ALLi’s Orna Ross always has invaluable opinions to share, as you know, and she has been talking in The Bookseller about one of the big stories worrying indie authors: the new A10 algorithm Amazon is using.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
I have been around long enough to know that sudden drops in sales as a result of Amazon changing its algorithm are nothing new. It remains, though, a frustration, because changing algorithms mean that you can’t set up a system that works, hone it through iteration, and then carry on using the fine-tuned version. Instead, you have to make constant reactive tweaks.
And when you are a small (or solo) outfit, that is masses of extra work—even if you can diagnose the issue, which seems to happen in a black box.
Algorithm Prioritizes Reader Engagement
Orna hedges around with lots of sensible caveats but notes the widespread reporting of changes in sales patterns, concluding, “the weight of evidence suggests the store is prioritizing sustained reader engagement over short-term launch spikes.” She suggests that the difficulty of algorithm volatility is a major reason for looking into direct selling (more on that next time).
Metadata Matters More Than Ever
Another indie luminary, Rachel MacLean, whom I have featured in this column as winner of the 2021 Kindle Storyteller Award, notes in the same piece that she hasn’t seen a drop in sales as a result of the new algorithm, introduced over the summer. She has, though, seen more volatility than usual in her bestseller rank.
Huge thanks to Jane Friedman for the extra insight on this from her excellent newsletter The Bottom Line. She highlighted some great sleuthing from Kindlepreneur’s Dave Chesson on the way the new algorithm works. He suggests that the algorithm tries to understand where to place your book based on key pieces of metadata, so if it finds conflicting or confusing elements in that metadata it can struggle to find a position for it among other titles, creating discovery difficulties.
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