: Re: How do some self-published books on Amazon get lots of sales without any marketing whatsoever? I get confused with this whole indie-publishing thing in terms of the advice I keep hearing from

One thing to be aware of is that some authors "game" the Amazon system. That is, they'll "buy" reads and reviews, through online services that use automation to "read" books through Kindle Unlimited (the author gets paid by the page read, and "reads" are counted the same way), and make reviews from those same KU accounts.

This form of fraud is seldom punished by Amazon, and leads to books riding up the sales ranks, which gets them listed higher in a reader's recommendations and therefore gets more legitimate sales. Never mind that it's probably a crime, only Amazon could pursue those who play the game this way.

Cheating the system in this way can lead to a book from a previously unknown author getting into the Amazon Top 100 before any actual readers have had a chance to read it -- and being in the Top 100 will in itself often guarantee high sales. If the underying book is even halfway decent, very few of those buyers will return the book for a refund, with the result that the author has, in effect, bought themselves a bunch of money by using unorthodox (and possibly illegal) "marketing" methods.

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: Re: How do some self-published books on Amazon get lots of sales without any marketing whatsoever? I get confused with this whole indie-publishing thing in terms of the advice I keep hearing from

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