As of earlier this week, Amazon released the Product Advertising API for Amazon.it, Italy. Within a few hours, NovelRank was enabled for tracking sales rank on Amazon.it. If you want to add your book for tracking, just repeat the process you used when first adding your book: Copy and paste the Amazon link (can be from any Amazon domain, doesn’t have to be the Amazon.it link) into the Sales Rank tracking page. Make sure you check ‘Add Additional Domains’, and click the track button to finish the process. Within a few seconds, all of Amazon’s domains will be checked to see if updates for tracking are available. Enjoy!
Category Archives: News
NovelRank iPhone, iPod, and iPad App Released
It’s been 10 months in the making, but as of today you can download the free version of the NovelRank iOS app in the iTunes store using the following link:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/novelrank-amazon-sales-rank/id423938573?mt=8
Reminder: Rate and Review the App!
The app, created by Electric Butterfly, Inc., is designed to show you all of the same data that you can find on your NovelRank User Page. If you don’t have a user account yet, you can create an account easily. Of course, if you want to download the app and test things, you can always use the username demo in the app.
The app is completely free to download for your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. There are ads inside the application, and as soon as a legal matter affecting all Apple Store apps, a premium version of the app will become available with some additional features and no ads. A free version will always be available.
“As a huge fan of NovelRank.com, I’ve long wanted a NovelRank-powered iPhone app,” said Dave Wooldridge, author and founder of Electric Butterfly, Inc. “Working closely with NovelRank.com, we designed and developed this native app from the ground-up, providing NovelRank.com’s core features in a convenient, mobile solution optimized for iOS devices.”
To learn more about the features of the app and see more screenshots, check out the main app description on ebutterfly.com. The app is a very fast way to get details about your books while you are on the go. It has been fully tested, but if you do find any bugs, please report them at the above app page to Electric Butterfly, Inc. I’m thrilled about the work that has been done to make this possible, and without Dave Wooldridge, it would have never been possible.
About Electric Butterfly, Inc.
Electric Butterfly, Inc. has been developing award-winning web and software apps since 1995, currently specializing in iOS app development. Founder and lead developer, Dave Wooldridge, is the author of The Business of iPhone and iPad App Development: Making and Marketing Apps that Succeed (Apress) and other best-selling books.
iTunes Link
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/novelrank-amazon-sales-rank/id423938573?mt=8
Scheduled Downtime Starting on July 2nd, 2011
Hey everyone,
I just wanted to let you know that NovelRank will be unavailable starting early morning on Saturday, July 2nd, 2011. This downtime is to clean up the databases and takes a few hours to complete. This ensures that the website continues to load in, on average, in 1.5 seconds on all pages. Luckily, this will happen only once every other month. This will also mean that, unlike the last time this was completed, sales rank data will not be collected during that time. I apologize for the inconvenience. However, because of this change, the total time that the the site will be non-responsive will be shorter.
Finally, just like last time, the server will have it’s ‘engine’ turned up to maximum power, at a rate of $6/day, to ensure this occurs as fast as possible. Thanks again for using NovelRank, and the service is expected to be back up in the evening of July 2nd.
SalesRank Comparison Charts for Multiple Books
Yes, you read that right. If you’ve setup a user account and visit your user page, you will now find, at the bottom, a new form for selecting up to 3 books from your user page for comparison. The chart provided will display the salesrank over the past 30 days for all of the books you selected. This allows you to compare how certain titles are doing against each other in the last 30 days.
Oh, did you notice something else?
The chart is using Google’s charting API, which means that it is created completely in JavaScript by your web browser. That also means that it is visible even if you are using a device that does not support Adobe Flash, such as an Apple iPad. The downside to this new chart tool is that it does not allow for fullscreen mode and takes longer to display. On average, it will take 1 second to load the chart for each book selected (1 second for 1 book, 2 seconds for 2 books, etc).
Finally, the new chart is timezone aware, much like the RSS feeds on your user page. This allows you to get a more accurate picture of things if you are not located in the Pacific Timezone.
This is the first of two planned major improvements coming for NovelRank, and if you have any feedback on this new charting feature, positive or negative, leave it in the comments below.