As romance writers, we've got it tough. Millions of other writers vying for the same bestseller spot in Amazon just so we can sell more books. I've been tinkering with my own uploads recently, always adjusting my info, categories, keywords and whatnot and I've come to the conclusion that it's hard to find the specific categories you want to enter. Some categories don't show up on Amazon KDP at all, while you can search for the category in the regular Amazon store.
For instance; New-Adult (or NA) & College books is a new vibrant category with only 1500 books or so and it's a very good opportunity for indie writers to get a hold of new readers. However, this category is not yet available in KDP.
So what have I discovered? When you type the category as 1 keyword in the keyword section, the book will also pop up in that exact category. Or in other words; you can pretty much use this a loophole to get your books into more categories.
Another thing. Some writers categorize their books in very general, non-specific things, which makes it:
a. hard to find.
b. a needle in a haystack.
Some categories are WAY too full and there are so many other categories you can find that have very little books. The less books there are, the higher your chances to be found. I know that sounds weird, because you'd think 'well, there are so many books there, it's got to be a better place to market my books'. WRONG. These categories are flooded, which makes your book disappear.
What you need is to pick a very specific genre that dives deep into sub genres. Pick something that goes down as deep as possible, but always make sure you still stick to your book's theme.
I've made a list here to show you what I mean when I say there's a lot of difference in books available between different categories:
July 2013 list of available books in categories:
(Averages)
Romance -> contemporary 47. 000
Romance -> erotica
21.000
Romance -> NA 1.389
Romance -> comedy 5.600
Lit -> contemporary 149.000
Erotica 98.000
Romance 143.000
Short stories 36.000
Women’s fiction 14.600
So, looking at this graph, I've placed my newest short story
Doing It Wild under:
Romance --> Contemporary
Romance --> Women's fiction
Then typed in the keyword: New Adult
And BAM, my book showed up in about 5 categories.
(since the last edit, I also inserted "comedy" into the keywords, will see if it'll enter that category too).
With another book, I'm trying the same thing now, only a bit different. I put
Hooked By You in the following category:
Romance --> erotica
Fiction --> erotica
Typed keywords for category loophole: Contemporary, Women's fiction, Multicutural & Interracial (since my book features a Japanese man).
I'm still checking to see if it'll work out, but I hope it does. If this is true, you can pretty much glitch the entire Amazon Categories list to fit it to your liking. Which is fantastic, to say the least. The more categories you can enter your book in, the more likely you are to get on a bestseller list, which is a sure way to boost your sales.
Anyway, that's it for today! Hope you found it useful :)
Clarissa Wild
>> Order your copy of my sizzling erotic romances today! <<
