Categories and Keywords

Things I Learned About Keywords

/ Jen Rasmussen / 23 Comments

I wanted to post an update related to Aimee’s post last week about using categories and keywords on Amazon. These are a few things I learned over the weekend:

1. The categories I picked do not match the categories that actually show up on the bottom of the book page. I chose FICTION>GHOSTS and FICTION>FANTASY>DARK FANTASY. At the bottom of the book’s page it says:

HORROR is one of my keywords, but not one of my categories. I don’t think this is related to the keyword though so much as how screwy their categories are: the ones you can pick don’t match the ones you can browse, and neither seem to match the ones they use on the book pages themselves.

However, if you browse to FICTION>FANTASY>DARK FANTASY, it will show up there.

2. You can use keywords to get into the smaller, more specific categories. I used HUMOR as a keyword. If you browse to FICTION>FANTASY>DARK FANTASY>HUMOR, it will show up there.

3. But not the bigger ones. Using PARANORMAL and WOMEN’S FICTION as keywords did not put me in those categories. That meant WOMEN’S FICTION wasn’t doing me much good, so I took it out and added DEMON instead. I kept PARANORMAL though because I think there’s still some benefit to having that as a search term. People might type “paranormal ghost story” into the search box, but I don’t think many will type “women’s fiction ghost story.”

ebooksmAnd yes, Ghost in the Canteen is in the store! But not officially “launched” yet. Amazon and CreateSpace both did everything so much faster than they said they would that I was a bit taken by surprise to have it available so quickly. After 24 hours I sent Amazon an email to link the two formats (didn’t happen automatically in that timeframe), and they did that within a few hours as well.

I hate the idea of starting my release announcements on a weekend rather than the nice tidy Thursday I planned, but I’m going to anyway because I think it’s the lesser of two evils. The way I figure it, you only get 30 days in which you qualify as a New Release, and you want to make them all count!

Per David Gaughran’s advice in Let’s Get Visible, I’m spreading the love a bit on launch communications. Newsletters/my mailing lists today, then blog/Twitter/Facebook tomorrow, then my other blog the next day.

Of course, you guys should, like, totally check it out now. 😉