VIDEO TUTORIALS. We help you turn your literary dreams into a wonderful and saleable reality

Transcription

1 VIDEO TUTORIALS We help you turn your literary dreams into a wonderful and saleable reality

2 SELF PUBLISHING Your Amazon Page Categories and keywords The signposts

3 What we re going to talk about What categories and keywords are How to choose your categories How to choose your keywords Analytics

4 Categories and keywords What they are, Why they matter

5 How do you find books on Amazon? Readers who know you Exact search for author ( Harry Bingham ) Exact search for title ( The Deepest Grave ) Exact search for series ( Fiona Griffiths ) Readers who don t Bestseller lists (Mystery, Thriller, Suspense) Sub-bestseller lists (Mystery) Sub-sub-bestseller lists (International Mystery) Thematic search ( murder mystery ) Hot new releases Etc, etc, etc

6 And that s the function of categories and keywords Readers who don t Bestseller lists (Mystery, Thriller, Suspense) Categories & keywords are signposts. You use them to maximise your visibility to your target audience Sub-bestseller lists (Mystery) Sub-sub-bestseller lists (International Mystery) Thematic search ( murder mystery ) Hot new releases Etc, etc, etc

7 Categories are, technically, your librarystyle classification How would a traditional library file your books? (BISAC codes) But really, it s better to think of categories like this: What bestseller list do I want to appear on?

8 Keywords help define your book for noncategory type searches Many categories are very broad, and need lots of sub-categories Keywords help define what sub-bestseller list you appear on Keywords define the sub-list, but your sales define how high you come And some searches (eg: serial killers ) aren t strictly category-based at all Keywords help determine what thematic searches you show up for Search results are ordered by relevance (with a good sprinkling of sales too)

9 In thinking about keywords & categories, you should always ask: Optimisation goal Where do my readers congregate? Conversion Where is the competition not too intense? Visibility Q: How do you balance those two? A: You use your judgement.

10 Categories How to choose em

11 When you click on +Kindle ebook on KDP, you ll see this box About 2/3 of the way down the Edit e-book Details page You want to set categories, so guess what you have to click on

12 Categories come in a variety of flavours Top level categories Next level down (Next level down if there is one)

13 You get to pick a maximum of two categories If your sales are under 5,000 a year, choose best niche category Sales between 5,000 and 50,000, you can get steadily more aggressive in your choices (Sales over 50K? Then why the heck are you watching this video?) Remember: strike a good balance between optimising conversions and visibility

14 Keywords How to choose em

15 Here s what your KDP dashboard will ask you for See that How do I choose keywords? dropdown? Click on it. It s useful. Look especially at categories with keywords requirements, as that helps you pick your sub-bestseller lists.

16 How do you choose keywords? You do it in two steps 1. Pick keywords that take you into highly relevant sub-categories 2. Pick keywords that will pick up natural reader search terms

17 Here s how to choose sub-categories (if relevant in your niche) Go to Kindle Store Put nothing in the search bar just hit enter Click on Kindle e-books Check the left hand column to find a listing by category Click on your category

18 Then explore! Keywords take over where categories run out

19 It s a great idea to spend your keywords on these sub-niches. Why? A. Amazon is nudging readers to search in this way. It s encouraging these exact searches. B. You can instantly shed 98% of your competition Example: There are roughly 300,000 mystery, thriller & suspense e-books Sounds scary, right? But there are only 60,000 in MTS > crime fiction, and And <6,000 in MTS > Crime Fiction > Police Officers

20 OK. So we mostly know what we re doing with categories/keywords Categories Choosing two categories Optimising for visibility & conversions You can get more aggressive as your sales increase Keywords We re spending them on sub-bestseller lists, and Moods, characters, etc as nudged by Amazon

21 Spare keywords can target thematic searches on Amazon s system Follow Amazon s own advice Combine keywords in the most logical order. Customers search for "military science fiction", not "fiction science military". Before publishing, search for your book s keywords on Amazon. If you get irrelevant or unsatisfying results, make some changes. When searching, look at the suggestions that appear in the "Search" field drop down. Think like a reader. Imagine how you'd search if you were a customer. Key links:

22 And play nice, or Jeff Bezos will get cross with you Avoid the following Information covered elsewhere in your book's metadata (title, contributors, etc.) Subjective claims about quality (e.g. "best novel ever") Time-sensitive statements ("new," "on sale," "available now") Anything misrepresentative like the name of an author not associated with your book. KDP has a zero tolerance policy for metadata that is meant to advertise, promote, or mislead Amazon program names like as "Kindle Unlimited" or "KDP Select". Key links:

23 Want an example? You got it. HB, The Deepest Grave Categories Keywords International mystery / Police procedural Noir, crime thriller, police procedural, female protagonist, British detective, dark, disturbing (7 total)

24 (Researching this section, I had an ooh, that s nice moment) The Deepest Grave is my latest book and rated No: 2

25 Analytics If you want

26 Categories & keywords feel technical and a bit scary If you make good, common-sense choices, you ll be fine Spend a morning on choosing your metadata. More than that is too much But if you love fooling around with analytics, then options do exist

27 Some analytics tools to use, if you want Kindle Spy $47, with money back guarantee Supplies sales / price / rank data on Amazon searches & bestseller lists K-Lytics $24 upwards Useful data on categories and sub-categories, market by market I have used both of these, but didn t find they made a ton of difference to what I was already doing.

28 All done Here s the recap

29 What we ve talked about What categories and keywords are Signposts that guide readers to your books How to choose your categories Choose niches that well describe your book How to choose your keywords Target sub-categories, moods/etc, thematic search Analytics If you want. You don t have to do this Want notes? Want audio? Want links? - Get them below

30 That s all, folks! See you soon

31 VIDEO TUTORIALS