Amazon Book Tagging

 
Today I learned about a feature on Amazon called "tagging". Go to any book page on Amazon (click on one of mine if you need a handy example), and scroll down to "Tags Customers Associate with This Product". The particular tags (like "horror", "revenge", etc) are used by Amazon to find similar books, recommend books, and generally organize all the millions of books available. To put it another way: tags help your book get found on Amazon.
 
Authors can select an initial set of tags. Readers can use (check) those tags or add their own. The tags with the most "votes" move up in the list.
 
I had not paid much attention to this feature until today when I finally read the "Author Tag Exchange" thread on KindleBoards.
 
I spent a few hours today "exchanging" tags with other authors, and learning from the tags those authors had selected for their own books.
 
Before today, I had not set any tags on my own books. I assure you that mistake has been rectified.
 
Here are a couple thoughts that came to me as I tagged about 200 or so books (yes, it was a slow Sunday afternoon):

I am an indie. My books aren't. 99.9% of readers could not care less that I'm an "indie author". They're just looking for a good book.
I am not a "Kindle author". I'm an author . Again, why would I tag my book with "kindle author"? Readers don't care. The Kindle is just one of the platforms I'm supporting.

 
So, yeah, that's what I did today, marketing-wise.
 
-David