Flash! Odd Odyssey Categories

Flash! Odd Odyssey Categories

I’ve written a couple of times recently about the new Odyssey Edition e-book exclusives in the Amazon store.

I thought I’d take a look at their ranks in the Kindle store…see how well they are selling already.

In doing that, I also looked at their categories.  Those categories are normally set by the publisher: they certainly are in the independently-published Digital Text Platform books, but I believe it goes for traditionally-published books as well.

That showed me some odd choices!

Categories are chosen for sales, certainly.  I’ve seen the same books in both fiction and non-fiction categories, for example.  Is that how Andrew Wylie is making the choices?  Maybe…but would you have put Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man under Men’s Adventure in Genre Fiction?  I never would have done that in the bookstore I managed! 

London Fields  by Martin Amis (sales rank: #2359 of paid books in the Kindle store: Category: Contemporary Fiction)

The Adventures of Augie March  by Saul Bellow (#1940/Thrillers-Psychological Suspense, Contemporary Fiction)

Ficciones (in Spanish) by Jorge Luis Borges (3927/Contemporary Fiction)

Junky  by William S. Burroughs (6712/Contemporary Fiction, Classics)

Invisible Man  by Ralph Ellison (1021/Genre Fiction – Men’s Adventure)

Love Medicine by Louse Erdrich (not ranked…pre-order/Contemporary Fiction)

The Enigma of Arrival  by V.S. Naipaul (6746/Contemporary Fiction)

The White Castle  by Orham Pamuk (12874/Contemporary Fiction)

Midnight’s Children  by Salman Rushdie (863/Contemporary Fiction)

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks (2684/Psychology & Counseling, Contemporary Fiction)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas  by Hunter S. Thompson (818/Biographies & Memoirs – Arts & Literature – Authors, Contemporary Fiction)

Rabbit Redux  by John Updike (5297/Genre Fiction – Family Saga, Mystery & Thrillers – Thrillers – Psychological & Suspense, Contemporary Fiction)

Rabbit at Rest by John Updike (4841/Genre Fiction – Family Saga, Mystery & Thrillers – Thrillers – Psychological & Suspense, Contemporary Fiction)

Rabbit is Rich by John Updike (4645/Genre Fiction – Family Saga, Mystery & Thrillers – Thrillers – Psychological & Suspense, Contemporary Fiction)

Rabbit, Run by John Updike (1053/Contemporary Fiction)

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1803/Contemporary Fiction)

So, it’s probably worth noting that I didn’t list every category…for example, I didn’t list Literature & Fiction each time).  Rabbit, Run isn’t a thriller, but the others are?  Junky is a classic…and Brideshead Revisited isn’t? 

I’m still struck by Invisible Man being in the same category as Dirk Pitt and Remo Williams…

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.