May 30, 2025 • 36 mins
When Amazon quietly shifted from its A9 to A10 algorithm in May, many authors felt panic rising. Would their books suddenly disappear from search results? Would years of keyword optimization become obsolete overnight? The good news is that if you've been focusing on quality and reader experience all along, you're already aligned with Amazon's new direction.
Amazon is increasingly behaving like Google—prioritizing relevancy, quality content, and authentic engagement over keyword manipulation. This makes perfect sense when you consider Amazon's fundamental nature as a search engine that profits from purchases rather than just clicks. What matters now more than ever is creating a cohesive author presence that extends beyond Amazon itself.
In this episode Penny and Amy unpack every element of this new algorithm change, giving insightful guidance and debunking myths that are circulating in the industry.
Join us as we dive deep in the mysteries of getting more visibility for your book on Amazon!
Ready to optimize your Amazon presence? Pre-order our new book "The Amazon Author Formula Workbook" today and get entered into our contest for Amazon Page Power-Up packages! Subscribe to our podcast for weekly insights that will help you navigate the ever-changing world of book marketing and publishing success.
Buy Penny's book The Amazon Author Formula
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips
and Author Success Podcast.
This is Penny Sanseviery andAmy Cornell.
I am.
It's finally here.
The book, the Amazon AuthorFormula Workbook, is up for
pre-order on Amazon.
I can't believe it.
Like it's finally.
It's finally up.
So that was very exciting.
That happened this week and weare doing and we're doing a
(00:25):
really cool pre-order promo.
All the details I won't spendtime on it during the podcast,
but definitely look for all thedetails in the show notes.
How to enter is super easy.
Basically, you're gettingentered into the contest when
you pre-order the book on Amazon.
We're giving away 10 Amazonpage power-up packages.
(00:49):
That is such a mouthful.
I was doing videos yesterday forour promo and I had to say that
repeatedly.
I'm like I should have come upwith a better day, something
that was a little lesscomplicated to say, because
saying that fast 10 times in arow was a bit much.
But we're doing that.
(01:09):
Everybody who pre-orders thebook gets my Amazon Mastery Tips
, so everybody gets that.
All the other good stuff is allin the show notes and we're
going to be doing quite a numberof promos.
If you listen to the Redditshow that we did on Ask Me
Anything.
I'm're going to be doing quitea number of promos.
If you listen to the Redditshow that we did on Ask Me
Anything, I'm also going to bedoing one of those and I don't
(01:30):
have the exact date for that yet, but we will definitely
announce that and I am alsodoing an Ask Me Anything on
socials.
So if you're not following uson social media, be sure to do
that.
I am on Instagram, attherealbookgal, on Facebook, at
therealbookgal, and all of thatis also in the show notes, so
(01:50):
definitely be taking a look atthat.
So today, and speaking ofAmazon, we're doing a show.
All about this show is all aboutAmazon's ever-changing
algorithms, and I did some deepdive research on this.
So in May, amazon changed alltheir algorithm.
(02:12):
According to something that Iread, amazon changed from the A9
to the A10 algorithm, which,according to Amazon, has
introduced a more nuancedapproach to ranking, which is
what the show is all about.
(02:33):
So, but the heart of this andthere's a lot of information out
there on the Amazon algorithmand this change what really
struck me is how many authorsare still laboring under
misinformation, and some of thathopefully the majority of
(02:56):
that's going to get addressed inthis podcast.
But at the heart of what thesechanges are is Amazon is really
beginning to more and morerespond like Google, which makes
sense, right, amy?
Because I mean basically Amazonis.
I mean, yes, you buy stuff onAmazon, but Amazon is really a
(03:18):
one big search engine.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yes, and I would say even more so than Google.
You know, amazon is a searchengine that has a vested
interest in what you do next.
You know, right Right, googleis very experience oriented, but
Google, as far as we know let'snot put our tinfoil hats on for
that does not have a vestedinterest in every single, like
you know, search result thatcomes up comes up.
(03:41):
They're just looking for, youknow, relevancy and things like
that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
But Amazon, it's like Google on steroids, because
they have a vested interest inyou doing something while you're
on that site and spending youknow, spending some money, oh
yeah for sure, for sure, if you,if you hop onto Google and just
do some random search and don'tdo anything, that's not really
you know, google's just like,yeah, whatever you know.
But because Google will alwaysmake money on Google ads.
(04:07):
But for Amazon, as you pointedout, that is a much, much
different story.
What is really interesting is,if you listen to our website SEO
show, you're going to hear alot of the same information in
this, because where Amazon isgoing is that they are not only
(04:28):
mirroring what Google does, butconsequently, the SEO tactics.
So the search engineoptimization tactics that
website owners implement to getranking on Google are very much
mirrored on Amazon.
Now and Amy can speak to thisbecause she and I we do SEO
(04:50):
calls every month about ourwebsite.
Seo is a weird monster, right?
Yes, what's interesting aboutsearch engine optimization is
that, at its very core, whatGoogle cares about is they care
(05:13):
about a quality link.
So meaning link, meaning yourwebsite with quality content and
something that a consumer isgoing to, that resonates with
what the consumer searched forand that's going to help them
answer questions, entertain them, whatever that is.
And now Amazon is basically verymuch the same way, and I think
(05:35):
some of this stuff also isbecause there's a lot of AI
content that's hitting Amazontoo.
Ai generated content meaningnot talking about the AI stuff
that Amazon already implements,but Amazon is getting so poorly
(05:57):
written light content.
Books is not a new chat GPTthing.
That has always been an issueon Amazon.
But now, with so many bookswritten by AI and Amazon you
know, because I just uploaded mybook to KDP, amazon asked you
to check a box did an AI createthis book?
I mean it's not like Amazon hasa system.
(06:20):
I mean maybe they do and I'mjust unaware of it.
But to the best of my knowledge, amazon does not have a system
that literally can ferret out abook that's written by a machine
, an AI, versus something that'swritten by a human.
And maybe they do, I don't know.
So far I haven't seen any of it.
But what Amazon is really doingis they are, through these
(06:42):
tactics, they are trying toferret out books that really
have no backbone, and I don'tmean poorly written books, I
mean books that don't have anysort of actively engaged
anything along with it, which alot of AI books unfortunately
like.
People write them and then boom, they throw them up on Amazon
and hope to make a bunch ofmoney, right.
(07:05):
So the first piece of this isAmazon is really emphasizing
external traffic.
Okay, so not only rewardinglistings, retail pages that
attract visitors from outsideAmazon, and I'm not talking
about running Facebook ads orInstagram ads separately.
(07:28):
I'm talking about organictraffic that's hitting your page
.
So through blogs and socialmedia and email campaigns, and
what this is doing is it isencouraging a more robust brand,
and we're going to talk moreabout the brand throughout this
podcast but it also encouragesmore activity around a book.
(07:55):
You know, having a website.
I cannot tell you how manytimes that I do talk to authors
who have launched a book anddon't have a website.
Right, and Amy, you, we'veferreted through a lot of, a lot
of these where we tell authorsyou know, you have to have at
least a basic site, andapparently now Amazon is really
paying attention to that becausetypically thinly written books
(08:19):
don't have anything.
They, you know the authordoesn't.
There's no website, there's no,nothing.
And I'm not talking aboutanything written by AI, I'm just
talking about authors who don'ttake their own success
seriously.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Mm-hmm, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And and where this comes in, for Amazon is not just
this, is not just Amazonforcing you to do work
externally right and promoteyour book, but this also taps
into the user experience, which,again, is really all that they
care about.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
One thing to remember this.
You know, for some of you,listening may sound like
drinking from a fire.
Feel like drinking from a firehose because we're throwing a
lot of technical stuff at you.
But just remember, Google wantstheir search results.
They want it to make Googlelook good.
Use Google because it works andGoogle has advanced a lot in
(09:18):
the last few years for the userexperience.
They are prioritizing the userexperience and what they are
showing people.
So Penny and I have gonethrough so much with our SEO
adapting to that, and Amazon isdoing very much the same thing,
and that's one thing you alwayshave to keep in mind.
Amazon wants to sell books.
(09:39):
They would love to sell yourbooks, but you have to make sure
you are providing somethingthat makes them look good, which
will give them a reason to showit to shoppers.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Right, right, exactly .
And if you're listening to thisand you're thinking, oh my gosh
, there are even more hoops thatAmazon is making me jump
through yes, that is true, butif you've been doing all the
right things up to this point,then the majority of you are
probably going to be fine.
And that's another reason whywe wanted to do this podcast,
because I have found in myresearch of this topic that
(10:14):
there's a lot of fear mongeringgoing on, and I have had many
conversations with Amy about ourown optimization and our own
visibility on Google, and I getthat there is.
Like you know, algorithmchanges are always scary because
you never know how it's goingto shake out, but at the end of
(10:35):
the day, all of this comes backdown to the user experience.
Especially like the next one,amy and I know you talk about
this a lot because you do a lotof our retail page evaluations
you want to take this one.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yes, okay.
So the organic sales Okay.
So I like this because this iswe're big fans of ads.
Obviously, I actually have thisconversation with our clients a
lot, penny.
We're big fans of ads.
Obviously I actually have thisconversation with our clients a
lot, penny, because it's amazinghow, again, a lot of our
clients are learning a lot, andI love that.
(11:07):
You know that they are in thisto learn, but it's a lot to keep
track of.
But one really simple way tolook at Amazon ads that I like
to remind clients of.
It's probably one of the onlythings you can do to get in
front of new potential readersand buyers on a daily basis, and
that's usually kind of a lightbulb moment, you know.
Yeah, because nobody else hasthe time or energy to literally
(11:31):
market their book every singleday.
So paid ads are obviously theyhave their place.
It's really important for, likethe long term, to keep that
train moving.
But with this shift with Amazonand where they're going, they
are going to be paying a lotmore attention to organic sales
and customer interest.
(11:51):
And this plays into the lastpoint that Penny made.
You know, traffic from outsideof Amazon as well, and then
conversions on that traffic, youknow, and so this is a lot
about your retail page Also,what you're presenting.
This means your firstimpression really really matters
.
We've said all the time there'sno such thing as good enough
(12:13):
when it comes to your cover,when it comes to your
description.
You have milliseconds topotentially pique someone's
interest once they land on yourretail page.
So you really don't want totake a chance without, with not
optimizing that to the fullest.
You know no stone should beleft unturned.
Amazon offers a lot of freefeatures that I still.
(12:34):
It blows my mind how manypeople don't take advantage of
those.
You know that's a big focus forus with clients advantage of
those.
That's a big focus for us withclients.
And I'm going to do a shamelessplug for Penny's pre-order in
her book right now.
That's the whole reason theprize pack, what we focused on
because it is so important yourretail presence.
So I mean that is a huge reasonwhy we've been doing these a
(12:57):
lot more for clients,anticipating that this is the
direction Amazon is going in andquality content being strategic
, making it a real experiencefor the consumer.
And your retail page is one ofthe easiest ways to do that,
especially since it's your pointof sale location.
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, exactly, and it is.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
You know again not to keep comparing Amazon to Google
, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Um, google, you know, here's areally weird optimization trick
that Google rolled out a bunchof years ago and they've always
adhered to it.
Google will prioritize nicelooking sites over train wrecks
(13:40):
and when you think about it like, you think, well, that's just
being biased.
And maybe Google doesn't likemy site, but I like my site and
that's fine.
But websites, much like retailpages, they have to adhere to a
list of you know 10 things or 20things, or you know they're,
even if your site is dark andforeboding and maybe you're
(14:02):
selling a you know a crimethriller or something like that.
Like I get it, your sitedoesn't have to be everybody's
cup of tea, but it does have toappeal to um, the list, that to
the checklist that Google has,and and retail pages are very
much the same.
We preach this.
We have actually podcasts onAmazon retail pages.
So we preach this a lot andyour retail page has to be a
(14:27):
reflection of not just your book, but it has to be a reflection
of the reader as well as yourprofessionalism, and this is
where details matter.
So even something as minute asnot putting up an author photo
and just being a gray box onAmazon can potentially tell
Amazon that you don't reallycare about your brand.
(14:48):
Right, it's, it's, it's a, it'sa, really, it's a, very I mean.
I think the long and short ofit would be that details really
matter and details are startingto matter.
(15:14):
And another reason why Amazonagain is doing this is because
the majority of people who writebooks in AI just to get to make
a quick buck or whatever, theygenerally don't care about the
details.
And we see this all the timewhen we're doing Amazon
optimizations and things likethat.
When we're doing Amazonoptimizations and things like
that, I mean and Amy, speakingof optimization, we really
haven't seen a change Like this,whether or not you want to call
it a seismic shift in theiralgorithm update, but this
(15:34):
hasn't really changed how we doour keyword research.
It hasn't really changed that.
Because it's interesting, Italked to a couple of clients
that we've worked with long termand they haven't necessarily
seen their retail pages tanking.
Their keywords are solid andall this other stuff, because
(15:55):
they've been doing all the rightthings.
But have you seen any changesin how Amazon?
You know what Amazon ispresenting to you in terms of
keywords or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I would say it's interesting the more and this
has always been, I mean, we'vealways been big proponents of
keyword strings and usingkeywords that mimic shopper
behavior in terms of you know,if you're writing nonfiction,
those people are looking foranswers to specific problems.
(16:26):
You know what I mean, yeah.
Or to learn something veryspecific under a certain topic
industry, whatnot, and samething with fiction.
You know, there aren't a lot ofpeople that were just like I
read and they may say I readeverything, but when they go
looking for a book they're stilllooking for something specific.
So that's always been key ismirroring really specific.
You're better off mirroringmore specific shopper behavior
(16:50):
than you are going really broad,because and we've mentioned
this on an Amazon update showmaybe more than once, actually
because it continues it's one ofthose things that we saw that
in some things go away Amazonkind of test things and then
they disappear.
Yeah, I still continue to see,penny, that if you are broader
searches, less specific searches, you are more inclined to see
(17:13):
books.
The books that show up in thoseresults will exactly match,
like their titles will match thesearch term.
So if you say like dangerousromance or something, you're
likely to get a bunch of resultsthat actually have the word
dangerous in the title orsubtitle.
Yeah, so it's interesting.
So the more specific you are, Ipersonally still think the
(17:37):
better quality results shoppersare going to get, because it
gets much more nuanced.
You know what I mean Versusthese broad terms where it's
almost like, okay, amazon seesthat you're just throwing kind
of a general search out there,they're going to kind of give
you the easy answers back, ifthat makes sense.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Right, right, exactly , exactly, you know.
Answers back if that makessense Right, right, exactly,
exactly, you know.
And the other piece of it isthat so seller authority and
reputation is something thatAmazon looks for.
And again this is not, this isnot new.
This is something that we'vebeen talking about for a long
time.
So there's no you know.
So all this panic out thereabout the, about the algorithm
change, I think the only youknow, if you're doing all the
(18:21):
right things, there really is noreason to panic.
Just keep doing all the rightthings.
But in terms of seller authority, reputation and the other piece
of it is customer engagementmetrics.
So what Amazon means with thatessentially is if you have a
book description that doesn'tnecessarily really genuinely
(18:43):
reflect the book and again, Ihate to keep throwing AI under
the bus because we're gettingready to do a show on chat, gpt
and ways authors can use itProbably we'll drop next Friday,
but when you have, we all knowthat sometimes chat can
(19:05):
overstate what something is Like.
Amy always loves to say, oh mygosh, chat is just so excited
about everything, right, yeah,and one of the things that
triggers Amazon is when a bookdescription, for example, is not
only problematic but reallydoesn't.
You know it is a bookdescription that's written for a
(19:30):
mega best-selling book, notnecessarily a low-quality,
poorly written book that doesn'treally cover the content that
the author has said.
And I realize that non-AIwritten books sometimes also
qualify for this.
When the author doesn't get thebook description quite right or
(19:51):
the book description is low,that can impact your customer
metrics.
But the other piece is yourbook price.
So this is where Amazon is.
This is also part of thecustomer engagement.
So if a customer lands on yourretail page and your book is
priced at 50 bucks and for aprint book a paperback, I've
(20:14):
seen it it's a thing You're notgoing to make a buy unless, for
whatever reason, the consumer isyour mom and she absolutely has
to have a copy of your book.
The majority of customers are,I don't want to say price
sensitive, but we, you know,there is a particular price
metric for every genre that youwant to pay attention to, and
(20:35):
again we've done a show on thisVery, very important.
And that is really where.
So one of the things that I talkabout in the Amazon Author
Formula and again we talk aboutit in the workbook is the Amazon
relevancy score, and that'sreally what all of this comes
down to.
So Amazon and Google haveAmazon doesn't.
(20:55):
Let me just be clear Amazondoesn't call it a relevancy
score, because that's my term,but Google refers to it as a
relevancy score and basicallythe results have to be relevant
to the search.
That's really it.
It's very, very basic math andthat's where all of this stuff
comes down to.
Okay, the other piece of it isso obviously, you know book
(21:18):
covers and you can have the bestbook description in the world,
but your book cover has to alignwith your book description and
has to align with the userexperience.
Amy, do you want to, because Iknow you have very strong
feelings about book covers.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I do, and I think the frustrating part is that I give
everybody certainly ourlisteners, but just authors in
general I give everybody enoughcredit that they've had that
experience and they've seen abook and they've seen the cover
and they've gone whoa, you knowwhat I mean.
Like we're all consumers here.
We know when we're impressed.
Some things impress us, otherthings do not, and I think we
(21:54):
all know what a reallyincredible book cover looks like
.
But we talk about this all thetime too.
Penny, it's so easy to get inyour own way when you fall in
love with a concept or you fallin love with something that you
started or that you know what Imean.
You can't see past that and Ithink that is probably the
biggest issue, typically,because I think you know, I
(22:16):
think most of our listenersprobably have pretty good taste
and they can be really objectivewhen they are the consumer,
when they are the shopper.
But it gets a lot harder whenit's your baby and it's your
project and you had something inmind.
You know, you know, think howmany iterations we went through
with the cover for the workbook.
You know, just getting itexactly right, because there's
always just oh, this isn't quiteright but this is great, are we
(22:36):
done?
We want to be done Like.
You know all of that, so it'sreally hard.
But don't get in your own way bybeing so married to your cover
and a concept that you can't beobjective about what's really
working in the marketplace.
And it sounds simple but truly,I mean, granted, there's always
going to be the outliers thatland on the bestseller list
(22:58):
where the cover is just okay,but that's generally not the
rule.
You know, for the most part, ifyou go to and look at some
lists, bestseller lists forcategories, you are going to see
some pretty great covers.
And I will say, especially incertain genres, you tend to see
themes and things like that and,as you said, the website
(23:18):
preferences.
Penny, it may not be your cup oftea, but if you want to sell
books, that's what readers arebuying, that's what they're
responding positively to.
So to some degree you have toleave your preferences at the
door.
Unless this is just a passionproject and you don't really
care how many books you sell orif anybody ever reads it and you
just want to say I did it tocheck it off your list, then go
(23:39):
for it.
But otherwise, as Penny's beensaying, the reader experience
it's not just us saying it.
Amazon is now prioritizing iteven more than ever and the
cover is a huge part of that.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You know, and and in one of the videos that I watched
, as I was deep diving for thisepisode, this one video, this
individual said started to talkabout more creative ways that
you can self-design your owncover.
And that's actually when Istopped watching the video.
I know I, I, yeah, it was alittle.
Yeah, it was a little, it was,it was well, it was like a lot
(24:12):
disconcerting.
I'm like, oh my gosh, there'sjust so much.
There's so much.
Unfortunately, there's so muchbad information out there that I
watched.
This person said, okay, so wehave to stop keyword stuffing
(24:32):
our you know, our retail pages.
And I'm like, when was thatever a thing?
But here's the interesting,here's the interesting comment
on that is so SEO, search engineoptimization experts used to
recommend keyword stuffing inorder to get more visibility for
your website on Google, andGoogle at some point was like no
, we're not, that's not a thing,we're not allowing that anymore
(24:54):
.
I don't know why it took Amazonso long to catch up.
I kind of think that it hasn'ttaken Amazon that long to catch
up, but just that now it's kindof making the rounds that you
don't want to keyword stuff.
So by keyword stuffing, what wemean is is when you're reusing
like murder mystery, thriller,amateur sleuths, and you're
using that in very unnaturalways, right?
(25:16):
So I've seen that.
I've seen, and I see this inparticular with subtitles on
books, where subtitles have allof their keyword strings jammed
into a really obnoxiously longsubtitle.
So, yeah, it's like athree-line book title.
Oh my gosh, and it's sodistracting.
You're just like, oh, and whatyou're essentially doing when
(25:38):
you use keyword strings in avery unnatural, crammed, let's
uncomfortable way is you reallyare piquing Amazon's interest,
and not in a good way.
They're looking at it andthey're like, well, you know,
you're trying to trick us, sothey, basically it can impact
the ranking of your entireretail page, even if you just do
(26:00):
that on your subtitle.
So if you're listening and youhave done that, I would
definitely want to go back orcontact your publisher and have
them change that.
There's nothing wrong withhaving a keyword string, a
keyword string, in your subtitle, but not 25.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
So that's what I mean .
And Google.
This is another, and we talkedabout this on the.
I believe we talked about onthe website SEO show as well.
But Google, amazon, all of thatis getting so much more
intuitive, so it's not asliteral as it used to be, and
that was one thing that Pennyand I really that was a big
(26:37):
light bulb moment for our ownSEO.
Yeah, how keywords arecategorized and ranked and
things like that is that youknow complementary phrases and
keywords and things like thesystems are sophisticated enough
(26:57):
to recognize that that is whatyour book is about.
These are who your markets are,things like that.
So it's gotten so much smarterand so much more intuitive.
To Penny's point, you don'thave to stuff these verbatim
awkward phrases into your retailpage everywhere in order to get
(27:17):
the point across.
Yeah, you know it.
Really.
You can do it in much morefinessed ways and I assure you
Amazon will still completelyunderstand what's going on on
your page.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true.
And you know, I mean, we've hadmultiple, multiple
conversations and we've talkedto companies that specialize in
SEO and with regards to ourwebsite in particular.
At the end of the day, folks,what this comes down to is
really just the user experienceand, as AI becomes more
(27:52):
intertwined on Amazon and othersites, you really it's forcing
everybody to really up theirgame, because that is sometimes
the only way, which kind ofsurprises me a little, even
though I'm saying this, butsometimes I think that's the
only way to delineate between areal author and a chat GPT
(28:16):
author, right, so that's, youknow, and I think that's just
really where everything ischanging.
So the other piece of this tooand, amy, I'm going to let you
take the second part of this isthe 30-day launch strategy.
I cannot emphasize howimportant, yes, the pre-order is
(28:36):
.
We always talk about thepre-order, the pre-order.
My book is in pre-order only for30 days.
I was kind of a maniac aboutthat.
I'm like I only want 30 daysand I want 31.
I only want 30 days as apre-order because I have
particular strategies that Iwant to implement during that
pre-order, and optimization isactually the strategy.
Yes, we're running a pre-orderpromo.
(28:59):
I care about pre-orders up to apoint, but I really care about
Amazon categorizing the bookcorrectly, even though obviously
we're doing optimization andeverything.
But your 30-day post-launch isalso really crucial.
So if you are leaving your bookup on Amazon to kind of see
what it does on its own, I canguarantee you that it's
(29:23):
basically not going to doanything right.
And where I think a lot ofauthors get caught up in is it's
very easy to get very excitedduring the 30 days, as you
should be excited when your booklaunches.
But it's very easy to getexcited during that first 30-day
launch where you're like I'mselling books, I'm selling books
, I don't need to do marketingand I hear this also a lot I'm
selling books, I'm selling books, I don't need to do marketing.
(29:44):
But what happens is that whenweek two and week three and in
particular, week four, all ofthat starts to tank and then it
becomes much harder to resurrectthat book.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, absolutely, and if, definitely, if you find
yourself at that point andyou're not in a position to do
all your own marketing, or youjust weren't prepared to take it
over, you're then looking for amarketing partner, and that
takes some time too to find theright person.
So, you know not trying tofreak anybody out, but you're
really looking at by that point,you're what, two, sometimes
(30:19):
three months out of the gatebefore you have a real marketing
plan in place, and that'sthat's not the best way to go
about it by any means.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I love that you brought up theAmazon optimization, penny.
Like that is so.
We say it all the time.
I know it doesn't sound supersexy when people, when authors,
come to us and they're like,okay, I want to make this work,
it's my first book or it's mythird book and I want to do
(30:40):
things better.
What do you recommend?
And so often we do a criticalassessment of their Amazon
presence, what they're alreadydoing, because we're big
sticklers for building off of areally solid foundation.
And that's where the Amazonoptimization comes in.
And so we'll get back to them.
We'll say, okay, we definitelyrecommend these things with
(31:01):
Amazon.
And I'm sure a lot of times someauthors are like, well, that
doesn't sound as fun.
It may not sound as fun, but itis definitely what's in your
best interest long term.
You know, as much as we'd loveto work with a lot of our
clients forever and ever, werealize that's not realistic and
Penny and I have always beenaligned with that.
We want authors to wrap up acollaboration with us.
(31:25):
You know they're stepping outthe door Like many, many, many
steps and tears ahead of wherethey started.
Yeah, like, without a doubt, Ilove that we can feel so
confident that the Amazon workspecifically has set them up for
so many more opportunities downthe road.
You know what I mean.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, and you know, what's interesting is that
Amazon is also prioritizingquality over quantity in reviews
, and it's always been.
I mean, look, would I love tohave 10 or 20,000 reviews right
out of the gate for all of mybooks?
10,000%, I would.
But there are a lot of reviews,swapping services and buying
(32:08):
services and I don't knownecessarily the quality of each,
and this is not me saying youknow, don't do that, but what.
One of the things that we doknow is that Amazon gets hit
with a lot of low qualityreviews and that is also a
problem, because it reviews onAmazon have always been a
(32:29):
problem.
This isn't new to thisalgorithm change, but it is
great news for authors whostruggle to get reviews.
So, Amazon would prefer, asopposed to having something that
sounds super superficial, likeoh, this was a great book,
thanks, Um, you know what I mean, which tends to be a little bit
in a pay.
When you go into a pay to playsituation, you tend to get more
(32:52):
superficial, yeah, where theysort of sound like they're not
really you know, they didn'treally read the book or whatever
, nope, and as you've beensaying since the show started,
all goes back to the userexperience.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
We are all consumers and we are most of us are not
only not swayed by thosesuperficial generic reviews.
If anything, it kind of makesus second guess whether we're
going to buy that product.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Right, right, exactly .
So I think that your marchingorders really, again, if you've
listened to us for a while, youprobably know we bang this drum
a lot and you're probably doingall the right things.
If you're new to the show,welcome.
We're so glad that you're here.
Definitely go back, because wehave a whole bunch of
optimization shows and Amazonspecific and all the things.
(33:40):
We just had a really reallylong show Emmy just pointed that
out.
I didn't realize it was likealmost an hour on doing book
events.
But your sole focus should beon the consumer.
So, driving external trafficmost of you are already doing
that and again, I'm not talkingabout running ads on Google or
on Facebook or Instagram,driving from social media
(34:04):
platforms.
Having an author website, emailnewsletters are great.
I realize it's not always everyauthor's thing, but we have an
author that we're working withand she has a whole bunch of
books out and email newslettersare she and I are going to be
talking about that are just so,so, so beneficial.
(34:24):
Don't overthink it.
We have a show on emailnewsletters.
Go check it out.
Optimize listings forengagement Right.
Letters.
Go check it out.
Optimize listings forengagement right.
So make sure that you are usingall the tools that Amazon gives
you, not just the fact that youcan sell your book there, but
A-plus content, which we did anentire show on A-plus content
also.
And then you know I mean makechanges to your book.
(34:47):
You know book description or,if you have a publisher, see if
they're willing to make somemodifications.
And by that I mean if you'vewon an award, if you have a
standout review you always wantto lead with a standout review
on your retail page.
The only thing that matters andI know Amy and I have said this
probably collectively now over50 times in this show the only
(35:10):
thing that matters is your enduser, and that should be the
singular focus of your Amazonretail page.
So did I miss anything?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
No, this was exciting .
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, it's really exciting and definitely, I mean,
like I said, we're all doingbattle with the changing times
and one of those is, you know, alot of people going out there
and just creating these lowquality books on using AI.
That's that is forcing the restof us to really level up a
little bit more.
(35:41):
So thank you so much for tuningin Again.
My book is up for pre-order.
Check the show notes.
We'll have all the informationthere.
I'm super excited to know whaty'all think and, by the way,
thank you so much for the recentreviews that we've gotten on
the show.
We really love reviews and besure, if you're not subscribed
(36:01):
to the show, be sure tosubscribe so that you will get a
notification every time a newshow drops, which that does
every Friday.
We'll see you next week.
Bye-bye.
Hello and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips
and Author Success Podcast.
This is Penny Sanseviery andAmy Cornell.
I am.
It's finally here.
The book, the Amazon AuthorFormula Workbook, is up for
pre-order on Amazon.
I can't believe it.
Like it's finally.
It's finally up.
So that was very exciting.
That happened this week and weare doing and we're doing a
(00:25):
really cool pre-order promo.
All the details I won't spendtime on it during the podcast,
but definitely look for all thedetails in the show notes.
How to enter is super easy.
Basically, you're gettingentered into the contest when
you pre-order the book on Amazon.
We're giving away 10 Amazonpage power-up packages.
(00:49):
That is such a mouthful.
I was doing videos yesterday forour promo and I had to say that
repeatedly.
I'm like I should have come upwith a better day, something
that was a little lesscomplicated to say, because
saying that fast 10 times in arow was a bit much.
But we're doing that.
(01:09):
Everybody who pre-orders thebook gets my Amazon Mastery Tips
, so everybody gets that.
All the other good stuff is allin the show notes and we're
going to be doing quite a numberof promos.
If you listen to the Redditshow that we did on Ask Me
Anything.
I'm're going to be doing quitea number of promos.
If you listen to the Redditshow that we did on Ask Me
Anything, I'm also going to bedoing one of those and I don't
(01:30):
have the exact date for that yet, but we will definitely
announce that and I am alsodoing an Ask Me Anything on
socials.
So if you're not following uson social media, be sure to do
that.
I am on Instagram, attherealbookgal, on Facebook, at
therealbookgal, and all of thatis also in the show notes, so
(01:50):
definitely be taking a look atthat.
So today, and speaking ofAmazon, we're doing a show.
All about this show is all aboutAmazon's ever-changing
algorithms, and I did some deepdive research on this.
So in May, amazon changed alltheir algorithm.
(02:12):
According to something that Iread, amazon changed from the A9
to the A10 algorithm, which,according to Amazon, has
introduced a more nuancedapproach to ranking, which is
what the show is all about.
(02:33):
So, but the heart of this andthere's a lot of information out
there on the Amazon algorithmand this change what really
struck me is how many authorsare still laboring under
misinformation, and some of thathopefully the majority of
(02:56):
that's going to get addressed inthis podcast.
But at the heart of what thesechanges are is Amazon is really
beginning to more and morerespond like Google, which makes
sense, right, amy?
Because I mean basically Amazonis.
I mean, yes, you buy stuff onAmazon, but Amazon is really a
(03:18):
one big search engine.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yes, and I would say even more so than Google.
You know, amazon is a searchengine that has a vested
interest in what you do next.
You know, right Right, googleis very experience oriented, but
Google, as far as we know let'snot put our tinfoil hats on for
that does not have a vestedinterest in every single, like
you know, search result thatcomes up comes up.
(03:41):
They're just looking for, youknow, relevancy and things like
that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
But Amazon, it's like Google on steroids, because
they have a vested interest inyou doing something while you're
on that site and spending youknow, spending some money, oh
yeah for sure, for sure, if you,if you hop onto Google and just
do some random search and don'tdo anything, that's not really
you know, google's just like,yeah, whatever you know.
But because Google will alwaysmake money on Google ads.
(04:07):
But for Amazon, as you pointedout, that is a much, much
different story.
What is really interesting is,if you listen to our website SEO
show, you're going to hear alot of the same information in
this, because where Amazon isgoing is that they are not only
(04:28):
mirroring what Google does, butconsequently, the SEO tactics.
So the search engineoptimization tactics that
website owners implement to getranking on Google are very much
mirrored on Amazon.
Now and Amy can speak to thisbecause she and I we do SEO
(04:50):
calls every month about ourwebsite.
Seo is a weird monster, right?
Yes, what's interesting aboutsearch engine optimization is
that, at its very core, whatGoogle cares about is they care
(05:13):
about a quality link.
So meaning link, meaning yourwebsite with quality content and
something that a consumer isgoing to, that resonates with
what the consumer searched forand that's going to help them
answer questions, entertain them, whatever that is.
And now Amazon is basically verymuch the same way, and I think
(05:35):
some of this stuff also isbecause there's a lot of AI
content that's hitting Amazontoo.
Ai generated content meaningnot talking about the AI stuff
that Amazon already implements,but Amazon is getting so poorly
(05:57):
written light content.
Books is not a new chat GPTthing.
That has always been an issueon Amazon.
But now, with so many bookswritten by AI and Amazon you
know, because I just uploaded mybook to KDP, amazon asked you
to check a box did an AI createthis book?
I mean it's not like Amazon hasa system.
(06:20):
I mean maybe they do and I'mjust unaware of it.
But to the best of my knowledge, amazon does not have a system
that literally can ferret out abook that's written by a machine
, an AI, versus something that'swritten by a human.
And maybe they do, I don't know.
So far I haven't seen any of it.
But what Amazon is really doingis they are, through these
(06:42):
tactics, they are trying toferret out books that really
have no backbone, and I don'tmean poorly written books, I
mean books that don't have anysort of actively engaged
anything along with it, which alot of AI books unfortunately
like.
People write them and then boom, they throw them up on Amazon
and hope to make a bunch ofmoney, right.
(07:05):
So the first piece of this isAmazon is really emphasizing
external traffic.
Okay, so not only rewardinglistings, retail pages that
attract visitors from outsideAmazon, and I'm not talking
about running Facebook ads orInstagram ads separately.
(07:28):
I'm talking about organictraffic that's hitting your page
.
So through blogs and socialmedia and email campaigns, and
what this is doing is it isencouraging a more robust brand,
and we're going to talk moreabout the brand throughout this
podcast but it also encouragesmore activity around a book.
(07:55):
You know, having a website.
I cannot tell you how manytimes that I do talk to authors
who have launched a book anddon't have a website.
Right, and Amy, you, we'veferreted through a lot of, a lot
of these where we tell authorsyou know, you have to have at
least a basic site, andapparently now Amazon is really
paying attention to that becausetypically thinly written books
(08:19):
don't have anything.
They, you know the authordoesn't.
There's no website, there's no,nothing.
And I'm not talking aboutanything written by AI, I'm just
talking about authors who don'ttake their own success
seriously.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Mm-hmm, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And and where this comes in, for Amazon is not just
this, is not just Amazonforcing you to do work
externally right and promoteyour book, but this also taps
into the user experience, which,again, is really all that they
care about.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
One thing to remember this.
You know, for some of you,listening may sound like
drinking from a fire.
Feel like drinking from a firehose because we're throwing a
lot of technical stuff at you.
But just remember, Google wantstheir search results.
They want it to make Googlelook good.
Use Google because it works andGoogle has advanced a lot in
(09:18):
the last few years for the userexperience.
They are prioritizing the userexperience and what they are
showing people.
So Penny and I have gonethrough so much with our SEO
adapting to that, and Amazon isdoing very much the same thing,
and that's one thing you alwayshave to keep in mind.
Amazon wants to sell books.
(09:39):
They would love to sell yourbooks, but you have to make sure
you are providing somethingthat makes them look good, which
will give them a reason to showit to shoppers.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Right, right, exactly .
And if you're listening to thisand you're thinking, oh my gosh
, there are even more hoops thatAmazon is making me jump
through yes, that is true, butif you've been doing all the
right things up to this point,then the majority of you are
probably going to be fine.
And that's another reason whywe wanted to do this podcast,
because I have found in myresearch of this topic that
(10:14):
there's a lot of fear mongeringgoing on, and I have had many
conversations with Amy about ourown optimization and our own
visibility on Google, and I getthat there is.
Like you know, algorithmchanges are always scary because
you never know how it's goingto shake out, but at the end of
(10:35):
the day, all of this comes backdown to the user experience.
Especially like the next one,amy and I know you talk about
this a lot because you do a lotof our retail page evaluations
you want to take this one.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yes, okay.
So the organic sales Okay.
So I like this because this iswe're big fans of ads.
Obviously, I actually have thisconversation with our clients a
lot, penny.
We're big fans of ads.
Obviously I actually have thisconversation with our clients a
lot, penny, because it's amazinghow, again, a lot of our
clients are learning a lot, andI love that.
(11:07):
You know that they are in thisto learn, but it's a lot to keep
track of.
But one really simple way tolook at Amazon ads that I like
to remind clients of.
It's probably one of the onlythings you can do to get in
front of new potential readersand buyers on a daily basis, and
that's usually kind of a lightbulb moment, you know.
Yeah, because nobody else hasthe time or energy to literally
(11:31):
market their book every singleday.
So paid ads are obviously theyhave their place.
It's really important for, likethe long term, to keep that
train moving.
But with this shift with Amazonand where they're going, they
are going to be paying a lotmore attention to organic sales
and customer interest.
(11:51):
And this plays into the lastpoint that Penny made.
You know, traffic from outsideof Amazon as well, and then
conversions on that traffic, youknow, and so this is a lot
about your retail page Also,what you're presenting.
This means your firstimpression really really matters
.
We've said all the time there'sno such thing as good enough
(12:13):
when it comes to your cover,when it comes to your
description.
You have milliseconds topotentially pique someone's
interest once they land on yourretail page.
So you really don't want totake a chance without, with not
optimizing that to the fullest.
You know no stone should beleft unturned.
Amazon offers a lot of freefeatures that I still.
(12:34):
It blows my mind how manypeople don't take advantage of
those.
You know that's a big focus forus with clients advantage of
those.
That's a big focus for us withclients.
And I'm going to do a shamelessplug for Penny's pre-order in
her book right now.
That's the whole reason theprize pack, what we focused on
because it is so important yourretail presence.
So I mean that is a huge reasonwhy we've been doing these a
(12:57):
lot more for clients,anticipating that this is the
direction Amazon is going in andquality content being strategic
, making it a real experiencefor the consumer.
And your retail page is one ofthe easiest ways to do that,
especially since it's your pointof sale location.
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, exactly, and it is.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
You know again not to keep comparing Amazon to Google
, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Um, google, you know, here's areally weird optimization trick
that Google rolled out a bunchof years ago and they've always
adhered to it.
Google will prioritize nicelooking sites over train wrecks
(13:40):
and when you think about it like, you think, well, that's just
being biased.
And maybe Google doesn't likemy site, but I like my site and
that's fine.
But websites, much like retailpages, they have to adhere to a
list of you know 10 things or 20things, or you know they're,
even if your site is dark andforeboding and maybe you're
(14:02):
selling a you know a crimethriller or something like that.
Like I get it, your sitedoesn't have to be everybody's
cup of tea, but it does have toappeal to um, the list, that to
the checklist that Google has,and and retail pages are very
much the same.
We preach this.
We have actually podcasts onAmazon retail pages.
So we preach this a lot andyour retail page has to be a
(14:27):
reflection of not just your book, but it has to be a reflection
of the reader as well as yourprofessionalism, and this is
where details matter.
So even something as minute asnot putting up an author photo
and just being a gray box onAmazon can potentially tell
Amazon that you don't reallycare about your brand.
(14:48):
Right, it's, it's, it's a, it'sa, really, it's a, very I mean.
I think the long and short ofit would be that details really
matter and details are startingto matter.
(15:14):
And another reason why Amazonagain is doing this is because
the majority of people who writebooks in AI just to get to make
a quick buck or whatever, theygenerally don't care about the
details.
And we see this all the timewhen we're doing Amazon
optimizations and things likethat.
When we're doing Amazonoptimizations and things like
that, I mean and Amy, speakingof optimization, we really
haven't seen a change Like this,whether or not you want to call
it a seismic shift in theiralgorithm update, but this
(15:34):
hasn't really changed how we doour keyword research.
It hasn't really changed that.
Because it's interesting, Italked to a couple of clients
that we've worked with long termand they haven't necessarily
seen their retail pages tanking.
Their keywords are solid andall this other stuff, because
(15:55):
they've been doing all the rightthings.
But have you seen any changesin how Amazon?
You know what Amazon ispresenting to you in terms of
keywords or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I would say it's interesting the more and this
has always been, I mean, we'vealways been big proponents of
keyword strings and usingkeywords that mimic shopper
behavior in terms of you know,if you're writing nonfiction,
those people are looking foranswers to specific problems.
(16:26):
You know what I mean, yeah.
Or to learn something veryspecific under a certain topic
industry, whatnot, and samething with fiction.
You know, there aren't a lot ofpeople that were just like I
read and they may say I readeverything, but when they go
looking for a book they're stilllooking for something specific.
So that's always been key ismirroring really specific.
You're better off mirroringmore specific shopper behavior
(16:50):
than you are going really broad,because and we've mentioned
this on an Amazon update showmaybe more than once, actually
because it continues it's one ofthose things that we saw that
in some things go away Amazonkind of test things and then
they disappear.
Yeah, I still continue to see,penny, that if you are broader
searches, less specific searches, you are more inclined to see
(17:13):
books.
The books that show up in thoseresults will exactly match,
like their titles will match thesearch term.
So if you say like dangerousromance or something, you're
likely to get a bunch of resultsthat actually have the word
dangerous in the title orsubtitle.
Yeah, so it's interesting.
So the more specific you are, Ipersonally still think the
(17:37):
better quality results shoppersare going to get, because it
gets much more nuanced.
You know what I mean Versusthese broad terms where it's
almost like, okay, amazon seesthat you're just throwing kind
of a general search out there,they're going to kind of give
you the easy answers back, ifthat makes sense.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Right, right, exactly , exactly, you know.
Answers back if that makessense Right, right, exactly,
exactly, you know.
And the other piece of it isthat so seller authority and
reputation is something thatAmazon looks for.
And again this is not, this isnot new.
This is something that we'vebeen talking about for a long
time.
So there's no you know.
So all this panic out thereabout the, about the algorithm
change, I think the only youknow, if you're doing all the
(18:21):
right things, there really is noreason to panic.
Just keep doing all the rightthings.
But in terms of seller authority, reputation and the other piece
of it is customer engagementmetrics.
So what Amazon means with thatessentially is if you have a
book description that doesn'tnecessarily really genuinely
(18:43):
reflect the book and again, Ihate to keep throwing AI under
the bus because we're gettingready to do a show on chat, gpt
and ways authors can use itProbably we'll drop next Friday,
but when you have, we all knowthat sometimes chat can
(19:05):
overstate what something is Like.
Amy always loves to say, oh mygosh, chat is just so excited
about everything, right, yeah,and one of the things that
triggers Amazon is when a bookdescription, for example, is not
only problematic but reallydoesn't.
You know it is a bookdescription that's written for a
(19:30):
mega best-selling book, notnecessarily a low-quality,
poorly written book that doesn'treally cover the content that
the author has said.
And I realize that non-AIwritten books sometimes also
qualify for this.
When the author doesn't get thebook description quite right or
(19:51):
the book description is low,that can impact your customer
metrics.
But the other piece is yourbook price.
So this is where Amazon is.
This is also part of thecustomer engagement.
So if a customer lands on yourretail page and your book is
priced at 50 bucks and for aprint book a paperback, I've
(20:14):
seen it it's a thing You're notgoing to make a buy unless, for
whatever reason, the consumer isyour mom and she absolutely has
to have a copy of your book.
The majority of customers are,I don't want to say price
sensitive, but we, you know,there is a particular price
metric for every genre that youwant to pay attention to, and
(20:35):
again we've done a show on thisVery, very important.
And that is really where.
So one of the things that I talkabout in the Amazon Author
Formula and again we talk aboutit in the workbook is the Amazon
relevancy score, and that'sreally what all of this comes
down to.
So Amazon and Google haveAmazon doesn't.
(20:55):
Let me just be clear Amazondoesn't call it a relevancy
score, because that's my term,but Google refers to it as a
relevancy score and basicallythe results have to be relevant
to the search.
That's really it.
It's very, very basic math andthat's where all of this stuff
comes down to.
Okay, the other piece of it isso obviously, you know book
(21:18):
covers and you can have the bestbook description in the world,
but your book cover has to alignwith your book description and
has to align with the userexperience.
Amy, do you want to, because Iknow you have very strong
feelings about book covers.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I do, and I think the frustrating part is that I give
everybody certainly ourlisteners, but just authors in
general I give everybody enoughcredit that they've had that
experience and they've seen abook and they've seen the cover
and they've gone whoa, you knowwhat I mean.
Like we're all consumers here.
We know when we're impressed.
Some things impress us, otherthings do not, and I think we
(21:54):
all know what a reallyincredible book cover looks like
.
But we talk about this all thetime too.
Penny, it's so easy to get inyour own way when you fall in
love with a concept or you fallin love with something that you
started or that you know what Imean.
You can't see past that and Ithink that is probably the
biggest issue, typically,because I think you know, I
(22:16):
think most of our listenersprobably have pretty good taste
and they can be really objectivewhen they are the consumer,
when they are the shopper.
But it gets a lot harder whenit's your baby and it's your
project and you had something inmind.
You know, you know, think howmany iterations we went through
with the cover for the workbook.
You know, just getting itexactly right, because there's
always just oh, this isn't quiteright but this is great, are we
(22:36):
done?
We want to be done Like.
You know all of that, so it'sreally hard.
But don't get in your own way bybeing so married to your cover
and a concept that you can't beobjective about what's really
working in the marketplace.
And it sounds simple but truly,I mean, granted, there's always
going to be the outliers thatland on the bestseller list
(22:58):
where the cover is just okay,but that's generally not the
rule.
You know, for the most part, ifyou go to and look at some
lists, bestseller lists forcategories, you are going to see
some pretty great covers.
And I will say, especially incertain genres, you tend to see
themes and things like that and,as you said, the website
(23:18):
preferences.
Penny, it may not be your cup oftea, but if you want to sell
books, that's what readers arebuying, that's what they're
responding positively to.
So to some degree you have toleave your preferences at the
door.
Unless this is just a passionproject and you don't really
care how many books you sell orif anybody ever reads it and you
just want to say I did it tocheck it off your list, then go
(23:39):
for it.
But otherwise, as Penny's beensaying, the reader experience
it's not just us saying it.
Amazon is now prioritizing iteven more than ever and the
cover is a huge part of that.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You know, and and in one of the videos that I watched
, as I was deep diving for thisepisode, this one video, this
individual said started to talkabout more creative ways that
you can self-design your owncover.
And that's actually when Istopped watching the video.
I know I, I, yeah, it was alittle.
Yeah, it was a little, it was,it was well, it was like a lot
(24:12):
disconcerting.
I'm like, oh my gosh, there'sjust so much.
There's so much.
Unfortunately, there's so muchbad information out there that I
watched.
This person said, okay, so wehave to stop keyword stuffing
(24:32):
our you know, our retail pages.
And I'm like, when was thatever a thing?
But here's the interesting,here's the interesting comment
on that is so SEO, search engineoptimization experts used to
recommend keyword stuffing inorder to get more visibility for
your website on Google, andGoogle at some point was like no
, we're not, that's not a thing,we're not allowing that anymore
(24:54):
.
I don't know why it took Amazonso long to catch up.
I kind of think that it hasn'ttaken Amazon that long to catch
up, but just that now it's kindof making the rounds that you
don't want to keyword stuff.
So by keyword stuffing, what wemean is is when you're reusing
like murder mystery, thriller,amateur sleuths, and you're
using that in very unnaturalways, right?
(25:16):
So I've seen that.
I've seen, and I see this inparticular with subtitles on
books, where subtitles have allof their keyword strings jammed
into a really obnoxiously longsubtitle.
So, yeah, it's like athree-line book title.
Oh my gosh, and it's sodistracting.
You're just like, oh, and whatyou're essentially doing when
(25:38):
you use keyword strings in avery unnatural, crammed, let's
uncomfortable way is you reallyare piquing Amazon's interest,
and not in a good way.
They're looking at it andthey're like, well, you know,
you're trying to trick us, sothey, basically it can impact
the ranking of your entireretail page, even if you just do
(26:00):
that on your subtitle.
So if you're listening and youhave done that, I would
definitely want to go back orcontact your publisher and have
them change that.
There's nothing wrong withhaving a keyword string, a
keyword string, in your subtitle, but not 25.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
So that's what I mean .
And Google.
This is another, and we talkedabout this on the.
I believe we talked about onthe website SEO show as well.
But Google, amazon, all of thatis getting so much more
intuitive, so it's not asliteral as it used to be, and
that was one thing that Pennyand I really that was a big
(26:37):
light bulb moment for our ownSEO.
Yeah, how keywords arecategorized and ranked and
things like that is that youknow complementary phrases and
keywords and things like thesystems are sophisticated enough
(26:57):
to recognize that that is whatyour book is about.
These are who your markets are,things like that.
So it's gotten so much smarterand so much more intuitive.
To Penny's point, you don'thave to stuff these verbatim
awkward phrases into your retailpage everywhere in order to get
(27:17):
the point across.
Yeah, you know it.
Really.
You can do it in much morefinessed ways and I assure you
Amazon will still completelyunderstand what's going on on
your page.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true.
And you know, I mean, we've hadmultiple, multiple
conversations and we've talkedto companies that specialize in
SEO and with regards to ourwebsite in particular.
At the end of the day, folks,what this comes down to is
really just the user experienceand, as AI becomes more
(27:52):
intertwined on Amazon and othersites, you really it's forcing
everybody to really up theirgame, because that is sometimes
the only way, which kind ofsurprises me a little, even
though I'm saying this, butsometimes I think that's the
only way to delineate between areal author and a chat GPT
(28:16):
author, right, so that's, youknow, and I think that's just
really where everything ischanging.
So the other piece of this tooand, amy, I'm going to let you
take the second part of this isthe 30-day launch strategy.
I cannot emphasize howimportant, yes, the pre-order is
(28:36):
.
We always talk about thepre-order, the pre-order.
My book is in pre-order only for30 days.
I was kind of a maniac aboutthat.
I'm like I only want 30 daysand I want 31.
I only want 30 days as apre-order because I have
particular strategies that Iwant to implement during that
pre-order, and optimization isactually the strategy.
Yes, we're running a pre-orderpromo.
(28:59):
I care about pre-orders up to apoint, but I really care about
Amazon categorizing the bookcorrectly, even though obviously
we're doing optimization andeverything.
But your 30-day post-launch isalso really crucial.
So if you are leaving your bookup on Amazon to kind of see
what it does on its own, I canguarantee you that it's
(29:23):
basically not going to doanything right.
And where I think a lot ofauthors get caught up in is it's
very easy to get very excitedduring the 30 days, as you
should be excited when your booklaunches.
But it's very easy to getexcited during that first 30-day
launch where you're like I'mselling books, I'm selling books
, I don't need to do marketingand I hear this also a lot I'm
selling books, I'm selling books, I don't need to do marketing.
(29:44):
But what happens is that whenweek two and week three and in
particular, week four, all ofthat starts to tank and then it
becomes much harder to resurrectthat book.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, absolutely, and if, definitely, if you find
yourself at that point andyou're not in a position to do
all your own marketing, or youjust weren't prepared to take it
over, you're then looking for amarketing partner, and that
takes some time too to find theright person.
So, you know not trying tofreak anybody out, but you're
really looking at by that point,you're what, two, sometimes
(30:19):
three months out of the gatebefore you have a real marketing
plan in place, and that'sthat's not the best way to go
about it by any means.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I love that you brought up theAmazon optimization, penny.
Like that is so.
We say it all the time.
I know it doesn't sound supersexy when people, when authors,
come to us and they're like,okay, I want to make this work,
it's my first book or it's mythird book and I want to do
(30:40):
things better.
What do you recommend?
And so often we do a criticalassessment of their Amazon
presence, what they're alreadydoing, because we're big
sticklers for building off of areally solid foundation.
And that's where the Amazonoptimization comes in.
And so we'll get back to them.
We'll say, okay, we definitelyrecommend these things with
(31:01):
Amazon.
And I'm sure a lot of times someauthors are like, well, that
doesn't sound as fun.
It may not sound as fun, but itis definitely what's in your
best interest long term.
You know, as much as we'd loveto work with a lot of our
clients forever and ever, werealize that's not realistic and
Penny and I have always beenaligned with that.
We want authors to wrap up acollaboration with us.
(31:25):
You know they're stepping outthe door Like many, many, many
steps and tears ahead of wherethey started.
Yeah, like, without a doubt, Ilove that we can feel so
confident that the Amazon workspecifically has set them up for
so many more opportunities downthe road.
You know what I mean.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, and you know, what's interesting is that
Amazon is also prioritizingquality over quantity in reviews
, and it's always been.
I mean, look, would I love tohave 10 or 20,000 reviews right
out of the gate for all of mybooks?
10,000%, I would.
But there are a lot of reviews,swapping services and buying
(32:08):
services and I don't knownecessarily the quality of each,
and this is not me saying youknow, don't do that, but what.
One of the things that we doknow is that Amazon gets hit
with a lot of low qualityreviews and that is also a
problem, because it reviews onAmazon have always been a
(32:29):
problem.
This isn't new to thisalgorithm change, but it is
great news for authors whostruggle to get reviews.
So, Amazon would prefer, asopposed to having something that
sounds super superficial, likeoh, this was a great book,
thanks, Um, you know what I mean, which tends to be a little bit
in a pay.
When you go into a pay to playsituation, you tend to get more
(32:52):
superficial, yeah, where theysort of sound like they're not
really you know, they didn'treally read the book or whatever
, nope, and as you've beensaying since the show started,
all goes back to the userexperience.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
We are all consumers and we are most of us are not
only not swayed by thosesuperficial generic reviews.
If anything, it kind of makesus second guess whether we're
going to buy that product.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Right, right, exactly .
So I think that your marchingorders really, again, if you've
listened to us for a while, youprobably know we bang this drum
a lot and you're probably doingall the right things.
If you're new to the show,welcome.
We're so glad that you're here.
Definitely go back, because wehave a whole bunch of
optimization shows and Amazonspecific and all the things.
(33:40):
We just had a really reallylong show Emmy just pointed that
out.
I didn't realize it was likealmost an hour on doing book
events.
But your sole focus should beon the consumer.
So, driving external trafficmost of you are already doing
that and again, I'm not talkingabout running ads on Google or
on Facebook or Instagram,driving from social media
(34:04):
platforms.
Having an author website, emailnewsletters are great.
I realize it's not always everyauthor's thing, but we have an
author that we're working withand she has a whole bunch of
books out and email newslettersare she and I are going to be
talking about that are just so,so, so beneficial.
(34:24):
Don't overthink it.
We have a show on emailnewsletters.
Go check it out.
Optimize listings forengagement Right.
Letters.
Go check it out.
Optimize listings forengagement right.
So make sure that you are usingall the tools that Amazon gives
you, not just the fact that youcan sell your book there, but
A-plus content, which we did anentire show on A-plus content
also.
And then you know I mean makechanges to your book.
(34:47):
You know book description or,if you have a publisher, see if
they're willing to make somemodifications.
And by that I mean if you'vewon an award, if you have a
standout review you always wantto lead with a standout review
on your retail page.
The only thing that matters andI know Amy and I have said this
probably collectively now over50 times in this show the only
(35:10):
thing that matters is your enduser, and that should be the
singular focus of your Amazonretail page.
So did I miss anything?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
No, this was exciting .
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, it's really exciting and definitely, I mean,
like I said, we're all doingbattle with the changing times
and one of those is, you know, alot of people going out there
and just creating these lowquality books on using AI.
That's that is forcing the restof us to really level up a
little bit more.
(35:41):
So thank you so much for tuningin Again.
My book is up for pre-order.
Check the show notes.
We'll have all the informationthere.
I'm super excited to know whaty'all think and, by the way,
thank you so much for the recentreviews that we've gotten on
the show.
We really love reviews and besure, if you're not subscribed
(36:01):
to the show, be sure tosubscribe so that you will get a
notification every time a newshow drops, which that does
every Friday.
We'll see you next week.
Bye-bye.
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