You might not want to put your book in a box or a genre or a category, but you have to, because that's how a lot of readers find their next book.
Many authors resist this categorization, and it is difficult when you first start out, but it's a fundamental of book marketing, so you need to understand and use it for your book. I know words like metadata, keywords, search engine optimization and algorithms can blow people's minds, but this side of things is an important part of being an indie author!
This is an excerpt from How to Market a Book Third Edition, available in ebook, print and audiobook formats.
Choose the right category
The category or genre reader has expectations, and if you don't meet them, they will be disappointed, and you'll get bad reviews.
That's not to say that you need to follow any specific rules while you're writing, but when you publish the book, you will have to choose which categories to use, and they need to be meaningful. If you have a publisher, they will do this for you, but it's best to discuss it with them anyway.
It's important to match reader expectations and the promise of what your book delivers with what your book is actually about. There is no point having a book with a swirly, girly pink chic-lit cover in the horror category. It won't sell, however good it is.
If you can, choose a category that fits your book and is easier to rank in. You get between two and ten categories, depending on the platform you're publishing to.
On Amazon, you can also get into extra categories through using your keywords to target Browse Categories. You can find a list at TheCreativePenn.com/browse. You can also email the help team through Author.Amazon.com and ask for your book to be moved to categories if they are not selectable.
If you're struggling with deciding on your categories, go back to your list of comparison authors and books.
Check what categories they are in and then spend some time looking at whether your book fits there or what the other options could be.
You could also go through this useful tutorial from Dave Chesson at Publisher Rocket on how to choose categories.
This can be time-consuming to do manually and personally, I'd rather spend my time researching obscure artifacts in dusty museums, writing more books, or just getting on with life. Perhaps you feel that way too!
I suspect this is all too common in the indie author community right now, because we want to use data, but we aren't too keen on the process for getting it or working out how to use it.
So if you'd rather use a tool to help you, check out Publisher Rocket, which is also useful for keywords.
I also recommend K-lytics, which has some fantastic reasonably priced genre reports that go into the best target sub-categories to use as well as recommendations for comparison authors, keywords and more.
Alex, who runs K-lytics, is an absolute data geek and he spends his time combing the Amazon US rankings and categories for insights that will help. He loves this stuff – so you don't have to! Check out the reports at TheCreativePenn.com/genre
Choosing the right keywords
Keywords and search engine optimization have been considered important for a long time in the online world, particularly for ranking on the first few pages of the search engines so that people can find you.
But these principles are also important for your book page on the retail stores. They make up a critical part of the metadata that is crucial in the discoverability of your book. I also realize this might sound like gobbledegook, so I will explain further using the example of my non-fiction book, and also my novels, because keywords are just as important for fiction authors.
What is a keyword?
A keyword is a word or phrase that is associated with your book. It's based on the words that people use to search online, and this is a crucial aspect, because often the language you use is not the language that your customers might use. For example, many of us use the terms ‘indie author' or ‘indie publishing,' but a new author who is not yet in the tribe would only recognize ‘publishing' or ‘self-publishing.’
Importantly, a keyword is not just one word, and that is critical to remember as you go through the following process. For example, my thriller novel Ark of Blood is associated with the keyword “ark of the covenant” and my non-fiction book with “career change.”
So, how do you come up with keywords for your book and how do you use them?
(1) Check the Browse Category lists for keywords that will get you into categories
For example, ‘conspiracy thriller' can be used in the keyword section to get into that sub-category on the Amazon store, even though you can't select it in the KDP area for categories.
You can find a list of these at TheCreativePenn.com/browse
(2) Generate words and phrases to use as keywords
Amazon is a search engine for people who want to buy things, including your book! It has an auto-populate tool that enables you to see a drop-down of specific words or phrases. Just start typing something into the search bar, and you'll get a drop-down. Make sure that you're in the Books/Kindle store if you want to narrow the search down.
Try it now. Go to Amazon and start typing a word or phrase you want to check into the search bar. For example, I typed in ‘career c' and it came up with all kinds of phrases that started that way: career coaching books, career catapult, career code, career change, career counseling, and others.
This can help you with more than just keywords for your existing book. It can also help you come up with ideas for new topics, particularly with non-fiction.
Make a list of all the words and phrases that are associated with your book. For fiction, that might include themes, places, things and anything concrete that you can hang your book off.
For Ark of Blood, that might include ark of the covenant, Israel, Jerusalem, freemasons – as those are some themes and places in the book, so people searching for those things might be interested in it.
For my non-fiction book, Career Change, I used career change, what should I do with my life, career help, hate my job, career match, career books, choosing a career.
Try to be as specific as possible in order to find your correct target audience. For example, the word ‘pain' could relate to back pain, pain of grief, pain of divorce, and many more options, so use keyword phrases where possible.
You can also use various tools to help you generate possible keyword options (which you can also use for marketing). KDP Rocket will help you analyze categories and keyword ideas in real-time and has specific options for Amazon Ads. Check it out at TheCreativePenn.com/rocket
There's also a useful tutorial on how to choose keywords.
Google has a Keyword Search Tool that you can use to discover what search terms people are using and what are the most popular at adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner. It is primarily used for people working on advertising terms, so you do need to create an ad account, although you don't need to spend any money to use the tool. You can also use tools like KeywordTool.io, and other options appear all the time.
(3) Add the keywords into your book metadata
Once you have a list of keywords, you can use these in your book metadata, the fields that the publishing sites use to categorize your book.
You can also use keywords in your book title, sub-title and in your book description and editorial reviews area. It's important to note that your cover must include the title that you use, so you can't just stuff it full of keywords. Your text should be human-focused first.
Non-fiction authors can use this type of research to make a decision on their book title or, at least, their sub-title. There's no point in your title meaning something to you but nothing to anyone else. Too often, authors will decide on a title that has emotional resonance for them, but they would be better off using specific keywords that will help customers find them more easily.
How a keyword change in my book title boosted sales 10x
I wrote my first non-fiction book as a labor of love and the book of my heart. I spent 13 years as a miserable business consultant, a cubicle slave like so many others. In 2006, I embarked on a journey to find work I could be passionate about because I felt like I was wasting my life. In 2008, I published the result of that journey in How to Enjoy Your Job … or Get a New One.
Yes, seriously. That was my brilliant book title! But it turns out that most people don't want to enjoy their job.
As I started to learn about book marketing, I discovered the importance of keywords. I did some keyword searches on Amazon and also checked the number of monthly searches on Google. ‘How to enjoy your job' had 5,400 global monthly searches, whereas ‘career change' had 165,000 global monthly searches.
I decided to change my title as well as the cover, and in 2012, after learning a lot more about craft as well as book marketing, I rewrote and republished the book as Career Change: Stop Hating your Job, Discover What you Really Want to do with your Life and Start Doing It!
Sales increased by a factor of ten, which is significant even though the overall sales are pretty small for most of the year, spiking in January during self-help season. I don't speak on this topic, and it doesn't fit with my other non-fiction books, so the sales are mainly due to people searching for that keyword.
I also continue to get media attention based on journalists searching for ‘career change' and finding the book online. I've featured as a career change expert on national TV and radio in Australia and the UK, as well as in national newspapers and local papers.
It's also interesting to note that none of them asked who I was published by, so being self-published is no barrier to media attention as long as your product (and you) are professional. Of course, it's important to note that there was no sales spike from the extra media attention, but it's good for social proof.
Categories and keywords are critical for visibility in the online bookstores, so it's well worth putting in some effort here to work out where your book fits.
This is an excerpt from How to Market a Book Third Edition, available in ebook, print and audiobook formats.