How Bots Seized Control of My Pricing Strategy(carlos.bueno.org)
carlos.bueno.org
How Bots Seized Control of My Pricing Strategy
http://carlos.bueno.org/2012/02/bots-seized-control.html
49 comments
There are really Markov chain generated books on Amazon? I guess it is becoming a trash dumpster after all.
This was covered a few years ago in a New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/business/media/14link.html...
"Philip M. Parker seems to have licked that problem. Mr. Parker has generated more than 200,000 books, as an advanced search on Amazon.com under his publishing company shows, making him, in his own words, “the most published author in the history of the planet.” And he makes money doing it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/business/media/14link.html...
"Philip M. Parker seems to have licked that problem. Mr. Parker has generated more than 200,000 books, as an advanced search on Amazon.com under his publishing company shows, making him, in his own words, “the most published author in the history of the planet.” And he makes money doing it."
It certainly would be an interesting idea, and while it wouldn't be difficult to write them, who in their right mind would buy them, much less not demand a refund?
It's one chain of a money laundering operation.
Multiple books are created at high but not too high prices. Stolen funds are used to buy them; (through multiple intermediaries, work from home mules being a favorite) and the profits are moved through multiple accounts as well.
The criminals don't care that they are giving a bunch of money to Amazon (it's stolen remember), they do want the funds coming out to be clean, untraceable, and usable.
The unfortunate thing being that Amazon's incentives are, in this case, aligned with those of the criminals. And while I'm sure that Amazon regularly helps law enforcement track down this sort of thing, I wouldn't doubt that there exists a temptation to not notice that sort of misbehaviour.
Multiple books are created at high but not too high prices. Stolen funds are used to buy them; (through multiple intermediaries, work from home mules being a favorite) and the profits are moved through multiple accounts as well.
The criminals don't care that they are giving a bunch of money to Amazon (it's stolen remember), they do want the funds coming out to be clean, untraceable, and usable.
The unfortunate thing being that Amazon's incentives are, in this case, aligned with those of the criminals. And while I'm sure that Amazon regularly helps law enforcement track down this sort of thing, I wouldn't doubt that there exists a temptation to not notice that sort of misbehaviour.
Sounds like this could be the plot of the next Stross book. In 2020, the ordinary tax base has almost been destroyed. Everyone channels their illegal earnings by generating and reselling Kindle books. The main character of the book is a government bot program designed to analyze books and dig through BitCoin chains to determine whether the transactions are fraudulent or genuine. But as all goods have turned to electronic form, are they even any humans at the end of these transactions? Everything changes when the computer program has to analyze (some religious/philosophical book).
I wonder if anyone has written a book from the point of view of a computer program (and not just yet another human-like AI in a strange glowing suit). Stanislaw Lem's books may be close.
I wonder if anyone has written a book from the point of view of a computer program (and not just yet another human-like AI in a strange glowing suit). Stanislaw Lem's books may be close.
Parts of _The Adolescence of P1_ by Thomas Ryan are from the viewpoint of P1, which is an AI that develops from a learning worm written for IBM mainframes by a protohacker at U Waterloo.
Or the Philip K Dick version. Everything changes when the program has to analyze... itself.
I believe it is entitled "Vulcan's Hammer"
How would amazon even know?
And in any case it's not necessary to use fake book. You can publish a 10 page "book" with your random doodles and use that.
And in any case it's not necessary to use fake book. You can publish a 10 page "book" with your random doodles and use that.
Taking this line of thought to it's logical conclusion, how many real "books" are actually just a simple way of laundering money? I mean, who actually buys the book by Rick Santorum?
That's a good point. Few actual people want to read Newt Gingrich's political autobiography, yet it was a New York Times bestseller based on sales. And Romney has done similar things http://www.salon.com/2010/10/15/mitt_romney_book/
> who in their right mind would buy them
The sort of people who, according Phineas Taylor Barnum, are born every minute.
The sort of people who, according Phineas Taylor Barnum, are born every minute.
Similar story from last year: "Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies" http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2475854
Fun, intelligent articles, but both glorify essentially dumb "algorithms" by garage entrepreneurs that end up generating offers that will never sell.
I'm not sure how Amazon works; if they discount your book, and I buy it at the sale price, did you just get shafted out of some money? Or do they make up the difference?
Advantage Instructions and Rules - Updated January 29, 2008 [1]
7.2
"You, the vendor, receive 45% of the List Price. You set the List Price, also known as Suggested Retail Price, of your products, and all payments made to you are calculated based on the List Price. If Amazon.com decides to further reduce the sales price to the customer below the List Price, the customer discount comes out of Amazon.com's percentage."
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-account/mm-product-page.htm...
7.2
"You, the vendor, receive 45% of the List Price. You set the List Price, also known as Suggested Retail Price, of your products, and all payments made to you are calculated based on the List Price. If Amazon.com decides to further reduce the sales price to the customer below the List Price, the customer discount comes out of Amazon.com's percentage."
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-account/mm-product-page.htm...
Wait, Amazon takes %55 of the list price, and has control over the actual price its sold at.
Meanwhile, Apple takes %30, and you have total control over pricing.
Yet whenever the iBookstore comes up here, people go on and on about the "Apple tax" and how Apple is trying to drive authors out of business? By taking Less?
Meanwhile, Apple takes %30, and you have total control over pricing.
Yet whenever the iBookstore comes up here, people go on and on about the "Apple tax" and how Apple is trying to drive authors out of business? By taking Less?
55% of MSRP, which in practice is around 30% of what Amazon actually charges since things seem to be perpetually on sale for 20-30%. More significantly, Amazon stores your stuff in warehouses and covers the costs associated with shipping the product to customers, which is significantly more expensive than storing some files in a data center.
I think my biggest gripe with the App Store is that there is no alternative. If I want to develop an app for an iPhone I'm locked in to their system.
If I want to publish a book, I have a variety of options, both in the physical and online realm.
If I want to publish a book, I have a variety of options, both in the physical and online realm.
Jobs tried to get you to make HTML5 apps for the iPhone. He even gave you nice ways to install them with their own icon and run them offline. But nooooooo, you're having none of it. No HTML5 installable apps with access to native APIs for you. You prefer to insist there's no alternative...
http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/html5-iphone-app/
http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/html5-iphone-app/
> By taking Less?
Of a completely different item.
There is a big difference between delivering physical vs digital goods.
Of a completely different item.
There is a big difference between delivering physical vs digital goods.
Isn't this comparing physical sales on Amazon's side with electronic sales on Apple's side?
Excuse me if I'm incorrect here, but I believe the "Apple tax" refers to the markup on Apple hardware. That is, if you were to buy the same parts separately for a Windows machine it would be far cheaper.
Have you heard of a little cash-calf called the "app store"? that's what is being referred to here.
Yes of course, but I believe the term "Apple tax" refers specifically to markup on Apple hardware. That's all.
> and has control over the actual price its sold at.
It does, but the 45% for the author comes from the price that was set by the author. Any discount is taken from the 55% amazon would get.
It does, but the 45% for the author comes from the price that was set by the author. Any discount is taken from the 55% amazon would get.
Both strategies have pros and cons, but you're comparing a marketplace and a retailer here, which function differently in many ways.
Note my %'s may be off slightly but it's irrelevant to the question.
If their book sales are similar to their Android App Store then as the publisher you get whichever is more between.
"20 percent of list price and 70 percent of sale price"
So Amazon can sell it for whatever it wants but will owe you 20% of what you listed the book at. It gives them a very wide margin to play with.
If their book sales are similar to their Android App Store then as the publisher you get whichever is more between.
"20 percent of list price and 70 percent of sale price"
So Amazon can sell it for whatever it wants but will owe you 20% of what you listed the book at. It gives them a very wide margin to play with.
Doesn't Amazon ban you for selling non-existent books? Because otherwise it has occurred to me that next time I look into buying a book, I could pretend to sell it for a really low price and wait for a bot to underbid me, so that I can buy it off the bot for very little money.
"trust the tattooed hipster who wrote Amazon's pricing algorithm"
Am I missing some context here? Amazon is full of tattooed hipsters?
Am I missing some context here? Amazon is full of tattooed hipsters?
Looking at the nerds I've met around Seattle, this is a fairly safe bet.
This live amazon page here shows that the price for a book has been increased artificially to $7.5 million due to bots ...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0956205100?ie=UTF8...
(I got this via a tweet a few hours ago, and it seems like its still broken...)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0956205100?ie=UTF8...
(I got this via a tweet a few hours ago, and it seems like its still broken...)
Maybe it's just author trying to recover from personal bankruptcy.
Is it possible to do the following:
Invent a fake book
Post it for a high price
Watch Bots price it up
Buy one from a bot
Sell the only real one far above the bot price
Profit? (because the bot owner must then buy the book to ship it to the person who already bought it?)
Invent a fake book
Post it for a high price
Watch Bots price it up
Buy one from a bot
Sell the only real one far above the bot price
Profit? (because the bot owner must then buy the book to ship it to the person who already bought it?)
If you can make that actually happen, the bot will end up canceling your order and take the reputation hit. It's all a numbers game to them.
I remember reading an article before which stated that the bots are able to charge a higher price because they have a good reputation. I guess it depends on how much you want to make. Maybe the bot would pay $1 extra, but not $20 extra?
The reason this doesn't work is that it isn't like eBay. You are not required, as a seller, to complete a transaction.
You pay $100 for the book and get $15 back, say, as your 30% cut. Then they buy the book from you for $90 ...
/jk
/jk
[deleted]
If it has free shiping, why not buy 1.000 books for $10 and move them back to your inventory?
Again in my experience, Amazon's discounts do not effect the author's take. At least in CreateSpace, the author's royalty is based on the retail price the author sets.