Did you know this??? Not only you have to make a separate Author Page for each of the ever- multiplying Amazons, the reviews of your book may or may not cross-appear on other sites?
I certainly didn’t, at least not until I started drafting a review request this afternoon (a post on how I plan to get “official” reviews is coming up soon). In copying Rachel Abbott’s flyer, I noticed that she posted different numbers for the American and British sites.
Huh?
Well, whaddaya know? I thought Shizzle, Inc had 26 reviews, but that’s on the US site. UK site has 5 reviews, which are the same as on the US site. I don’t know if those kind souls posted their reviews twice, or if Brits are ahead of others in terms of integration. Aussies haven’t bothered to post any reviews, and Canadians didn’t get the joke. India is also laying low – c’mon, guys, I know that at least three of you have bought it!
Not only that, the book has different ratings on each of the sites! At this exact moment sales are slow, as none of the January paid promos kicked in yet and I’m selling about 0.5 copies per day on the back of Twitter quotes. The ratings are as follows:
US: 465 in Satire
UK: 385 in Satire
Canada: 259,502 overall, doesn’t have a subcategory
Australia: 1,234 in Humour
India: 58,750 overall – best overall rating.
Fascinating, isn’t it? While the highest I ever got was #9 on the US Amazon bestseller list, I may have been the bestselling author in UK!
Anyway, just thought you should know. Check, quick – you might be a bestselling author in India!
Ana Spoke, author 
Wow.. that’s bizarre that the amazon sites aren’t integrated. What is the purpose of having them separated? Hope the promos kick in soon.
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Thank you – one just started this morning, but a slow start. Will update as always. Amazon should be ahead of the game in the regard of integration, and you’d think it would help them sell more books, but, alas, no…
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*gasp* I knew it. I the best selling author at Amazon Jupiter, the biggest planet in the solar system babe! Hahaa., jokes aside this is very interesting I did not know that at all. I thought all reviews and rankings appeared the same on US, AUS and UK sites. Thanks for the posy
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Haha, I bet you are! Glad I could help 🙂
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As someone who reviews on amazon UK, I can indeed confirm that I have to log into the US site to post reviews there separately. I think you can use the same log in details on all sites but each amazon site is slightly different. On the uk site a review is simply writing in a box and giving a star rating, but on the US site it always asks me about the book, ‘what kind of pace does the book have?’ or ‘are the characters complex or one-dimensional?’, etc. Not sure why answering those questions is necessary as it doesn’t appear on the review!
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How strange! Thank you so much for going the extra mile! Now I know who should get an early review copy 🙂
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Lol, I never like to ask but yes, if you ever want me to review a book for you I can very much do that. And publish the review on my blog…Still new but I’m gaining followers which is exciting :).
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That would be great! I’d reblog the review – should help you get some followers 🙂
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Thank you, I’d look forward to that :). Just send a message or email me anytime. I hope you don’t mind I also sent a friend request on Goodreads. I’m pretty new there but post my reviews there too :).
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I hope I’ve accepted on Goodreads, will check. I will email you shortly.
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I have different emails, do you know my main one that I leave on my about page? ‘thehkat’ It’s the email I’m using most often so best to contact me on that one.
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Got it! Thanks again 🙂
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That’s really interesting, thanks for sharing. It’s a shame that there isn’t some way of automating the process so that you are immediately notified each time you receive a review. Did you choose the list of countries or is the book automatically available in a list of countries when you submit it for publishing?
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I did choose the countries, and you can set up different prices for each, if you want to.
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That’s good to know and something else to think about 🙂
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There’s just sooooo much to do!!!
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Well, now I know why my author page doesn’t always appear. Sheesh! Thank you, Oh Wise One.
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Haha, thank you 🙂
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Yes Anna I found out the hard way too. I set up my author profile on Amazon Central UK and presumed it would be shared across the sites as sale prices Jhave to be linked. But no each has to be set up separately. I have only one review on Amazon.com because only one review has been posted there. Makes it a nightmare of extra work to try to keep all updated.
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It boggles my mind that such a giant has not been able to figure out an integration. At least they combine reviews for print and ebook editions…
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Oh yes, that’s a problem indeed. I queried that with Amazon a while back and they said they were looking into it, but so far nothing much has happened. Worst still, I have a friend who published in Spanish (she’s from Mexico) and initially they were part of Amazon.com. When they opened an Amazon.mx she discovered that all the reviews she had in Amazon.com where lost as didn’t appear in Amazon.mx, even if they might have been from people there. I always try to review in .com and .uk (that is where I live) and for people who publish in Spanish in .com, .uk and .es (Spain), although if I know the author is from another country with a store I try there too. In the UK we can see the reviews in .com too. You might list your book under a category and in another country if it does not exist it will appear under another (I know authors whose novels have appeared under theatre, and one of my thrillers became a best-seller in Spain under religion, although it is not a religious book. Mind you, it only took selling 4 books, so…)
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Wow, you’re an international bestseller!!
Good on you for trying, and how devastating for your friend! My only hope is that there will be continuous improvement and one day we will laugh about having to manually update a dozen sites…I’m not looking forward to keeping tabs and paperwork on all the bookstores I’m currently courting…
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I finally checked out the UK page for my book yesterday and saw my first unfavorable review. It was sobering but yes, you have to craft an Author page with each of those country Amazon pages and I’ve yet to do that. First I need to run my novel through my Scrivener program and see how many times I used the word “glances/glanced/glance” like it was going out of style (per the review).
As for rankings, I finally made it as high as #61 under Women’s Fiction the other night. Then I blinked and I was back at #121 or something. It did give me a moment of, “so that’s how finding your book under “bestsellers” feels like.” Then I went to bed and sobered up.
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Congratulations, Liz! You’re a bestselling author now! Why sober up? I carefully maintain this reality, in which I’m gonna make it big, quit my job, and live happily ever after. I don’t think I can do that “sober” 🙂
As to the unfavorable review, at least they were specific and you may improve. My bad review pretty much said “ugh”. Nothing I can do about that…
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Guess I should pull up those screenshots then! For some reason I always thought Bestseller was just something for the top 10 🙂
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Nah! It’s Top 100, not Top 10!
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LOL! I am guilty of being one of those from India who have bought Shizzle but not read or reviewed it yet. Sorry about that! Though it’s a feeble excuse time is really the only problem. I promise to put up a review when I do read it though!
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Haha, sorry for getting all personal about it 🙂 no stress and appreciate your purchase!
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Well that’s a really quirky inside view for someone like me, who is only hoping and dreaming to make it happen some way.
I would try to get my hands onto Shizzle, Inc. And review it on my blog. I love doing that, on Amazon and my WP blog! 🙂 Good Luck dear! 😀
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Thank you very much – I will post in a couple of days how I got it organised now. Thank you for the review offer – let me know, and I will reblog it!
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Sure!
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As a first-time author I see that, once again, Amazon’s store-front needs more engineering and tweaks than we’re led to believe. As easy as 1 2 3? I don’t think so, chum.
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Yep, its the problem with behemoths – slow to move…
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I’ve known about this since 2014. I post my reviews on all the Amazon sites except Japan. As a US author, I only have to log into my US account and then put in the web address for each different Amazon site. Also, you need to create your Author Page on each Amazon site that allows it. Out o the 11 sites, I believe only 5 will let you create an Author Page.
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Thank you, Sahara – you’re right, even Australia won’t let you do an Author page. Just can’t believe we have to do so much manual work in this brave new integrated world…
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I totally agree. Reviews and our author pages should be seamless between the different zones.
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On my Amazon UK page, at the top it indicates that there aren’t any reviews yet, but down in the customer review area are all my U.S. reviews listed as a beta feature, so they are easily findable to any curious person, which is better than nothing.
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A UK reader of my book emailed to say she was going to post a review. So we waited a bit and saw it appear on the UK Amazon site (my first UK review). A few hours later, I noticed it was on the US site as well, so I just figured they ALL got cross-posted. However, the next UK review did not appear on the US site. So after several days, I contacted customer service.
This was their answer: “The reviews that you see cross-posted is due to a beta program that we are testing. Reviews are selected in random and cross-posted.”
So, it does happen but only randomly. I just got lucky. No other reviews of mine have been “beta-selected” for cross-posting, just that one. And since it is a trial program, I suppose there is no guarantee it will ever happen again.
Susan
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Thank you, Susan – interesting! So maybe they are about to fix that issue…
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Thanks for the info
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Lmao. While I did not know that, it isn’t surprising. (and I’m about to strangle my computer! Why does the same key combination which switches from English to French keyboard have to be default to the same key combination which highlights when I’m using the keyboard instead of the mouse?)
That might help explain how a book could have over 5000 reviews on Amazon! I’ve been wondering about that; how could a book get THAT many reviews? It was/is baffling but if one person goes around to all the different Amazon sites and leaves a review of the same book…
I’m guilty of leaving the same review in multiple places BUT it’s at totally different platforms! Kobo.com, Amazon, Goodreads and my blog, maybe one or two others if the book happens to be listed there: I review for a couple of authors who aren’t listed on Kobo or one particular book isn’t listed on Goodreads, etc.
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You’re awesome for doing that! I don’t know what will happen when there’s finally integration, but right now the reviews are not added up. People who get thousands of them are heavily promoted and have sold millions of books…one day!
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Thank you :).
I get some of those lists you talk about. Some of them say something like 5,000 reviews on Amazon. I just shake my head, it’s not the total number of reviews, at least for me, it’s the number of positive reviews vs mediocre reviews vs bad reviews. Even then, IF I’m reading reviews it’s only those on the front page.
Personally, for me what usually grabs my attention is the story summary.
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That is fascinating!
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Yes, I would agree – 5,000 negative reviews would sink even Titanic 🙂
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I’ve noted those things, too. I’ve done author pages for the US, UK, Germany, and France, but on a number of the amazon sites it’s not possible to set up a page. I also have completely different rankings on the US and UK sites, much higher on the latter, but only for Kindle, which surprises me, as I thought I’d sold a fair number of paperbacks. It’s probably because I’ve been fiddling with my keywords and categories on kdp, but haven’t adjusted them on Create Space. I also have two reviews on the UK site and one review on the US site, which was copied over from the UK one. So, yes, it’s down to the kindness of the person who reviewed your book on one or the other, as to whether they post it in both places. But be warned, your reviewer will only be classed as a Verified Purchaser on the site they bought the copy from. Otherwise, it will say Amazon Customer, which doesn’t hold so much clout.
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Oh, I didn’t even know verified purchase doesn’t come across! But I was sure that rankings do – mine is ranked the same for both editions…
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How strange. I wonder if Amazon are linking my two books up as they should. Must have a browse of some other people’s rankings and see if the two editions are the same.
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Have a look at mine – same. Contact their helpsesk
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I’ve just looked at your book, plus some others, and there is definitely a difference between the ranking for the kindle and paperback editions, with the kindle ranking always loads higher — unless I’m hallucinating 😉
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Hi, Sarah – I just looked again, and on Amazon.com it appears the same. Its also the same on the British site – although only 5 reviews. Where are you looking?
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I’m looking under “Product Details” at the Amazon Bestsellers Rank. On mine and other people’s books, the rankings are different if clicking on the paperback and kindle versions. But I’ve just cleared up the mystery, re your book. You haven’t yet got a ranking for the paperback as you’ve not made enough sales on that version yet. Amazon only starts to display a ranking once it has reached a certain figure.
By the way, you asked me if I was going to do a Goodreads giveaway and, yes, I’ve decided to in February, and a countdown deal in March. It’s about time I started promoting my book. Just have a few more things to tweak, re my book description and keywords, then it’s all systems go!
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Sorry, Sarah – can’t understand it now, and maybe it doesn’t matter.
Good to hear you’re doing a giveaway – my second one is about to finish, 2 weeks and over 1,200 requests! Will post a comparison tomorrow.
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I see why now. What should happen is that if you click on the white widget that says Kindle Edition, you get one set of stats under “product details”. If you click on the buff colour widget that says Paperback, you should get a different set of stats. There are no stats showing up for your book for either edition on the UK site, but there are on the US one. I seem to have them showing on both sites.
Your stats on the US site for the Kindle version are…
#34,834 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#93 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Satire
#114 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Humor & Satire > American
#332 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Women’s Fiction > Action & Adventure
And for the Paperback version…
#6,033,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#34015 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Humor & Satire > Humorous
That’s a darned good overall figure for your Kindle version, when you think how many millions of books there are on Amazon.
Goodreads suggests doing a giveaway for a month, but others suggest a shorter time. It sounds to me as if a fortnight works better. Have you done it worldwide, or for specific countries? Also, how many books are you giving away?
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Ah, those are sales stats! Yes, now I get it – and it makes sense that paper books are compared to paper, etc. I’m not selling any paper copies, but ebook sells well.
I will put all Giodreads stats on tomorrow, when finished. Did a month and then a fortnight.
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I think with the paper copy it’s important not to charge too much, as we’re competing with high street prices. For instance, in the UK paperback books usually have a recommended price of £7.99 but are often discounted to a lower price in stores. Thus, I’m selling mine for £6.74, which is £1 over the minimum price that Create Space will allow. This gives me a profit of 60 pence a book. I’ve set my prices individually rather than going for the recommended sterling and euro equivalents to the US dollar price.
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Thank you – I might revisit that…
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Hi, Sarah – I just looked at Desication and the rating appears to be the same on both versions?
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Oh, and didn’t think CreateSpace keywords have an affect on Amazon?
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I’m not sure. Maybe they don’t. I’d assumed they would. Must check that.
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