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Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
The ranking rules change frequently and are highly proprietary/secret. They don't want people to game the system (for a time, an author could buy her own books and gift them and this would improve rankings hugely). There have been other games such as buying books at midnight when other books had slow sales, etc (this was during print times. Not so much ebooks).
Right now Amazon is favoring the big 5 or 6. I'm sure they are being paid handsomely for it.
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http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2016/02/samhain-closing/
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Yes, publishers can buy better placement through contract negotiations and terms. Any previously Amazon bestselling author can tell you that after Amazon’s legal battle ended with publishers last year, their Amazon placement tanked. Whereas they could once rely on landing a new release in the Top 10 of their genre or even overall, they’re now lucky to get inside the Top 100 with better sales numbers. You see more trad published authors in those spots now. And it’s because of “buying” better placement through contract negotiations.
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But that comment is anecdotal in the sense it's not backed up by data. But common-sense dictates that Amazon doctors its ranking system to further its business goals and revenues. To suggest it is totally without tweaking seems naive to me.
I wonder if anyone analyzes the change in ranking-system over time.
In any case, there does appear to anecdotal evidence from experienced parties that Amazon has increased it favoring of the big 5, and that this has impacted non-big5 sales, including Samhain. Plus the big 5 have lowered their prices. I wonder what deal they cooked up with Amazon.