Japanese Publishers vs. Amazon Japan On Ranking System

Explain please.

Panzer hit the Catosphere at warp speed today. My bad kitty boy went over to the Asia & Japan Watch site at The Asahi Shimban. He found a post by Mayumi Mori about a shouting match going on between Amazon Japan and the Japanese publishers who use Amazon's store for ebook sales.

So, what's all the shouting about?

Amazon Japan has instituted a new publisher ranking system.  Publishers who pay Amazon Japan higher fees and have bigger ebook offerings receive higher rankings than those who don't.

Panzer says, "I don't understand. Are the higher fees for advertising or what? And, if you have more ebooks to sell, why shouldn't you have a higher ranking?"

To read the whole post, tootle over to Amazon Japan