Posted on 2013-Feb-27
Although it remains true in your knowledge that bestsellers merely refer to addictive story plots that will nail the reader to their seat, there are several service providers who commercially are capable of spelling out which bestsellers are utilizing the clever strategy to make bookselling work, especially on Amazon. The top crowned winner in this list garners positive feedback such as “heart-breaking, enchanting, and vivid.”
Meritocracy
David Gaughran puts the reality stamp on the fact by referring to publishers who throw in huge investments to make a book gain wider recognition. The higher the lavish investment is, the stronger sales promotion they must exercise to claim their money back. Amazon’s “meritocracy” makes bookselling practice different by introducing recommendation algorithms to the customers who visit their website with the intention to buy books. Although the inner workings behind the algorithm is unknown, visitors may get the quickest idea of what they might want to throw in their cash apart from picking up the first product based on their original determination. Having said that about the mysterious algorithm, David gives an example of being recommended the book he practically wrote regardless of price schemes. Whatever product you pick up in a shop, the salesperson will learn your mental budget and usually come up with a bunch of similarly priced alternatives. Although if you try to raise their eyebrow by aiming for the top of the range products, they will be less likely to assist you in giving any exclusive information about what you did not ask for.
Browsing History
Unlike the brick and mortar best practices, the customer experience in the digital showroom on Amazon embraces many other factors into their relevant recommendation. Browsing history plays a significant role in determining what must offered to you on-screen. Currently, my Recent History list is crammed with sweet Romance after I relentlessly stalk my followers’ product pages on Twitter. Following the suit of Google in terms of providing search results, the history proves that the customers are willing to pay more based on the trustworthy predictability that they can trust in selecting a good product to their curious exploration. Based on the recommendation listings, it is a free trade phenomenon that independent authors can enjoy a slice of the pie if their genre matches the reader’s supposed needs.
Bargain Sites
Unfortunately, what Amazon knows is not held as a secret in the current climate of content-sharing fascination. In fact, what they are trying to alter in their Terms and Conditions that will affect the affiliates that help divert more buying clicks to Amazon’s checkout procedure. External sources refer to “bargain sites” that heavily promote free eBooks on a daily basis. Teleread explains the theory behind Amazon’s latest change due to less aggressive focus on free Kindle promotion. Further explanation can be found on Kindle World stressing the fact that freebies can lessen the purchases. The writer makes a sensible point of asking whether the active free downloads user will have enough time to read at all after “hunting down” all the available books every day. Sites like Pixel of Ink (POI) or eReader News Today (ENT) are the poster child that will have to adapt themselves to the new amendment of Amazon’s law. Although it remains to be seen how the new change will affect authors who are reliant on free promotion. Blogger-cum-author, Ed Robertson, discusses the two sides of the coin. Without the bargain sites, will Amazon’s KDP Select be a productive promotion tool for authors given the assumption that the bargain sites do help boost discoverability? The limitation of freebies might help create the more “organic” or perhaps accurate free promotion outcome. He also predicts that the free books that are successful during the promotion period will perform even better since there will be less competitors.
Affiliates’ Risk
Nate of The Digital Reader remains adamant about this latest move of Amazon to petrify bargain sites. He sees their action as a compulsory rule to force the customers to adhere to the website. How do bargain (‘affiliate’) sites want to risk losing their income for a month by clashing with the new rules? How can anyone basically promote free Kindle eBooks at all? Referring to Kindle World, the download limitation mania does not merely stop at the customer’s click to download. If the customer happens to click one link and supposedly gets additional 5 books of which the site owner does not promote, the download statistics will be recorded as five downloads instead of one. To put it simply, it is rather too easy to reach the maximum download of 20,000 in reality. If the bargain sites reposition themselves to offer more paid titles, it will still depend on the downloader’s behavior to indicate what they really want from Amazon. In his final conclusion, Amazon wants to control the freebies lover’s behavior. Nevertheless, this new rule can encourage new competitors to step up their game to respond to customer’s needs.
Overpopulated Kindle Freebies?
Being persuaded and convinced by your favorite retailer or service provider to buy or try a product is nothing new to write home about. In your daily circumstance, you encounter the predictive measures that count your every motion on the World Wide Web. To take the persuasion one step further, the recommendation list can be too tempting to ignore especially when the customer is willing to buy a product of their interest. Then along comes Amazon, whose aim is to promote the purchasing record of Kindles. Seemingly, Amazon’s free Kindle books emerge out of control and now spell frustration to their motherland on which the overpopulated citizens migrate somewhere else and lure the new visitors away. Hopefully, we will hear more updates on this topic how Amazon’s latest rule will affect the bargain sites and especially the authors who heavily promote free downloads of their books after March 1.
Label: eBook Industry News
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