Amazon could be making big changes to search results for Kindle books.

Those currently selling books on Kindle are probably familiar with also-boughts. This is the list of products often purchased by people looking at the same product you are currently viewing.

For example, if someone is looking at a Stephen King book, a list will show other books (or products) purchased by people who bought that same King book.

So, it's quite a feat if you can get your book listed in the also-boughts of a very popular book.

Of course, that doesn't happen for a lot of people, but getting listed in the also-boughts of several books that have a decent popularity could get you as many eyeballs as being in the also-boughts of a more well-known author.

Currently, most of Amazon's lists are dominated by sales. You don't get listed in the also-boughts because someone gave your book a five star rating; you get listed because someone BOUGHT your book and also bought the book on the current page.

As you well know, Amazon is constantly trying to improve upon themselves and want to give their customers the best experience possible. They do let you search for items based on how highly reviewed they are, but reviews are not always the best source for unbiased information.

As has been well-publicized in recent months, reviews can be manipulated. Some authors have bought reviews or otherwise faked them. You don't know when reviews might be from friends or family. It's gotten so bad that, even when authors get a legitimate five star review, others question whether they paid for it!

Amazon has tried to do what they can to clean up reviews but it's largely an insurmountable task.

Instead, what they might begin to look at is how products are used. Now, they can't do this with physical books (or physical products of any kind), but they can do this with Kindle books.

They could track how Kindle books are used to determine how to rank those books.

That is, the Kindle device can provide anonymous details that show how books are used. Do people read them? How many chapters do they read? Do they finish the book? Do they read a little bit and never touch it again? Do they delete it from their device?

Refunds don't tell the whole story. Not everyone that is unhappy with a book will ask for a refund. Most don't. So, Amazon can't rely on refunds to measure customer satisfaction.

They can, however, glean a lot from the usage of the book.

If you opened the book but never finished it, you probably didn't like it. Some may argue, well, maybe you didn't find the time. But Amazon could tell whether the device was used to read other books or if it just sat their unused. If you're reading other books while never finishing this one you started, it's probably a safe bet that you didn't like it. If other people are doing the same, it's likely a safe bet that lots of people didn't like it.

So, Amazon could factor that in.

If you delete it while keeping other books, you probably didn't like it, or at least didn't like it as much. When Amazon looks at cumulative actions of their Kindle users, they can make a lot of safe bets as to how well people are enjoying particular books.

And they could factor that in.

What Amazon could have is a system that, as best as possible, gives them a real world view of how people view certain books. It won't be based solely on purchases or on reviews, but on real activity.

As we all know, sometimes people say certain things, but it really isn't true. They'll write glowing reviews of things they've barely read, simply because they like the author or the concept or whatever. Sometimes they'll write positive reviews because they're getting paid. They may also write negative reviews to take down competitors or authors seen as competitors to their favorite authors.

But the one thing that cannot lie is action. If you never finish reading a book, you probably didn't like it.

And don't think you can fool Amazon by having your friends download the books and skip ahead to the last page! The device would know you skipped the whole middle. If you think you can game the system by having your friends be sure to flip through every page, that won't work either. The device would have a benchmark for your typical reading rates, so if you go too fast, the device would recognize that. In turn, Amazon would know something wasn't right with that data and either reject it or count it against the book.

This is good news for people that produce quality stuff. If you produce non-fiction that gets referenced again and again, this system could be a good thing for you. If you produce fiction that people love to read, this could be a good thing for you.

Because recommended books will be based on user experience rather than purely sales, quality books will rise to the top and get noticed whereas the crummy books will lose visibility.

And lost visibility means obscurity which means far fewer (or no) sales!

Now, is this something Amazon is really considering? There's no word that they are, but it certainly is not farfetched. It is certainly not out of the question. It is certainly not unreasonable. It is something they likely could do. It is something that is likely very possible to do. But whether they will do it is anyone's guess.

But, you can see that Amazon is already watching how people use their books. You can look at the "Shared Notes & Highlights" section to see what other readers have highlighted in the book. So, the technology to do all this is possibly already there.

The bottom line is that Amazon is all about improving the user experience and should they decide this is both doable for them and also something that will improve user experience, odds are good they would certainly give it a go.

In either event, to stay ahead in the game, you should make sure that what you are putting out is quality. Non-fiction books should be useful and informative. Fiction books should be entertaining. Meet those qualifications and you'll stay ahead of the game regardless of what Amazon does.

Fail to meet those qualifications and you and your Kindle book business are skating on thin ice.