A bit of Amazon oddity...

[anghara]

There's an odd little rubric on Amazon.com which asks "What do customers ultimately buy after viewing items like this?"

For "Jin SHei", I get

55% buy Blue Fingers : A Ninja's Tale by Cheryl Aylward Whitesel $9.75
27% buy The Aware (The Isles of Glory) by Glenda Larke $6.99
12% buy the item featured on this page: The Secrets of Jin-shei by Alma Alexander $10.17
6% buy Changer of Days by Alma Alexander $6.99

OOOOkay.

I mean Glenda Larke is a friend and a fine writer, but what's this? People come bouncing onto the "Jin Shei" Amazon page, and then nerly a THIRD of them bounce off to buy a book by someone else entirely? I'm WOUNDED, I am... :)

I mean, even putting the two percentages that DO pertain to me together, and I get more than fifty percent of folks who peer at my book running off to buy something about ninjas instead...? Maybe I should rethink my plots...

Oh well. Tomorrow is a new month. One heaves a deep philosophical sigh and soldiers on (or, if I've learned my lesson here, should that be ninjas on...?)

Comments

[chrisdolley.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this too. I think the clue is the phrase 'like this.' So when they say, "What do customers ultimately buy after viewing items like this?" they don't mean after viewing your page but after a number of like pages. Click on the link "Explore similar items" (just above Editorial Reviews on your Amazon page) to see what Amazon classify as 'like this'.

Today, Resonance is going through a Timothy Zahn phase - the top three 'what customers ultimately boughts' are all his - a hangover from the days when Amazon wrongly attributed Timothy Zahn as the author of my book.

[netcrimes.livejournal.com]

I don't have percentages on my book's web page, but get this:

Customers who bought this item also bought

* The Omnivore's Dilemma : A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
* Digging to America by Anne Tyler

Um, okay. Neither has anything to do with the Internet, so go figure.

[heidimo.livejournal.com]

but how does it feel to see your book listed for 20¢ used or 26¢ new? i bought a copy, btw.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

... for 20c or 26c...? [small wry grin]

[keris45.livejournal.com]

For a long time there, most people were apparently running from one of my books to buy Changer of Days...lol!

Glenda

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I noticed this on my own books on amazon and . . . well, it's depressing. Who wants to know that someone looked at their book . . . and then passed, going to some other book? I mean, what does that other book have that mine doesn't? What made the person viewing it decide to move elsewhere? WTF?

That was my general escalating reaction when I saw the new feature. Not much I can do about it thought.

Do you have any idea how one gets their books onto the "going to be released soon" page? I'm assuming it's a publisher-paid kind of thing, but if not I'd hate to not have my book on the list because I didn't check a box somewhere or something.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

Well, EXACTLY.

As to how you get onto the other list - I honestly have no idea. Perhaps you might ask your publisher's publicity department to look into it (and if you find out antyhing useful, let us know! [grin])