How To (Ethically) Hack Amazon Categories
I get so many emails about Amazon categories and keywords that I thought it would be useful to dig into all the opportunities at your fingertips, and clear up some confusion out there too. Useful for me, that is. Now I’ll have something to point people to! Should be useful for you too, even the old timers, because I bet there’s a least one hack in here you didn’t know about, and smart use of the category system can greatly increase your visibility on Amazon — critical for all authors, doubly so if you are in KU.
I’ll start basic then drop some tantalizing secret hacks.
Let me just note first that a version of this rather handy post first went out to my mailing list a few months ago. If you’re not signed up, you aren’t just missing out on stuff like this, you also missed the entire (free!) series I just did on BookBub ads. And without blowing my own oboe, I think I’m doing a few things with BookBub ads that are a little different from the norm. So you don’t overdose on FOMO and also miss the (free!) series I’ve just started on Facebook ads, go here to get free tips and tricks in your inbox every Friday and a free copy of Amazon Decoded too. Read More…
The Amazon Algorithm Myth
A problematic feature of the world in 2018 is that the social networks we have built seem to spread misinformation faster and wider than its more accurate counterpart, and this can lead authors to make decisions counter to their interests. One of the enduring myths surrounds “The Amazon Algorithm.”
That phrase alone is a red flag to me because anyone who has a good idea about how Amazon works knows there is more than one algorithm — for example there are separate algorithms which determine how books are ranked in the bests seller charts, in the popularity list, plus which books appear in search for a given term and what order they appear in. And that’s just the tip of a very big iceberg.
That’s not the only thing about the phrase “the Amazon algorithm” which sets me on edge — speaking about it in such a way betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what algorithms are, and what they can do. Read More…
Kindle Unlimited: The Key Questions
Amazon launched Kindle Unlimited on Friday, giving self-publishers a big decision to make. The long-rumored subscription service will allow users to download unlimited books for $9.99 a month, and reader reaction has been, from what I can see, overwhelmingly positive – especially because they will be able to test the service with a month’s free trial. Writers have been a little more cautious, for all sorts of reasons I’ll try and tease out below. The main stumbling block for self-publishers is that participation in Kindle Unlimited is restricted to titles enrolled in KDP Select – Amazon’s program which offers various additional marketing tools in exchange for exclusivity. Author compensation will be similar to borrows under the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library – Read More…
Understanding Amazon’s New Algorithms Is As Easy As ABC
Amazon’s KDP Select introduced a new tranche of self-publishers to the upper reaches of the charts for the first time. For the first couple of months of this year, a new seam had been discovered in this self-publishing “gold-rush.” It didn’t last too long, however. By the end of March, even those newly minted authors were openly considering leaving KDP Select, despite how successful it had been for them. Self-publishers were noticing that even when they had a stellar free run, garnering thousands and thousands of downloads, it was no longer catapulting them up the charts on their return to the paid side. Science fiction and fantasy author Ed Robertson penned an excellent hypothesis and gave me permission to re-post. Read More…
Amazon & The Importance of Popularity
A few days ago, I tweeted a link to a survey which purported to show that self-publishers had captured 77% of the spots on the Kindle Top 200 Science Fiction Bestseller List. As it turns out, the list the survey was based on was not the Bestseller List, but the Popularity List (and I’ll get to the differences between the two below). After this discrepancy was pointed out, the author re-did the survey, based on the actual Bestseller List, and found somewhat similar results – if not quite as staggering. Namely, self-publishers had captured 66.1% of the Kindle Top 100 Science Fiction spots. There are all sorts of interesting nuggets in that post including the various prices books were selling Read More…
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