Amazon is Cracking Down on Categories and Keywords
It doesn’t pay to try to game the system
Let’s begin with a full disclosure: I don’t have any special inside knowledge about Amazon. What I’m going to share here is based on what I see in the industry, the stories I hear from other authors and indie publishers, and simple common sense.
Amazon is cracking down on authors and publishers who put their books in the wrong category and/or use inappropriate keywords to try to drive traffic to their books.
This is a good thing. Amazon is all about providing a topnotch customer experience — and book buyers aren’t happy when their search results get cluttered with titles that have nothing to do with what they want. So, kudos to Amazon for identifying those books and taking action to correct how they’re listed on the site.
Categories
Categories on Amazon are like sections in a bookstore or library. If you’re looking for a book on business management, you don’t go wandering around the romantic fiction department. Categories are an important way to let readers know what your book is about.
Amazon ranks books in overall sales and also within their categories. Some readers may check that (although I doubt that many do), but the bigger benefit of ranking well with…
