The other day we reported a problem that resulted in intermittent reporting of sales ranks for some users during a 48 hour period. Today I am happy to announce that the source of the problem has been identified and a solution has been implemented. Unfortunately any sales ranks that were missed during October 5th – October 7th, 2009 are not available and are forever lost to the Amazon Gods. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. It is our goal to collect each and every rank Amazon provides for the items you track. But as they say, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Since we rely on Amazon to respond to API requests we make, we are entirely dependent on their “delivering the goods” when we ask nicely. Unfortunately the consistent responsiveness we have enjoyed from Amazon’s AWS API has a bit of a hearing problem lately which resulted in our missing some sales ranks as a result. It also exposed an issue with our metric collection script which didn’t gracefully handle such a condition. Since it is beyond our scope to force Amazon to respond to each and every request we make, we took this opportunity to make our script a little more robust when it comes to dealing with an aging and sometimes deaf Amazon, by adding some redundancies and not bailing in protest when Amazon ignores it. We also added some notification functionality to alert us, both preventively and reactively as actionable situations occur.  In the end, the applied solution is more of a work-a-round to address issues that Amazon is having responding to requests.

For the record, it appears as though Amazon moved control of these APIs to another group within the organization and they have not been effective communicators of changes they are making to the system. Case in point, Kindle books, they are no longer provided by the API as of August 14th, 2009. Amazon made no mention of this change and finally responded to the frenzied developer community September 29th, 2009 by flatly saying they would no longer be providing them (no explanation given).

Anywho, you don’t need to know how the sausage is made. You just want it to taste good.

We appreciate your continued support and look forward to delivering your sales ranks in new and delicious ways!

If you don’t have all your sales rank data today it’s because something wonky has occurred. I wish there were a more scientific way to put it but nothing captures the anomalous behavior we experienced today more precisely than wonky so we are going with it.

Rest assured, we are aware of, and investigating the problem. We will make an announcement here once things are back to normal. In the mean time, please bare with us.

Why would you want one? Our widgets allow you to dynamically display your sales rank on your site. If you have a web page or blog, a widget is a great way to promote your book while simultaneously supporting this site.

What do the widgets look like? Our widgets come in two flavors. Both proudly display the current sales rank for the item whose widget code you copied (typically your book or CD).

Tower Widget: Designed for users who want to promote sales. Each widget displays an item picture, sales rank, and a “Buy Now” button to encourage sales conversions. When users click the “Buy Now” button they are taken to the corresponding Amazon product page through a “Metric Junkie” affiliate link, allowing us to earn a small percentage in the event a sale occurs. This is one of the ways that you can help support us and help keep our service free.

Box Widget: For those who are still interested in displaying their products Amazon sales rank on their blog or web page but have limited real-estate, this option is for you:

OK, I am sold. Where can I get a widget for my book? Click on the icon located on the “Product Details” page for the corresponding item. Once there, grab the code under “Copy This Code” and paste it at the desired location on your web page.

That’s it! Now when visitors come to your page your sales rank will be displayed in all its glory.

If you are enjoying our service and find it a valuable resource we ask that you help support us by spreading the word about our service to other authors and musicians through your blogs, tweets, email, radio & TV interviews, etc. We don’t charge for basic usage and therefore depend on your word-0f-mouth to grow our user-base in order to keep it that way. If you like Free, I know I do, then let the world know we exist and we rock! Really. Do it now! I will wait…

If you use any data obtained from our page on a blog,  journal, book, or publication you are involved in, we ask that you properly credit us with a link or site mention:

• For Graphs – (e.g. Graph Courtesy of www.metricjunkie.com)
• For Data – (e.g. Data Courtesy of www.metricjunkie.com)

In fact, we encourage you to take pictures (ALT-Print Screen in Windows) of any graphs you want to display in any media you are involved in. Just be sure to help a brother out and mention where you got it from. We have to eat you know and a free business model doesn’t necessarily put bread on the table.

Of course if you are feeling especially heroic, you can make a donation to help support the maintenance and development of our service (as well as allow me to eat pasta once a week). Click here to make a donation.

Finally, I hope you are all enjoying the service. From the number of return visits its clear that you are. We look forward to helping you achieve your sales goals.

-Mark

1. Metric Junkie’s vibrant charts are so brilliant they will make you want to slap your Mama. Of course, just as you wouldn’t want to bring a knife to a gun fight, it would be equally poor form for you to log into our site with an old, out-dated, non-standard, dilapidated browser. Translation: For best results make sure you are using one of the following browsers and have upgraded it to the latest version:
   

   Google Chrome 2

   Internet Explorer 8

   Firefox 3.5

   Safari 4

2. Once logged in you will need to add an item (i.e. Book/CD/DVD)  to your collection. The first time an item is added it will have zero data. This is not an error. Sales Ranks are collected from Amazon on an hourly basis starting the hour after they are first added to your collection.  As a junkie, I know you are expecting a quick fix. Rest assured the pretty swirling pie charts and opulent bar graphs are coming. Grab a glass of juice and come back in an hour to see your first data point. In 24 hours you will have 24 points and the graphs will really start to materialize.
3. Need help?  Click on the green question marks that can be found on each page. Also our FAQ has a wealth of knowledge that answers the most common questions.
4. Reporting issues – If you experience a problem, observe an anomaly, or start getting heart palpitations, click the “Help” link on the top right of the Metric Junkie screen and submit a ticket.

On behalf of all of us at the Lab I welcome you to your new addiction, and remember… Acceptance is the first sign of recovery.