Back in the day… Sounds so long ago, doesn’t it? Well, it’s
not. About 4ish years ago we had tags which were handy little words we could
apply to our books on kindle and readers could check mark them if they applied
to a specific book. That would help increase visibility on said book when it
was searched for by those particular words. But, as all things go, the system
was corrupted by people fishing for clicks and overwhelming the system. So,
amazon nixed that idea and now we are left with
only a few ways to categorize
our books.
Keywords – Handy little searchable words to help readers
find your book. You add these when you are publishing your book on KDP.
Not to be confused with the categories you place your book
in (e.g. Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Paranormal, etc…)
So how do you select the right keywords?
Here are a few tips I've used to help get my book on various category best seller lists.
1 List words you think fit your book.
What kind of words fit your book and how would a reader,
looking for your type of book, search for it? What words would you put into a
search engine to look for your book?
Other than the general Dystopian, does your book fit into
any smaller boxes? How about Freedom, Social issues, government, etc…
2 Once you have your list, road test it.
Search Amazon for your specific keywords and see what comes
up. Are these books the same type of book as yours? Would yours fit in with
them? Is there a better word you could search by to find a good fit for your
book?
3 Some words need to work with other words.
Did you know Amazon has a secret list of words that have to
go together to allow you to reach a specific category? I didn’t either until just
recently.
Have a look here:
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A1XEN0SRCO1KPB
– Young Adult
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2G3ZMYDPB9VRM
– Sci-Fi Fantasy Keywords
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3NTX9NCJD3D5X
– Mystery Thriller Suspense
Make sure you’re paring words together that should be for maximum
efficiency.
4 Trial and Error
The nice thing about Keywords is they can be changed as
often as you like. Test a few out. If they don’t work, try something else. You’re
bound to find the right fit at some point.