Writer’s blog: Stardate: 14.06.2013
I am yet to try Dan Brown. I have not given over time in my life to wonder about who was really behind the assassination of JFK. I’ve not felt the need to dwell on how come I look nothing like my father but a lot like our old milkman. I have no personal history of wanting to uncover ‘truth’. So, why am I thinking like I am? Where has the idea come from? I’m not a trouble-maker by nature.
I’ve not seen anything even suggested about it on the Internet and I’ve looked. Not a hint or a whiff regarding my wonderings. No mention in a blog-post, a tweet, a forum or an online article. I think that I could be alone, potentially joining the ranks of Felt, Tripp, Manning, Snowden. But more famous. (Is this just a cheap attempt to raise my sagging author profile and fuel downloads of my books?)
Should my worst fears be confirmed then I can only imagine that the publishing/self-publishing world will not be the same place again for a lot of people. And I don’t just mean authors. Such is my unease at the possible repercussions both personal and for Mankind of my theory turning out to having an element of ‘truth’ that I don’t even want to be associated with it. I want nothing to do with it. I don’t want to be the one remembered as bringing down ‘mother’. In…fact…I…am…using…all…my…willpower…to…stop…typing…but…I…can’t…help…myself.
I have written before about being my own worst enema.
In the film ‘The Matrix’ there is a scene where the code of the ‘fake’ world is broken and the screen of the monitor displays columns of numbers and symbols like falling green rain as ‘their’ lies are exposed and the ‘real’ world is unlocked. Sort of.
(Someone just tweeted me to, ‘Get on with it!’)
It’s about Amazon and download figures. I’m not talking about the algorithms that they employ to shuffle the runners and riders in the various charts. Although, if I’m half-right it would go some way to explaining why Amazon are so secretive about these algorithms and so reluctant to provide information surrounding sales numbers generally.
Below, I’m going to share my download figures for my book Rope Enough for the period since it became free to download. When I noticed that the book had been price-matched by Amazon to zero and downloads started mounting each other (?), I thought that it might be amusing to check and record them every day when I get up. Bloody sad too. I’ve been doing this since April 12th, which is only a day or so after things changed and approximately two months ago.
My first question that goes along with these figures is something like this: Do I find it an acceptable coincidence that the numbers of downloads per day are so similar for so long when there are literally millions of ebook readers out there regularly downloading books onto reading devices? That’s quite a long question.
My second question based on me giving the short answer ‘no’ to question one goes like this: If it is not an acceptable coincidence, is Amazon controlling and manipulating the download numbers? More on what I don’t know what I’m talking about after the figures.
(My ‘argument’ becomes slightly more valid late May onwards.)
April 12th – 784
April 13th – 971
April 14th – 1271
April 15th – 1041
April 16th – 1244
April 17th – 1522
April 18th – 1741
April 19th – 1452
April 20th – 1392
April 21st – 1952
April 22nd – 1311
April 23rd – 1093
April 24th – 966
April 25th – 1037
April 26th – 879
April 27th – 1046
April 28th – 1060
April 29th – 793
April 30th – 761
May 1st – 705
May 2nd – 705 (really)
May 3rd – 562
May 4th – 672
May 5th – 720
May 6th – 683
May 7th – 581
May 8th – 718
May 9th – 685
May 10th – 592
May 11th – 673
May 12th – 741
May 13th – 520
May 14th – 618
May 15th – 548
May 16th – 491
May 17th – 523
May 18th – 569
May 19th – 610
May 20th – 538
May 21st – 467
May 22nd – 421
May 23rd – 470
May 24th – 482
May 25th – 387
May 26th – 466
May 27th – 503
May 28th – 471
May 29th – 487
May 30th – 460
May 31st – 401
June 1st – 445
June 2nd – 538
June 3rd – 478
June 4th – 468
June 5th – 554
June 6th – 467
June 7th – 410
June 8th – 411
June 9th – 587
June 10th – 487
June 11th – 470
June 12th – 501
June 13th – 418
Okay, initially there isn’t much to get excited about, but from May 20th to now generally speaking there just doesn’t seem to be the fluctuation in daily download figures that I would expect when I consider the number of people out there with ebook reading devices. Am I wrong?
If Amazon were to be controlling and manipulating download figures, why?
Does my experience resemble the experiences of others?
Am I reading too much into these figures?
Have I become unhealthily paranoid as opposed to healthily paranoid?
Is there enough reliability and validity in the figures to make them worthy of consideration?
It’s not simply these similar figures of mine that cause me to wonder about things. As a self-publisher I look at the charts about as often as an alcoholic thinks about a quick snifter. The Amazon chart that I look at most often is the Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Police Procedurals, which is where my books are featured. There are authors that have been lingering around the top ten of this chart like flies around a turd on a hot day for months.
Now, I am not saying that they don’t deserve to be there and I do. This is not that kind of blog-post. My point is that some of these authors have been there a long time and they are not household names and they don’t have huge numbers of positive reviews for their writing, or necessarily huge numbers of reviews. Some of them are self-publishers and some of them I’ve never heard of. All of which means nothing, of course, but I can’t help wondering why any of us are where we are.
Maybe the answer is simple. Perhaps they just get enough downloads on a daily basis to keep them there whereas I get enough downloads on a daily basis to keep me where I am.
Just two more questions:
Why is my monitor screen displaying incomprehensible code that looks like falling green rain?
Who is that banging on my front door?
The following is a transcript of the conversation overhead by the missing author’s mother and not to be bothered with by anyone with a life.
Agent Smith: We meet at last.
Mr Tidy: And you are?
Agent Smith: A Smith. Agent Smith.
Mr Tidy: Bit weird.
Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
Mr Tidy: I think that you must be looking for Neo. He lives at number fourteen. This is number twelve.
Agent Smith: I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can’t stand it any longer. It’s the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I’ve somehow been infected by it.
Mr Tidy: Hang on a minute. That’s a bit strong. You can hardly hold me responsible for the bin-men being late.
Agent Smith: I’m going to enjoy watching you die.
Mr Tidy: I really think that you should leave now. MUM!
Oliver Tidy 