indie books and they are all Amazon-published titles.

We all know Bezos will do whatever the hell he wants!!! And this is perfectly "legal" in the cut-throat world of online sales, but at the least, they should DISCLOSE in their rankings that they automatically rank their own authors higher. If they did this, we would be ok, though disconcerted because we can't compete...

I guess the take home message is find some method to market your books, and I do appreciate Goodreads very much, and do this, whatever it is, every now and then, quit checking your ranks on Amazon, they're not clean anyway, and keep writing. Just keep writing. Thank you for your comment.

[Virginia]

Jonathan wrote: "Thanks Virginia. When the field is stacked against us, we need to band together to help each other. For eg. I found your synopsis of BirdBrain interesting. It hints at something deep, an awakening ..."

Jonathan, thanks so much for your reply. I do not do book swaps (anymore). I also do not know your genre (fantasy?) and am prob not qualified. People should only review books if they like/know the genre, otherwise, the reader doesn't enjoy the book, and it can result in a poor review because they don't know/appreciate the genre. Have you checked to see if a group exists for your genre? I am sure it does. I will consider reading it in the future but prefer to avoid the complications of a swap. This is from experience.