i caught a newsletter in my inbox from bookbub: 3 Things You Didn't Know About eBook Retailer Rankings i didn't know that a book with 10 sales a day priced at $6.99 is better ranked than a book with 10 sales a day priced at $1.99, for example but i don't know anything about selfpub business strategies so maybe this is something everyone knows?
The article is talking about where you show up in searches, not bestseller rank. But no, I wouldn't say the information in the article is well known. A lot of that is new information for me but mostly it sounds like things that are somewhat out of the author's control, such as organic sales. What I know about turning up better in searches is all to deal with keywords. I've read of authors strategizing to show up better in the "also bought" section of other books too. Think it dealt with the timing of deals. There's likely a lot of strategies like that out there but I wouldn't say it's all common knowledge. I haven't looked into these things much at this point. Anyway, this place seems to have pretty reliable information as well if you are fully researching that type of stuff: https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/category/for-authors/
I'd not heard that and tbh i'm doubtful that its true... the amazon algo is hugely complex with many factors working all at once... its very simplistic for the article writer to say this book is a head of that one because its priced higher... it might be, or it might be coincidence not causality... the only people who truly know how the algo's work are the coders who wrote them, and they arent saying (NDAs but also it wasnt the work of one person so its doubtful any single coder understands it all either) The same applies to point 2 - does the Amazon search algo favour books with organic sales ? I don't know and nor does anyone else... it seems unlikely since its in amazons interests to favour books with inorganic sale patterns, but that like anything else to do with algos is a wild ass guess... conversion relative to key word will be one factor in how the list is ordered but it won't be the only one the third one, about free/discounted books and apple is common knowledge, similar to sharing the amazing secret that during the night its dark outside... however you have to balance the benefit of the sales rank against profit... theres not a lot of point in being top ranked and not making any money, unless that rank then drives read through sales on your other books, or mailing list sign ups etc and so forth
