Support for Indie Authors discussion
Marketing Tactics
>
Unlocking Secret Amazon Categories!
message 151:
by
[deleted user]
(new)
Sep 26, 2016 11:43AM
OMG this thread is amazing!! *scurries over to KDP to futz with keywords* You guys are awesome.
reply
|
flag
I'm not sure if I mentioned this already but after Christina told me how to use keywords since horror doesn't have a category listed I found that if you type your genre in search and then look to the left side you made see some sub genres that work for your book that you can list. I'm sure many have mentioned this already but I thought I'd talk about it again as I recently did it.
Justin wrote: "I'm not sure if I mentioned this already but after Christina told me how to use keywords since horror doesn't have a category listed I found that if you type your genre in search and then look to t..."
Thanks for the tip! I'll try this with romance too since the ones listed don't really encompass my... particular... romantic... er... idiom. haha
Thanks for the tip! I'll try this with romance too since the ones listed don't really encompass my... particular... romantic... er... idiom. haha
This is awesome! I'm redoing the keywords for my published book and the one I'm writing now....
Mod
Lots of great tips in here!
K.B. wrote: "Justin wrote: "So if you live in the U.S is there a way you can go into Amazon.UK and change the categories of your books?..."Not specifically, no. There's no option to enter different keyword or..."
I get what you mean. It's like looking at categories on the left hand side. Some might be useful and in this case different categories are used in different territories. Thanks K.B!
Thomas wrote: "So with a retooling yesterday on category and keywords suggested by Amazon's lists, I had 8 unsolicited downloads last night after my book was "published" and reached #16 in the free YA Time Travel..."So Thomas, how do you change category keywords? I couldn't seem to find the way to do that. It's been a while since I listed a book on Amazon. Short term memory has failed me.
Thomas, I agree with Rob. I can't find how to change my categories to ones I want from the Amazon lists. It seems to me that we can just choose from that very limited list they offer. Is there some place we can type in the categories we want rather than just click on their listed ones? I can see where to change key words
Mod
That's beginning to make sense. You just enter the keyword and see what comes up on the left hand side. I'll try that! Thanks, Riley.
Guys. The very first post on this thread gives you exactly what you need to get the categories that are not listed on the set up page.
Thanks Christina. I had read that over more than once but it wasn't until some of the later posts that it began to make sense. You still don't always get the ones you want, though, I'm finding.
Mod
I have 5 books with the same keyword and not all of them are in that unlocked category.
I also have 2 books with identical keywords and they are not in the same places in all countries.
But... it cant hurt to try!
Alex wrote: "Does anyone know how to get a book into the kindle short reads category? I've got a novella (8000 words) I released recently and would like to categorise it to best advantage.Do I need to contact ..."
I have a book in the short reads and it seems to have been popped in there automatically. You may be in there already, but it wouldn't hurt to emai amazon.
Joy wrote: "Thanks Christina. I had read that over more than once but it wasn't until some of the later posts that it began to make sense. You still don't always get the ones you want, though, I'm finding."If it's not appearing after adding the keywords, contact Amazon. They will add you to a more specific category. The automatic update will only work for two additional subgenres.
Thanks for the helpful information, Christina. I feel I'm finally getting a handle on this.
This is awesome C.B.! I just added random keywords to one of my titles and it only showed up in one category. After using the keywords suggested in that link, I'm in five more. Hah, who'da thunk it!
Me too. I changed my keywords and it took two days to show up but they included them in my categories. Thanks to all who pointed this out to me.
Valuable info! Thanks C.B. for starting this conversation!
There are times that we write a support ticket to Amazon if we cannot find the appropriate category for our book (non-fiction). Usually we set it first as "unclassifiable" then send a ticket to asking them to asking them to put it under our preferred category.
I noticed that my book Like A Box of Chocolates was placed in a category called "Mashups". I have Genre Poetry listed as the first keyword, think that's why it's been placed under such an odd keyword? Also anyone else have a book under Mashups?
They did that to me on smash words and I wasn't aware of it until I went to see if I could find better keywords. I guess they look at the synopsis of your book and if there's too many themes to it they just throw it into mash ups. I think it would be nice if they ask you if you want your book to appear there instead of just doing that to you and then you don't know why nobody can find your book. So now I keep an eye on it. every week I'll check and make sure that my categories are still right. Because my first 2 books are romantic suspense and I guess they think it's a mash up the third book I have is a straight suspense thriller and I've got a psychological thriller coming up so here's hoping they'll leave those alone. Erica;-)
I'm so glad I read this thread. I forgot all about my keywords and if they were working. When I looked them over, I found I had used keywords that were way off, and Amazon wouldn't probably recognize. So I followed the advice given here and on another site.Thanks for the advice!
Interesting update: Through keywords I've slipped into Paranormal & Urban as a secondary category on my first title. Never been in that category before.Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban
C.B. wrote: "I accidentally found it! Hidden deep within the Amazon site, a way to determine what the secret categories are that you can unlock with keywords! I just edited my keywords and will see if this gets..."New to the site, so hopefully this is right. interesting reading. So much I don't know
I know I'm late to the party, but I just joined the group and came upon this. Great find. Thank you so much for sharing!
Mod
I need help finding keywords to use for my book Like A Box of Chocolates. As I said before it's listed under "Mashups" which is the most random and odd keywords I've seen yet. The book is a book of poetry but the poetry is several different genres. I've listed "Genre Poetry" and "Multiple Genres" as keywords and I think one of them is giving me mashups I think it's Multiple genres.I think I should target poetry ans use keywords related to that but it's hard. Any thoughts?
This thread has been amazing so far. I apologize if this is a really obvious question, too. How is everyone seeing their ranking? I found the categories on the book page, but not the ranking within those categories. Help?
Mod
I find mine in author central. Go in there, and look at the sales dashboard. It goes up to two years back, and shows your highest ranking on any given day. You can also find it on the book page, underneath the publisher details.
Justin wrote: "I need help finding keywords to use for my book Like A Box of Chocolates. As I said before it's listed under "Mashups" which is the most random and odd keywords I've seen yet. The book is a book of..."
I myself would just stick with poetry related themes, and forget the other genres. But that's just me.
I just spent some time looking over the search term link you left. Good stuff! Thank you... A blessing is coming your way...
Mod
Bookwhack deleted
Riley wrote: "Rohvannyn wrote: "This thread has been amazing so far. I apologize if this is a really obvious question, too. How is everyone seeing their ranking? I found the categories on the book page, but not ..."Trying this but I have two questions. Is it okay to use an author/poet's name as a keyword as a way to show your writing is like there's? I'm guessing it's not a good idea but I thought I'd ask. Also I'm looking to stick to keywords for poetry and Amazon even says not to use the same words because it covers a wide genre(for example Crime, Thriller would not be needed if I already have Crime Thriller) but seeing that there's certain words I have to put in front of poetry to show that it's poetry don't I need to keep using poetry? What I mean is, say I want to use "Speculative" I'd have to put poetry after it I can't simply put speculative but who knows what would come up.
Mod
I found this on Amazon for you.
Do NOT include the following in keywords
- Information covered elsewhere in your book's metadata—title, contributor(s)
- Subjective claims about quality (e.g. "best")
- Statements that are only temporarily true ("new," "on sale," "available now")
- Information common to most items in the category ("book")
- Common misspellings
- Variants of spacing, punctuation, capitalization, and pluralization (both "80GB" and "80 GB", "computer" and "computers", etc.). The only exception is for words translated in more than one way, like "Mao Zedong" and "Mao Tse-tung," or "Hanukkah" and "Chanukah."
- Anything misrepresentative, such as the name of an author that is not associated with your book. This type of information can create a confusing customer experience and Kindle Direct Publishing has a zero tolerance policy for metadata that is meant to advertise, promote, or mislead.
- Quotation marks in search terms: Single words work better than phrases—and specific words work better than general words. If you enter "complex suspenseful whodunit," only people who type all of those words will find your book. You'll get better results if you enter this: complex suspenseful whodunit. Customers can search on any of those words and find your book.
- Amazon program names, such as "Kindle Unlimited" or "KDP Select"
Note: This list is not exhaustive and all keywords must comply with our Terms and Conditions.
Good topic C.B. started here. Here’s some added info I’ve discovered with a recent launch (this relates to Amazon/KDP only):— Amazon places “Short Reads” automatically. If you’re under 100 pages (by their count), you’ll have one category path pointing there.
— Your keyword character max is 400 (with spaces). I did 394, and it went through fine.
— I did not use commas, just a single string of relevant words, no repeats.
— And my first keyword was the “secret” one C.B. alerted us to.
Thanks for the topic, C.B.!
Riley wrote: "Awesome find C.B.!"Thank you for sharing
After reading a free book from Kindlepreneuer Dave Chesson on this I decided to do a major overhaul on my descriptions. I narrowly searched and used the keywords I feel will help me out going forward. Also consider adding your books genre to the title and subtitle. It helps when people search for books and helps yours come up.
C.B. wrote: "Justin,I found this on Amazon for you.
Do NOT include the following in keywords
- Information covered elsewhere in your book's metadata—title, contributor(s)
- Subjective claims about quality (e..."
Do you think the word 'debut' shouldn't be used? I am publishing my first book soon.
Maybe it's just me but I don't see how marking a book as a debut from an author would help with sale. If anything, it may just be the opposite. :(
G.G. wrote: "Maybe it's just me but I don't see how marking a book as a debut from an author would help with sale. If anything, it may just be the opposite. :("I agree. I just "debuted," but I certainly would not have put "debut" as one of my keywords. Has a negative connotation (to me).
BTW, here's the monster (literally) KBoards thread on keywords for Amazon (27 pages of comments!):
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topi...
Thanks for the link. So far it is really helpful!
Kristina wrote: "Thanks for the link. So far it is really helpful!"Yeah, it took me over a week to read through it. But see the very end because Amazon is rolling out new input boxes for keywords. They've gone from a single box (400 characters max) to 7 boxes of 50 chrctrs max. Changes the strategy a bit in terms of "keyword stuffing," as some call it.
Use "debut" in your book description but don't use it as a keyword, not a viable word to use.
Thanks for that Harald - have read the first four pages but will need to dip into it whenever I have time. Thanks also for the tip on the changes - I'm not surprised really. When I briefly experimented with article writing on internet sites some years ago, keyword stuffing was really frowned upon by the proprietors because of it apparently being a no-no in Google.
Pam wrote: "Thanks for that Harald - have read the first four pages but will need to dip into it whenever I have time. Thanks also for the tip on the changes - I'm not surprised really. When I briefly experime..."Hi Pam. Yeah, "stuffing" has a negative connotation, but it's really just a way to think carefully about your keywords. Mine have worked well.
Thank you! This is exactly what I've been looking for and is a huge help!
Is it that useful to get to number one in an obscure Amazon category? One of my publications did so, but it did not obtain any subsequent tag indicating that it had reached a coveted 'number one slot'. Who, other than Kindle authors, even manage to stumble across these little-frequented categories?
H.E. wrote: "Is it that useful to get to number one in an obscure Amazon category? ..."It can be an ego boost, but I think most readers use the search engine rather than browsing through multiple levels of subcategories.
