| Hey, Did you know your books participate in a never-ending beauty contest? When Amazon recommends books to readers, it often presents a themed selection – with yours battling for attention along with several others. There's more than ego and dollars at stake; Amazon seems to place a lot of weight in who wins this particular Battle Royale. Sometimes your book is one of many from your genre emailed to readers. Other times your book is hoping to be picked from a carousel of similar reads on the Amazon site itself. Either way, for those authors who regularly win their edition of the Bookselling Hunger Games, good things await. Namely, a sustained push from Amazon, which typically generates a lot of visibility, and sales, and good old-fashioned dollar bills. But for those books who usually lose these face-offs, who remain on the shelf while others get picked by readers, then the only thing you'll get from Amazon is the cold shoulder. But as experienced self-publishers will tell you, a book can't sustain much momentum without some help from Amazon. If you're with me so far, you probably have some questions. Like, what can you do to start winning more of Amazon's beauty contests? And is there anything you need to stop doing? In other words, is there anything authors and publishers routinely do which harms their chances? Captain Obvious says hello Writing a good book and presenting it in a professional manner is the most important thing here. Readers will often choose which book to click based on little more than the cover – with a possible assist from the price and review count/score. Depending on where the recommendation is made, readers may also see some short text such as your title – maybe the series name, sometimes the first few words of the blurb if it is an email recommendation. Even in these cases, though, your cover does most of the heavy lifting in the fight for these clicks, followed by the social proof inherent in the review count. (Side note: Amazon has previously stated that it places more weight in the total number of reviews, rather than that average score which authors fret over so. Meaning those nasty one-stars might actually help you long-term. But please don't test this theory on me.) Everyone wants more reviews, so this is hardly a new action item for you, and I won't bore you again about the necessity of a cover design appropriate for your niche. (Remember, those charts you are aiming for provide a great guide here; it's a list of what readers are responding to most right now, after all.) This is fundamental... but also quite basic. Indeed, I'm going to assume you are all over writing the best book you can and also packaging it in a genre-appropriate way that your target readers respond to – in the same way that my friendly neighborhood ants respond when I drop mashed potato on the kitchen floor. Besides, as you reach a certain level of sales – i.e. once you hit any decent-sized chart – almost every book has that nailed. So, what's the difference-maker at the higher level? What can give you the necessary edge against other polished-looking, nicely-covered, well-reviewed books? Marginal gains for minimum pains I reveal all sorts of useful things about how all this works in my book Amazon Decoded but one change since it was published was the overhauling of Amazon's category system. In the old days, we could only select two categories, but there were various backdoor ways to add up to a total of ten different categories to your books – and sometimes even more. But this period of relative largesse also led to issues. Being able to work this system cleverly could multiply your visibility on Amazon, especially when you have increased sales from a launch or backlist promo or librarian lightning strike or whatever. I've been writing about how Amazon works for twelve years now and there has been many changes in how authors grapple with this stuff over time. In 2024 however, there's far less need to explain how visibility on Amazon turns into clicks and sales and dollar dollar bills. But there is a gap in understanding around the nuances of that visibility. Namely, lots of authors and publishers don't seem to get that not all visibility is good for you. We often see this with large publishers – where tentpole releases from their biggest authors will engage in what we call "category squatting." This refers to placing a book in lots and lots of diverse categories to really maximize raw visibility by any means possible – whether those categories are super relevant or not. It's a cliche among authors to blame the romance community for this – and particularly romance self-publishers – more than a little unfair because category squatting cuts across all genres, and all types of publishers BTW. In my experience, the biggest culprits are independent digital publishers and the largest of the trade publishers, especially internationally. Romance is getting pegged here because it's the biggest genre with the hungriest readers; there are simply more romance authors than anything else. Because it's also the most potentially lucrative genre it attracts the baddest of bad actors. What I'm saying is, if dieselpunk urban fantasies were the biggest genre on the planet, we'd be bitching about those authors instead. Anyway, the key point here is that category squatting is counter-productive. While it is true that you can perhaps put your book in an inappropriate category and more easily garner a bestseller tag, this quick win doesn't necessarily help over time. In the same way, if you are selling lots and lots right now, and you shove your book into all sorts of disparate categories, you are maximizing your raw visibility for sure... but perhaps not realizing how this can hurt you. Here's how. Let's say you have written a novel set in 2057. Perhaps the story of an overworked crimebot, whose addiction to premium lubricants is hurting his career, but who refuses to take some rehab time in the deactivation pod – not while there is a killing spree by a military-grade AI which has somehow slipped the leash and become corporeal… and who appears to be jumping from person to person. You know, the usual. As the author, you are aware that this is a classic detective novel wearing a science fiction skin, so you place it in a couple of SF categories but also one Crime/Thriller/Mystery sub-category. This is a pretty normal approach under Amazon's new three-category system. In one sense, it's an accurate reflection of your story and its appeal – mostly SF, but some overlap with the mystery/thriller crowd is likely. This is perfectly valid logic in one sense, but it's worth thinking about how this plays out from a reader perspective – and via the all-seeing algorithms. To put a finer point on it, while one of the joys of digital publishing is that you can place your book on many "shelves" simultaneously, your book is only going to be packaged in a way to mostly appeal to one particular type of reader. (Unfortunately, unlike those Netflix thumbnails, the cover doesn't change depending on who is viewing it or where it is being viewed!) Your story might genuinely appeal to someone who typically reads standard detective novels, but the cover is only really going to draw in interest from science fiction fans. If your SF-flavored cover appears in a bunch of recommendations to readers of regular mysteries, do you genuinely believe it's going to win that beauty contest? The odds are against it, certainly, and while you might bag a reader or two, the overwhelming likelihood is that your book will perform poorly versus more regular thrillers and mysteries, and Amazon will become more reluctant to recommend your book. Three things will help you win Amazon's beauty contest: 1. Write a good book, duh, and make sure to ask your readers for reviews so everyone else can see it's a good book as well. 2. Present your book in the appropriate manner with a cover that really speaks to readers of your genre. Definitely niche down in this case rather than trying to broaden your appeal. 3. Keep your focus tight when it comes to metadata – especially your category choices. When considering which categories are appropriate for your books, imagine your cover competing for readers' clicks in a line of other typical books in that category. Does it fit? Will it appeal to readers of that kind of book? If it doesn't, and it won't, consider picking something else. And if you are doubting your cover... definitely fix that first. Ask a bunch of writer friends – and readers of the genre – for their honest feedback. Take comfort in this: you can lose as many beauty contests as long as you like, but that won't hold you back when you start stringing some wins together. You aren't stained with original sin. Amazon doesn't hold failure against you for very long and if you make the necessary changes, get some sales going, and start winning those beauty contests for a change, Amazon will start pushing your book. Not quite so clever If you haven't updated your categories in over a year, you might still have more than three categories attached to your book. Indeed, categories can attach to your book for various different reasons – only some of which we understand. (BTW you can check your categories with this handy tool.) I've heard some authors saying they have avoided updating their categories since the new system was announced last summer – the logic being that until they do update their categories, they are benefiting from increased visibility. It might seem that you are gaining something here, but the opposite is most likely true. Amazon has a hard cap in KDP for the number of categories which can be selected – true, you can't pick more than three in the publishing interface. However, in the Kindle Store, there is a soft cap of three categories. This distinction might seem like splitting hairs but it is important because while you might have additional categories through one means or another, Amazon will only display your book in three of your categories. And you have no control over which three Amazon will deem "active" – and no way of influencing that selection, not that I can deduce anyway. This runs the serious risk of your most important category not being selected, and some less-than-ideal category taking its place, which can hurt you in a few ways. Before anyone splits their own hairs, let me clarify that you will still be eligible for all the "parent" categories above your selection - i.e. if you have selected Political Thrillers as one of your three, you will still be visible in the bigger "parent" category of Thrillers also, if you are selling enough. But if you have four or more categories attached to your book from the old system – e.g. Political Thrillers, Men's Adventure Mysteries, Crime/Serial Killers, and Cozy Mystery, then Amazon will randomly select three of those and ignore the rest – and you'll lose eligibility for the parent categories above the category not selected by Amazon. My advice? Don't try to beat the system, it will only backfire. Check the categories for your books, make sure they are appropriate, and update your categories where necessary – especially if you haven't done that in over a year. And if there are any inappropriate categories inexplicably attached to your book, you can ask KDP Support to remove them if you are worried your more important category choices are getting ignored. You certainly don't want to trade high-value visibility with your core audience for low-value visibility with an adjacent group of readers – and the downsides might be greater than you realize. Getting this stuff right can deliver cumulative benefits over time, so it really is worth the small-time investment to check this stuff and get it right. It won't turn your book into a bestseller on its own, but it can be a difference-maker when you are looking for an edge versus other well-written, professionally presented books. The sale continues... If you want more Amazon insights like this, my book Amazon Decoded is still available for less than a dollar, along with the rest of my writer guides. (Amazon US | Amazon UK | All other retailers/countries.) Thanks for all the messages of support after my last email. We aren't out of the woods yet, but I hope to get back to regular newsletters soon. Dave P.S. Getting through it with the help of M. Ward and Poison Cup. | 
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