Amazon in the News
Apr. 13th, 2009 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwen'Gay writing' falls foul of Amazon sales ranking system
Apparently some of the inconsistencies have to do with the categories books are listed under. So for instance, the same book might be unranked because it's categorized as 'adult', but another version of the same book is ranked because it's categorized as 'memoir' (example from the article). Oh, and the Playboy stuff was still ranked because it was listed under 'photography'. Oy.
Very bizarre, and they're taking lots of heat. Go team! Whatever their real reasons for doing what they did, they did it very poorly.
That, on top of the way they punish self-publishers who don't use their software/printing system, makes me very glad I mostly order from other places. And now, I'll be working even harder to not order from them.... I think I'm down to once or twice a year, when I can't find something at my usual places. Shouldn't be impossible to make that zero.
Apparently some of the inconsistencies have to do with the categories books are listed under. So for instance, the same book might be unranked because it's categorized as 'adult', but another version of the same book is ranked because it's categorized as 'memoir' (example from the article). Oh, and the Playboy stuff was still ranked because it was listed under 'photography'. Oy.
Very bizarre, and they're taking lots of heat. Go team! Whatever their real reasons for doing what they did, they did it very poorly.
That, on top of the way they punish self-publishers who don't use their software/printing system, makes me very glad I mostly order from other places. And now, I'll be working even harder to not order from them.... I think I'm down to once or twice a year, when I can't find something at my usual places. Shouldn't be impossible to make that zero.
