File This in the Category of Huh?

 You know how I pointed out that I forgot to add the "if you liked this book, please help others find it by reviewing it at your favorite online store" section to the cozy mystery? I suspected it might make a tiny bit of difference, but not enough to justify re-uploading a new copy of the book everywhere.

Well. Guess what has absolutely no reviews? Not even any star ratings. Is it because people bought it but haven't read it yet? Maybe there is something wrong with the Goodreads entry? (Okay, take this whole thing with a grain of salt because I am extrapolating from data and I could be wrong -- when you get to the end of a Kindle book and it prompts you to rate it, I think that rating goes to Goodreads, although it is also reflected on Amazon. This book didn't automatically show up in Goodreads, so I created it there manually, but I'm not sure it's linking to Amazon properly.) Or... maybe everyone just hates the book. (Peak author brain talking here.)

Anyhow, as I was anxiously watching the blank review section, I also noticed this:

(Uh, yeah, these ranks are nothing to write home about.)

Amazon's non-standard categories show up in a big way for the really popular categories, like romance. Paranormal romance, for example, currently has seven sub-categories, depending on whether you want to read about ghosts getting it on, or if you like it with fangs.

But Amazon tends to just semi-randomly assign books to categories. I mean, you choose a couple of categories when you upload the manuscript, but it seems to view those as suggestions that it might just ignore.

The other oddity is that it has separate set of categories for Kindle books and paperback books. The categories are sort-of maybe kind-of the same for some genres, but not for others.

Anyhow, in the screenshot above "Cozy Animal Mystery" is under the Kindle books hierarchy, and "Cozy Animal Mysteries" is under the paperback hierarchy.

That would make a bit more sense if I had set up the novella for paperback sales, but it's only available as an ebook. Why would they do this? I have no idea.

Obligatory Dog Picture

Ginger the Little Dog wishes everyone a safe and kind new year.