Amazon, just like Google, has it’s own search engine. Once you understand the Amazon algorithm, it can dramatically increase the exposure of your book.Triggers such as keywords, categories, price changes, reviews and spikes in sales start to alert Amazon’s algorithms and once this happens your book is showing up as a recommended buy.
Today I’m going to focus on categories.
When I released my first two books, A Bricklayer’s Tales and Spanish Yarns And Beyond, I put them into the following categories: books>fiction>short stories and books>travel and holiday. That seemed right, but the problem was, the category for short stories has 67,048 books listed, and travel and holiday has 36,906. That is a lot of competition.
When choosing a category, you don’t want one with a broad market, like I had initially done. You want a category that is narrow, that way Amazon’s algorithm is alerted once a book hits the top of a category. I would have had to sell thousands of books to reach the top of the bestsellers’ in short stories. With a few simple changes to the categories, my books are now in Amazon’s top bestseller ranks.
Spanish Yarns and beyond is currently:
#1 in Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Europe > Spain > Cities & Regions > Basque (only 136 books in this category)
#14 in Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Europe > Spain > Cities & Regions > Catalonia (only 74 books in this category)
A Bricklayer’s Tales is currently:
#10 in Kindle Store > Books > Biography & True Accounts > Reference & Collections (only 316 in this category)
Finding the right categories will take a bit of time. To help you get started, click on this link: http://www.amazon.com/-/b/?node=1000. Choose a category that is most appropriate to your title. Don’t just place your book in a category because it’s a niche. It needs to have some connection to your book. Readers, generally, don’t mind what the category is, but when they see it is #83 or #1 on a best-seller rank, it will often prove very helpful in making a sale.
Once you have chosen your new categories, email Amazon through your Author Central Page. Go to the “help” button and email their staff. Most of the time, you’ll find your email is responded to promptly and the category adjusted within 24 hours. If you don’t know what the Author Central page is, just click here: https://authorcentral.amazon.com. You use your Amazon login to access your page. Everyone has one, whether you’ve claimed it or not.
By Gary Troia
