Some of you will have noticed KDP’s switch to a new interface:
The new dashboard offers several advantages over the old one. The tabbed browsing allows you to access historical data. It also breaks down royalties and sales by marketplace, author, title, and format.
The Real Change
The real change, however, lies behind the scenes — and it’s not a good one: Amazon has now integrated script-blocking on the Reports page. I recently advocated using the free Book Report bookmarklet to make sense of Amazon’s insufficient data. Well, Book Report (and any similar tool, like John Logsdon’s ReaderLinks, currently in its beta stage) will no longer work on the Report page.
BookReport is currently getting around this by making a new version of their tool that works from you starting from the KDP Bookshelf page. This is a quick hack, but Liam is presumably working on a full integration since the current Report API (the code behind the scenes) is not the same as the old one. He’ll have to port to the new one eventually.
There’s a problem with that, though. As John points out, if Amazon is blocking the Report link, they may also block on all other places. Which means that any fixes by Book Report may only be temporary — and this is a fight that Amazon is eventually going to win. Machete, the tool I advocated for making sense of AMS results, may be next for all we know.
So why would Amazon do this? One possible reason is that they don’t want all the extra traffic that is hitting them all day. Imagine 100,000 authors pulling their data 10 times a day each. That’s one million extra calls to Amazon’s server. Why allow that traffic when they don’t need to? A simple security block and they’re done.
I promise to keep you abreast of any developments and thank John for explaining all this in simple enough terms for us all to understand 🙂
beetleypete said:
One day, I might understand what this means, but thanks for letting us know.
Have a great weekend, Nicholas. It must be really hot in Greece, as we are even expecting 30 degrees in Beetley!
Best wishes, Pete.
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V.M.Sang said:
I’m with you, beetleypete. I don’t understand it either.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Lol – thank you, Pete. Actually, climate over here has switched to tropical. We get nice, warm mornings, then rain i the afternoon. Except for today: this is the 5th consecutive Sunday with cold and rain. Sounds like Beetley is the place to be 😀
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beetleypete said:
32 C here today, Nicholas. A bit too hot, to be honest. But I’m not complaining, as at least it’s dry!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
*bangs head on desk*
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stephrichmond said:
Reblogged this on S C Richmond.
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Anna Dobritt said:
Reblogged this on Anna Dobritt — Author.
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The Story Reading Ape said:
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
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Nicola McDonagh said:
Reblogged this on Nikki McDonagh – author and photographer and commented:
Useful information about KDP changes for authors.
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V.M.Sang said:
What info is Amazon blocking, and why?
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
It’s blocking outsiders from peeking into its data. This means that services like Book Report are suddenly out of business unless they figure out a way of getting that data. I guess you have to use such services for all of this to make sense 🙂
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Don Massenzio said:
Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog and commented:
Here is a great post from Nicholas Rossis on the changes that were implemented on the Amazon KDP reports page and the implications to the free Book Report tool
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Liz said:
Book Report and AKReport will work in from the Reader dashboard but the lag is evident. It cured my need to check my dashboard all the time, but at the same time, I need to know whether certain promos are working in real time or not. I can’t rely on anything anymore and you’re right about Machete. It might be next.
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Thank you, Liz. I haven’t got Book Report to work from the Bookshelf, but I hear others have. Is it working for you?
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Liz said:
Yes, both Book Report and AKReport are working for me from the Bookshelf. I meant to write that but ended up writing Reader dashboard instead. It’s a bit slow but I get my current figures. It doesn’t work on my iPhone though which sucks.
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kimwrtr said:
Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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J.A. Stinger said:
Reblogged this on Words Can Inspire the World.
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Ali Isaac said:
Are they trying to make authors even more exclusive to them by not allowing them to get info from anywhere else? They’ll be telling us it’s all alternative facts next! They must be taking their dictatorial example from someone not a million miles away… 😆🤣😂 Thanks for the tip!
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Nicholas C. Rossis said:
Surely, I have no idea what you mean, my dear 😀
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Ali Isaac said:
😆🤣😂😉
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