The Beautiful Room: Now you DO see it....making your book visible on Amazon

Friday 19 July 2013

Now you DO see it....making your book visible on Amazon

Right, after fiddling with the Amazon categories for my e-books on Monday I decided to check if sales (or my ranking) had improved. So did it work? Well, here are the results.

Follow-up review of Amazon ranking undertaken on Wednesday

Coming Home is now 108,192 Paid in the UK Kindle Store; on Monday it was 76,745. So that’s worse! But it is now 76 in a top 100 category, which increases visibility and hopefully sales. Although I had selected (or so I thought) the category for Books/Pets/Cats, to my surprise I saw that Amazon had put it in the non-fiction category as follows:

· Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #108,192 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

o #76 in Kindle Store > Books > Nonfiction > Home & Garden > Animal Care & Pets > Cats

I clicked on this and found that the sub category Amazon used was Cat Care. Okay. Not what I expected. But I was by no means the only cat fiction book in there – I was in good company, with the wonderful Mog, by Judith Kerr, for example. So I didn’t feel that I was being somehow (albeit unintentionally) dishonest. And the book had moved from obscurity to visibility! Hurrah!

Panicking a bit, I decided to check Matty and the Problem Ponies, which I had listed under the Pets/Horses category and discovered that although it had gone from 48,935 paid in Kindle Stores on Monday to 113,002 (a lot worse!) it was now in the top 100 for the new category.

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #113,002 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

o #73 in Kindle Store > Books > Nonfiction > Home & Garden > Animal Care & Pets > Horses

Again, I was in good company with lots of other fictional pony books.

So let’s take a little stroll over to the USA to Amazon.com and see what gives there….

On the page for Beware of the Horse I saw this banner under my book info:

Best Books of the Year So Far
Looking for something good to read? Browse our editors' picks for the Best Books of the Year So Far in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, romance, and much more.

Cheers, Amazon! At first glance it looks like my book is in the Best Book List (it isn’t!) but great association for my title. One of those random things that Amazon does that can be really helpful for writers.

· Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #13,358 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

o #45 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Children's Fiction > Animals

o #46 in Kindle Store > Books > Children's eBooks > Animals

On Monday, it was 30,867 in paid Amazon kindle store, so it has dramatically improved ranking overall, but slipped a bit in the sub-category, down from 32 on Monday. I just changed one of the search engine words for this title and left the categories as they were, but I may have to review this again soon.

Matty and the Moonlight Horse and Matty and the Problem Ponies has a similar banner, although I’m not in the Best Books list. (I checked!)

Best Books of the Year So Far: Children's Books
Looking for the best books for kids? Browse our editors' picks for the Best Books of 2013 So Far and the best new releases for kids of all ages.

Matty and the Racehorse Rescue and Coming Home both have this banner beneath the title details:

Summer Reading
Browse the best books for every age and adventure including popular series, classics, and editors' picks in our Kids Summer Reading Store.

But the other 2 Matty titles (which I didn’t change to this category) don’t rank in any of the top 100 categories, so I will have to see if listing them under Sports/Equestrian has any effect.

Coming Home, however, has made a dramatic shift. On Monday it was 423,201 in the Paid kindle store. Virtually invisible. It now ranks as follows:

· Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,754 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

o #36 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Pets & Animal Care > Cats

o #52 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Animals > Cats

I have been doing a bit of social media promotion for Coming Home which I know resulted in a few sales so this may have contributed – but the “new” category of Pets and Animal Care puts me on Page 2 of Cat Care.

So did it work? Judging by the results so far I'd say Yes!

Thank you David Gaughran!

Recommended reading – Let’s Get Visible: How to get noticed and sell more books by David Gaughran.