Reblog: Mythbusting The Amazon Algorithm – Reviews and Ranking For Authors

Posted by: Cate Baum April 30, 2016 in Features

How to get the best out of your reviews and sales to rank high on Amazon without the myths from former search expert and COO of SPR, Cate Baum.

Despite many educated guesses that seem to have passed into urban legend in self-publishing communities online, there are no secrets to the Amazon ranking system.

I have spent the last few months tracking down programmers, algorithm experts, and reading technical documentation about Amazon’s algorithm, and the documentation that is provided online by Amazon at Amazon Seller Central and KDP. What I didn’t do was talk to any authors or bloggers, because that seems to be where the myths are coming from.

My first takehome fact for authors is that Amazon’s ranking is not a great mystery that authors must slave over…

When my wife called to remind me about letting our dog out at noon, I instinctively retrieved a Post-It from the desk drawer and scrawled “Dog at noon,” then stuck it to the computer monitor.

This required shuffling a series of other yellow Post-Its into order of importance, with things like “Call about hair cut,” “Go to dry cleaners” and “Clean out van” written on them.

That one, of course, was moved to the very end of the line.

Sadly, they’re all things I should be able to remember on my own and usually do; like when I’m staring into the closet for a pair of pants to wear. Later, I got into the van and was gently reminded by a shocking-yellow piece of paper to “get gas.”

It was while sitting at the pump a short time later that the notion of Post-It dependency hit me. 

My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

BLURB:

In the late nineties, a bad cop killed a good woman and DC Homicide detective Marty Singer got to watch as the murderer walked out of the courtroom a free man. Twelve years later, the victim’s daughter comes to Marty begging for help: the killer is stalking her now. There’s just one problem: Marty’s retired…and he’s retired because he’s battling cancer. But with a second shot at the killer—and a first chance at redemption—Marty’s just found A Reason to Live.

~~~

I don’t often read “straight-up” mysteries, but something about this blurb appealed to me, so I gave it a try, and was happily surprised. I found Marty Singer to be a very likable guy, and I was engaged with the plot all the way.

It’s often difficult to make a character suffering from something like colon cancer sympathetic to the reader in just the…

Happy 2017, SEers!

I don’t know about you, but I hate making resolutions. There’s a good chance it’s because I always set huge, nearly unattainable goals and get frustrated when I haven’t achieved them in the first week of the year. Yes, I know that’s ridiculous. No, I can’t seem to help myself. I’m doomed to fail before I even get going. This year, though, I want to try to do things a little differently. Maybe you’ll join me…

It goes without saying that smaller, incremental milestones are much easier to reach. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with lofty goals. Without them, our society would never improve.

But while we’re reaching for the stars, we need to first worry about building the rocket, launching, breaking orbit, and traversing the galaxy. (Believe that? Click here to tweet it.)

If your goal this year is to become a NYTBSA, I wish you…

Several years ago, I bought my wife an Epilady shaver for Christmas. Because it was a sleek, modern, electrical device costing over $50, there was no reason to suspect it would feel like someone had just ripped the hair out of her legs using Super Glue and a roll of duct tape. While I’m sure I’ve gotten my wife gifts she didn’t really like, she’s always accepted them graciously. But in this case, as she chased me through the house completely naked and swiping at my scalp with her new Epilady, two things came to mind:

1) She really hates this gift,
And
2) I shouldn’t have gotten her the cordless model.

Now, before I get an angry letter from Park Products, Inc., I should clarify that this was a long time ago, and I’m sure the latest model is a vast improvement over the one my wife hurled through…

Happy book birthday to me! 🙂

It’s release day for A COLD TOMORROW, book 2 in my Point Pleasant series.

Take a trip with me to 1982 and the small riverside town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Discover a community beset by a series of inexplicable events—strange lights in the sky, the arrival of mysterious men in black clothing, sightings of a winged monster known as the Mothman. If all of that sounds like a bizarre combination, these events actually befell Point Pleasant during the period of 1966-67, most of them documented in the book The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel.

I’ve resurrected those incidents, setting them fifteen years later in the early 1980s. My central characters get caught up in otherworldly and supernatural events related to UFOs and the Mothman, just to name a few. If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ve probably seen the blurb, but…