Amazon has slowly changed the game again, due to its deals with traditional publishers (large & small) ... now the trend for ebooks is getting reversed ... not sure what this means in the long term, but not great news for indie authors.
"Sales of physical books increased 4% in the UK last year while ebook sales shrank by the same amount...People are more than willing to sit down for five hours and watch six episodes of The Walking Dead. We are in a digital arena fighting for that same customer as Netflix or Facebook. For all of us the fight really is around attention and our ability to bring it back to reading.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/17/paperback-books-sales-outp...
It would help if Amazon quit screwing around with the search algorithms. Previously, I could put "David E. Gates" into the search and most of my books would be listed. Now, NONE of them are because they are now showing those which also appeared in the "sponsored by" in the top banner showing "Gates of Hell" etc. Imagine putting "Stephen King" in and only getting results relating to kings! It's nonsense. Not to mention that on my author's page, despite my not changing anything, they have put a children's book cover against that of my own book which has the same title! It was bad enough when a specific search on my name didn't show all my work, but now it's just rubbish.
Yeah.... it's screwing all of us in the long run... and short.
Hmm. Typing in my name shows my books in the US and UK sites...
But the overall market is still growing. Amazon is out for one thing: making money for itself. You have to work within that framework to make your own money. If other authors require less placement and achieve greater sales Amazon is going to push them more. Simple numbers game. Amazon isn't anyone's friend except Amazon. KU is infested with scam artists, but it's still working for them, so they don't care. Only customer pushback in the form of money will change Amazon behaviors.
Jenn---exactly.