Summary: Here's an email that Dave sent to me the day after we published SPP Episode #4, Using KDP Select and Free Promos to Promote Your Book: While we were scratching our asses like monkeys trying to figure why God so mad he make thunder so scary, a few authors were actually solving this riddle. He then included a link to Understanding Amazon’s New Algorithms Is As Easy As ABC, a post on David Gaughran's Let Get Digital blog that made Amazon's algorithms look anything but easy. The post was mostly written by Ed Robertson, a guy who, with the help of an author think-tank, seems to have figured out just what the hell Amazon is doing with its rankings. So we of course hustled to get Ed on the show, persuading him with the same line we use to pick up chicks: "Hey... we've got the top podcast in iTunes for 'self publishing.' " Baby. A few of the seemingly impossible-to-know questions that Ed answers for us in this jam-packed episode are: Why did free promos used to result in big post-promo boosts in sales, and why doesn't that seem to be the case anymore? How does Amazon calculate what gets shown in its vital "popularity lists"... which, by the way, are different from the bestseller lists everyone knows about? Is Amazon discouraging the use of KDP Select for certain authors... and might traditional publishers now again have a leg up even in the Kindle store? Is the reign of the 99 cent book over? Does it now make sense NOT to price at a buck? We also may or may not discuss the meaning of life and why children keep throwing holy water on Dave whenever he makes a run to the supermarket. This episode is killer. You'll listen again and again.
