Conspiracy theory thread - Do sales fall off a cliff the first of EVERY month?

[D a l y a]

So, I made a little chart with my daily sales figures (I'm not obsessed, I swear), and I noticed that not only did I have a dramatic drop-off in sales on Feb 1st, but the same thing happened Jan 1st.

(Before that, my sales were too low to show any patterns.)

Have any of you folks with charts noticed any similar shuffles?

[portiadacosta]

Absolutely. Started 1st October. Lift shaft city.

[valeriec80]

I wouldn't say that I have a dramatic drop-off at the beginning of every month, but I think it's safe to say that sales usually pick up toward the end of every month, just like they do on the weekends. So, yeah, it seems sales are slower at the beginning of every month.

[Courtney Milan]

Think about it: traditional publishing typically releases a huge wave of books right around the beginning of every month. So readers stop and grab those books that they've been waiting for, and read them. A week or so later, they've finished them, and are looking for other books again.

I always see a bit of a dip.

[JRTomlin]

I seem to have a drop the first of the month. I receive the PoI author newsletter, and was interested to see they recommend NOT having a book free the first of the month because you won't get good results. Something to think about.

[KirbyTails]

I sold 2 books on February 1st, 3 last night, and 1 today...in Germany! February might just be my month.

[D a l y a]

So a drop at the beginning of the month could be due to:

- People just paid rent and aren't feeling so spendy
- Traditional books are released the first of the month (Why didn't I know that?)
- Conspiracy (I'm not ruling it out!!)

[portiadacosta]

I seem to have a drop the first of the month. I receive the PoI author newsletter, and was interested to see they recommend NOT having a book free the first of the month because you won't get good results. Something to think about.

   Oh, I'm such a dummy. I've had both my freebie times at the beginning of the month... Still, it won't be an issue any more because I'm not using Select again.

[LKWatts]

I had 3 sales on the 1st but last month I didn't sell anything at all for the first 3 days! In my case some months I sell on the very first day while other months it can take almost a week for things to start going.

[Sarah Woodbury]

Yes.



Not every month but I've been known to whine about this.  It tends to pick up by the 6th. 

[JRTomlin]

Yes.



Not every month but I've been known to whine about this.  It tends to pick up by the 6th. 

And I wish the 6th would hurry up and get here! 

[Terrence OBrien]

We know what KDP says, but we don't know the update cycles for KDP.

Like any company, Amazon will rush to get all its business cleared up for month end. That's their accounting cycle. And like any other company, they would prefer not to have a big rush near month end. So they try to keep things as smooth as possible all through the month.

However, they don't have to pay as much attention to the beginning of the month. They can let things slide for a while, and let KDP reporting fall to a lower priority than it normally has. At the same time, the beginning of the month is busy with closing the previous month. Lets say they are shooting to close the previous month by day ten.

As the month progresses they can let KDP catch up.

Is this what actually happens? I don't know. They still don't call with secret insider tips. It's a speculative attempt to explain the phenomenon from an accounting perspective.

[BTackitt]

I check for freebies every day. Mainly I look for my mom who likes Historical romances that are not in my normal purchases, but I do look at all genres JIC.  On any normal given day EreaderIQ.com has about 300-400 new free books listed.. On Feb 1st there were over 600.

[MH Sargent]

I can say ditto to Sarah's comments.

With each of my books, it now the norm to have a lag in sales the first few days of a new month. This has been going on before Select started, so it is not simply due to readers picking up their free Select book at the start of the month. Maybe readers don't want my books those first few days, but overall, my sales are quite consistent across the board the rest of the month, so I tend to think it is a lag in KDP reporting, more than anything.   

[Guardian]

I'm also curious how these counters are working. Sometimes, some reader is telling me they've bought the book at Day X, but there is not a single sale on that day, not a single one around it. Other customer have asked for a refund because of an accidental purchase... however I knew that customer who has bought the book for her sister on Day X and that customer never asked for a refund (And she didn't know that her sister asked for it either. Also there would be no logic in it to ask a refund for a birthday present where the money would go to the customer's credit card and not for the sister's.). So I'm also not ruling out conspiracies (Especially as I've seen few in my life.). And when I mentioned this counter problem, it doesn't sell, don't have a clue why in January, whooops, suddenly two unit got onto my sale list from one of my titles in less than an hour!!!, then after that dead silence again for 14+ days. And I don't really believe in coincidences.

I've written my fourth or fifth letter to Amazon few days ago to check the counter once again, but no response since that time (Last time I needed to play this with Smashwords, but there they've admitted immediately that the counter was wrong and it's counted my sales wrong, just as I suspected.). But if I'm right in Amazon's case, I'm going to kick their *ss, beause we're playing this "Move along, everything is okay" since December.

[Terrence OBrien]

"But if I'm right in Amazon's case, I'm going to kick their *ss, beause we're playing this "Move along, everything is okay" since December."

Right about what?

[Guardian]

"But if I'm right in Amazon's case, I'm going to kick their *ss, beause we're playing this "Move along, everything is okay" since December."

Right about what?

That something is not right with the sales counter. Novelrank also get bogus data from Amazon. i.e.: it's stating I had only one sales in January, while I had more. So if Amazon's system is giving reliable data like this one, I'm curious what sort of sales data we get in the reality. But I also have other problems with KDP in the recent days, such as switched credits, vanishing credit from my paperback, and I also can't raise my price on my very own book, because KDP is keeping my price on the previous one with some sort of 44% discount.

[Terrence OBrien]

I can't comment on the price raise, but I would advise we stay away from any KDP changes until they get through this current update phase.

The sales counter is not realtime. If we expect it to act as a realtime counter, it will probably always diverge from our expectations. So you are right that KDP is not realtime.

NovelRank doesn't get anything from Amazon. It looks at the same ranking data we see, and uses statistical modeling to estimate sales behind the rankings. Those numbers are NovelRank's own estimates, not sales data from Amazon.

[Andrew Ashling]

Novelrank also get bogus data from Amazon. i.e.: it's stating I had only one sales in January, while I had more.

That's not true. Novelrank tunes in on the publicly available ranking. When it sees a rise in ranking it tries to extrapolate how many sales have been made. The algorithm that does those calculations isn't perfect. If you have two sales on one day, several hours apart, it probably will pick them up both. If they are in the same hour, chances are Novelrank will "see" them as one.

[Guardian]

I can't comment on the price raise, but I would advise we stay away from any KDP changes until they get through this current update phase.

KDP officially approved my price raise and all the updates TWICE (As in the meantime I also uploaded a revision which was also approved.). Yet, they thought they're adding some sort of discount, regardless SW, Lulu and DriveThrueFiction, so, my other primary retailers has the new price as I set them prior I raised on Amazon. And KDP doesn't even bother to respond to my letters when I asked, why my price is on a discount, regardless your system has approved to DE, FR, IT, ES and there the full retail price is listed... but US is still on 4.99 because of this strange discount and this price is pulling the UK price back as well.

The counter is not realtime. If we expect it to act as a realtime counter, it will probably always diverge. So you are right that KDP is not realtime.

The sales counter is not realtime, I'm well aware of that. This is why I've written, when a customer had said, he has bought the book on Day X, there was not a single sale on that day, but not a single one in a five day radius. But even if the customer would have lie to me (What I don't really believe.), this still doesn't explain that "accidental refund". I accidentally learned who have bought the refunded unit as she was one of my art customer as well and she proudly told me she had bought my book to her sister... which was later refunded, but as she had said, she never asked for a refund (And as on that day when the refunded one was sold, there was only one sale, that was hers.).

That's not true. Novelrank tunes in on the publicly available ranking. When it sees a rise in ranking it tries to extrapolate how many sales have been made. The algorithm that does those calculations isn't perfect. If you have two sales on one day, several hours apart, it probably will pick them up both. If they are in the same hour, chances are Novelrank will "see" them as one.

This is a possibility. However as I've seen enough strange things in the last two month, I wouldn't really believe in this.

[Dara England]

Count me in on the dipping at the start of each new month. Something interesting I've noticed is that although I see the dip on Amazon too, I see it bigger on B&N - and not just because their sales reports are slower to update. I never thought about new trad books being released at the start of the month though, and that could account for it, since I think B&N readers are usually more traditional in their book choices.

[Guardian]

And one last thing what I also find strange;
Today's rank, Book #1: #400,039 (Last sale; Week ending 01/21/2012) - January 20, Rank #44108
Today's rank, Book #2: #409,064 (Last sale; Week ending 01/28/2012) - January 27, Rank #142309 (Book#1 Rank #321049)

Now, I'm curious how the hell is it possible that Book #1 has a better ranking today while officially there wasn't a single sale from Book #1 since January 21 and not a single one from Book #2 since January 27??? One week has spent between the last sales of Book #1 and Book #2, yet Book #1 has the better rank today. Question; how is this possible?

So, these tiny details are giving me the impression that my counters are giving bogus sales data. I'm curious what will be KDP's explanation and excuse this time.

[Terrence OBrien]

"she proudly told me she had bought my book to her sister."

I'm not exactly sure what this means, but if it was a gift, the sale is not recorded until the recipient retrieves the gift. Also, the recipient doesn't have to retrieve the gift. He may use it to buy any other book, or anything else he wants. He doesn't have to use it for the book. If the book is never retrieved by the recipient, the sale is never recorded, and the author gets nothing.

[Guardian]

I'm not exactly sure what this means, but if it was a gift, the sale is not recorded until the recipient retrieves the gift. Also, the recipient doesn't have to retrieve the gift. He may use it to buy any other book, or anything else he wants. He doesn't have to use it for the book. If the book is never retrieved by the recipient, the sale is never recorded, and the author gets nothing.

That was a valid and confirmed sale. She had bought a copy to her sister's Kindle, but it was a sale. Then suddenly that unit has switched to refunded. I've asked Amazon what happened (As first I thought another customer have asked for a refund who has bought the book an hour earlier for a review. But then the guy had said, nope, he is still reading it.). Then KDP told me, nope it's not that sale, but another one, the one before that. But then, I accidentaly learned who has bought that unit as well. And that one was a confirmed sale, which is turned to refunded on the 6th day by some unknown reason (As KDP has claimed, the owner asked for a refund.). But the one who has bought it, doesn't know anything about any refund (I still have the letters about that conversation.).

The problem is that I have a very bad habit. I used to speak with the customers, especially in the beginning, to learn are they satisfied with the product what they've bought or not.

And Terrence. As you can see my post above yours, my present counter is also working a bit strange. If you have a possible explanation for that one, I'm listening. And before you would say, one maybe was released sooner and the other much later, or one of them had better sales previously... there was only two weeks of difference between the release time and the sale difference is minimal between the two.

[Krista D. Ball]

I can see my DIY stuff (obviously) and some of my trad stuff (usually a few days out). I sell little the beginning of the month, have a strong mid-month, and taper out by the end of the month, with a few sales (about 10% of the monthly amount) on the last 3 days of the month.

I've noticed this since July 2010 (my first short story), which has remained consistent across all of my titles.

[JRTomlin]

That something is not right with the sales counter. Novelrank also get bogus data from Amazon. i.e.: it's stating I had only one sales in January, while I had more. So if Amazon's system is giving reliable data like this one, I'm curious what sort of sales data we get in the reality. But I also have other problems with KDP in the recent days, such as switched credits, vanishing credit from my paperback, and I also can't raise my price on my very own book, because KDP is keeping my price on the previous one with some sort of 44% discount.

NovelRank does not get sales data. It just gets the rank and extrapolates what the sales would be, often quite inaccurately. Your other concerns don't seem to have anything to do with KDP which doesn't do paperbacks (Do you use Createspace?) and doesn't do the discounts (probably Amazon price matching from another retailer).

[Guardian]

NovelRank does not get sales data. It just gets the rank and extrapolates what the sales would be, often quite inaccurately. Your other concerns don't seem to have anything to do with KDP which doesn't do paperbacks (Do you use Createspace?) and doesn't do the discounts (probably Amazon price matching from another retailer).

First, everything was good when the Createspace paperback was released. Then I've asked a tiny change from KDP, to change the title "collaborator" to "author" for my Co-Writer. The change has happened, but then after that the "Created" status has vanished from my name and by some unknown reason the two names were switched. And I never asked for this.

Also, as I wrote on the previous page, my concern is rather this (Both KDP Kindle);
Today's rank, Book #1: #400,039 (Last sale; Week ending 01/21/2012) - January 20, Rank #44108
Today's rank, Book #2: #409,064 (Last sale; Week ending 01/28/2012) - January 27, Rank #142309 (Book#1 Rank #321049)

Now, I'm curious how the hell is it possible that Book #1 has a better ranking today while officially there wasn't a single sale from Book #1 since January 21 and not a single one from Book #2 since January 27??? One week has spent between the last sales of Book #1 and Book #2, yet Book #1 has the better rank today. Question; how is this possible? And before you would say, maybe one of the books was released sooner and the other one much later, or one of them had much-much better sales previously... there was only two weeks of difference between the release and the sale difference is minimal between the two books. This is clearly a counter problem.

[Skate]

Three of my books were free on Feb 1st and because of the reporting glitch, no 'sales' were reported that day (I'm still waiting and still waiting for an answer to my email to Amazon). BUT my one book that isn't in KDP select and has hardly been selling at all, got four sales that day. So there was definitely no drop off there for me.

Guardian, that ranking on the second book would imply a sale, but I wouldn't hold my breath if you're thinking of asking KDP about it. I did that once and got a generic reply about how rankings work. They seem to be trained to see key words in emails rather than actually reading them to find out what the problem is.

[Guardian]

Guardian, that ranking on the second book would imply a sale, but I wouldn't hold my breath if you're thinking of asking KDP about it. I did that once and got a generic reply about how rankings work. They seem to be trained to see key words in emails rather than actually reading them to find out what the problem is.

Once one of the kind customer support ladies has told me how the ranking system is working. That's the reason I say; my present bestseller rank counter is showing ultimate bogus data as based on the present information, every past sales, it's not possible that Book #1 has better ranking than #2 when that one had the very last sale 7 days prior the last sale of Book #2 (And the overall all time sale difference between Book #1 and #2 is only 5 books. That's an insignificant difference.). By the way I've sent a letter to KDP and asked them about this two days ago, but I haven't got any response since that time.

[JRTomlin]

I assume, but am not sure, that the ranking you reference are on Amazon since there are no ranking reports on KDP. Or are you going back to NovelRank? I frankly can't tell. I still can't figure out how you could request a change on a Createspace paperback from KDP. As far as I am aware, other than both being owned by Amazon, they are unrelated and one does not change the other.

There have been problems since the first of the month with ranking and sales reporting. You might have some; it's certainly possible. My own reaction other than whining a bit here is just to wait for Amazon to clear it up. They've been tweaking the site. I know someone who used to be in Amazon server support and I am reasonably sure they've been in working on it. Other people prefer to contact them and that's perfectly valid but I wouldn't hyperventilate over it if I were you.

[Guardian]

I assume, but am not sure, that the ranking you reference are on Amazon since there are no ranking reports on KDP. Or are you going back to NovelRank? I frankly can't tell. I still can't figure out how you could request a change on a Createspace paperback from KDP. As far as I am aware, other than both being owned by Amazon, they are unrelated and one does not change the other.

The easiest to ask a change is... in the product details you click on; "Would you like to update product info.". There you may ask changes for the Createspace stuffs (Especially for the credits as I did.). However you may change Author and Product description via Author Central as well (But there you can't change the credits.). Each of the modifications is taking time, around 3-5 days. So, you can change CS via KDP Author Central, via Amazon's product panel or if you write a letter to KDP support.

There have been problems since the first of the month with ranking and sales reporting. You might have some; it's certainly possible. My own reaction other than whining a bit here is just to wait for Amazon to clear it up. They've been tweaking the site. I know someone who used to be in Amazon server support and I am reasonably sure they've been in working on it. Other people prefer to contact them and that's perfectly valid but I wouldn't hyperventilate over it if I were you.

I contacted them multiple times just in this matter. Sometimes they "forget" to respond and in that case I send them another letter. Now as I haven't got any response in the last days, I'm going to send them another letter again tomorrow (However they were capable to respond to my Credits request few hours after I've sent that letter. And this was few hours after I've sent them the request to check my counters. So Amazon love to ignore people sometimes. But as I'm a pesky and cheeky guy, they won't shake me down.). And also if there is a problem since the first month with ranking and sales reporting, yet they're still using that system, it's called fraud.

I wouldn't hyperventilate over it if I were you.

I'm not hyperventilate over it, but if I put my work into their hands and if I loose $3-$6+ per vanqished sales, because their system is not working properly, I'm not accepting excuses. It's their system, so it's their responsibility.

[D a l y a]

Fact: Amazon, like Fringe, has more than one universe.  I've looked at sales rank on my computer and sales rank on my husband's computer and gotten different numbers all the time.  Okay, maybe it's not a parallel "universe" but they do have a lot of computers and different data sets.

Maybe I've got "rejected author syndrome", but I'm pretty trusting they're working out the numbers accurately.  They probably do have to shift things on occasion to stay ahead of the spampirate people.  It's not us nice little indie authors they're seeking to thwart by keeping their algorithms private, but the people who are trying to game the system.  I would imagine it's a bit like people who run ISPs ... or casinos.  They have to do lots of things for security and for all of our shared mutual benefit, but sometimes those things feel cruel when they seem to block us from our goals.

Well, back to writing.

P.S. My book POKE is free to download today and tomorrow.  I thought I'd be giddy on a wave of downloads, but I've had only 173 so far.  SAD FACE!  Please grab a copy if your Kindle isn't full.  A few people have said it's funny. :-)

[Kathleen Valentine]

I'm SOOO glad I read this! I usually have a slow start to the month, too, but January started out with such a bang (1,000 sales in 3 days) that I forgot and have been tormenting myself about this month's slower sales. Thanks for the reminder...

[JRTomlin]

The easiest to ask a change is... in the product details you click on; "Would you like to update product info.". There you may ask changes for the Createspace stuffs (Especially for the credits as I did.). However you may change Author and Product description via Author Central as well (But there you can't change the credits.). Each of the modifications is taking time, around 3-5 days. So, you can change CS via KDP Author Central, via Amazon's product panel or if you write a letter to KDP support.
I contacted them multiple times just in this matter. Sometimes they "forget" to respond and in that case I send them another letter. Now as I haven't got any response in the last days, I'm going to send them another letter again tomorrow (However they were capable to respond to my Credits request few hours after I've sent that letter. And this was few hours after I've sent them the request to check my counters. So Amazon love to ignore people sometimes. But as I'm a pesky and cheeky guy, they won't shake me down.). And also if there is a problem since the first month with ranking and sales reporting, yet they're still using that system, it's called fraud.
I'm not hyperventilate over it, but if I put my work into their hands and if I loose $3-$6+ per vanqished sales, because their system is not working properly, I'm not accepting excuses. It's their system, so it's their responsibility.

We're writers and being precise with our language is a virtue. You can't change the author or creator of a CreateSpace novel in KDP.

I tend to assume when things are hectic as they obviously are with Amazon getting a handle on something that obviously went kablooey that multiple emails just slow things down, but I realize not everyone works on that theory. I believe that Amazon is not going to lose my sales. If I thought that, I'd stop doing business with them.

[Guardian]

We're writers and being precise with our language is a virtue. You can't change the author or creator of a CreateSpace novel in KDP.

I never said that you change it directly there. "You can change CS via KDP Author Central, via Amazon's product panel or if you write a letter to KDP support."
Author Central is that authorcentral.amazon.com thingy and it reads every description what your book get from Createspace and you can change it those things there as well. You also can change it via Amazon's product panel, "Would you like to update product info.". Or as a KDP member you can write to KDP, then they might forward it to the appropriate person.

I tend to assume when things are hectic as they obviously are with Amazon getting a handle on something that obviously went kablooey that multiple emails just slow things down, but I realize not everyone works on that theory. I believe that Amazon is not going to lose my sales. If I thought that, I'd stop doing business with them.

I'm not a naive person and I rather double check everything instead of believing everything blindly. When something doesn't add-up, I used to ask questions. And when I don't get answers for those questions, I used to look around and do my own investigation. But as I said my counter problem has a long history as the first signs were in December and not now. But the present strange bestseller rank of Book #1 and Book #2 just proves that I was right since the beginning. And if I'm right, I'll do everything to make them to repair that thingy.

[IsabellaL]

Yes, it does seem to follow a pattern. My sales don't really pick up again until about the 10th of the month.

[William Peter Grasso]

I can't help but wonder how many of the conspiracies we fear are just Amazon's programmers stumbling through the side effects of a program revision (I spent a few years as a consultant in industrial program development. There were many frantic phone calls in the middle of the night when these side effects reared their ugly heads).

That said, let me get back on topic. Yeah...my sales for the first few days of the month are usually diminished (January 1, 2012 was a notable exception, and probably was for many of us.)

WPG

[D a l y a]

I'm happy to say that as of today (Feb 5th), I have seen a few sales rolling in.  There was such a colossal drop-off at the beginning of the month, but as of now, I feel more appreciative of anything selling at all.

There is so much we have no control over.  I have to take myself by the hand and direct my energy to the next book.  That's all we can control, and even that is ... up to the muses sometimes, it seems.

Perhaps the beginning-of-month dropoff is a conspiracy to get all of us invigorated about our WIPs.