June 13, 2024 • 46 mins
In this episode, we welcome the Kindlepreneur himself, Dave Chesson for a chat about selling books on Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing.
Dave has devoted huge amounts of time and effort into helping authors sell books and reach readers. We chat about the latest changes Amazon has made to its book category system, how selling books on Amazon works, how you can use Amazon ads to great effect, and what best practices authors can follow (like using keywords) to find more success.
The book marketing advice you'll find here will help you sell both fantasy fiction books, non-fiction books, and books of all genres. Dave reveals all about how Amazon works for selling books here.
As always, if you have any questions, comments or requests, please email us at thefantasywriterstoolshed@gmail.com
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
https://mailchi.mp/395aa89d6ec0/join-richie-billings-community-of-writers
GET FANTASY WRITING CLASSES AND BOOKS
https://www.patreon.com/TheFantasyWritersToolshed
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Learn more about Dave Chesson: https://kindlepreneur.com/
Get Dave's free Amazon Ads course: www.amscourse.com
ABOUT RICHIE BILLING
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Thank you for listening to the Fantasy Risers Tool Shed.
If you'd like to join our writing community on Discord and
get access to fantasy writing classes and books on Patreon,
check the links in the description.
And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, be sure to
follow or subscribe. And to support the show, leave a
quick rating on Spotify or iTunes and share this episode on
(00:23):
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for listening.
Enjoy the show. I am delighted to be joined
today by Dave Chesson, an author, bookmark and Jedi, and
(00:47):
founder of the brilliant websiteKindle Preneur, which is devoted
to book marketing. And Amazon itself has endorsed
it, so that that's a good measure.
Dave, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me.
I'm really honoured to have thisopportunity to chat with you
because I've been using your sites for a good few years.
And when I started putting booksoff on Amazon and wasn't getting
(01:08):
any sales. So it's, it's really, I found
this so helpful. And I, I know just from reading
the bit about you on the site that you've helped some amazing
writers as well, like Austin Scott Card and Ted Decker.
So it's it's a fantastic thing that you've created.
Thank you. Yeah, it's been, it's been a
wild journey, we'll put it that way.
(01:29):
So we're going to talk a bit about that today and also very
interesting new developments on Amazon to do with categories for
books. I know you're keen to discuss
this Dave, but we're also going to chat about bookmarks and more
generally Amazon ads, how the algorithm works and, and selling
books generally, as well as a bit of writing talk as well.
(01:51):
So let's let's get back to the beginning then.
And can you tell us a bit about you and your journey and and how
you ended up where you are today?
Yeah, well, so I grew up with dyslexia and, you know, back
then there really wasn't much known about it except you maybe
got the title and that was it. There was no help for it per SE.
(02:13):
And so through my life, I alwaysthought I was just terrible at,
at English and spelling and, and, and also to writing.
Turns out that I actually have something called dysgraphia.
So, you know, like I, you just never want to watch me actually
write on paper. And so you go through your life
(02:33):
and you think to yourself, you know what, English isn't my
thing. It never will be.
I'll never be able to write. So I actually went into things
like physics, you know, and science and blah, blah, blah.
But, you know, I've really enjoyed the storytelling.
I've just, I've really enjoyed teaching.
I've always enjoyed those things.
And so my desire to write never went away.
(02:53):
My belief in myself was, was kind of the, the limiting
factor. But there came a time where it's
like, that's it. I'm going to, I'm going to
write, I'm going to do this now.Somebody who doesn't have, you
know, years of writing under their belt, you know, who's
crafted their, their writing, you know, blah, blah, blah, like
all that. Somebody's like just getting
started. For me, I knew that I can't just
(03:16):
sit down and write about anything and, and, and it be
something that makes not only people want to buy, but also
read and then say great things about it.
OK, Instead I decided to say, you know what?
I'm going to try to do as much research as I can to figure out
if there's a kind of book or a subject, you know, that people
are looking for and they're not finding.
(03:38):
Let me start with that. That will give me more
confidence in not only writing, but the amount of time and
resources I was putting into writing, right?
So I started studying Amazon. I started to ask myself, hey,
what's kind of information can they glean from them?
You know, like, First off, how can I tell if books are are, you
know, actually making sales or not?
(03:59):
And then I started, you know, analyzing how, why does Amazon
choose to show this book over another book?
Like what makes them tick and how can I best understand it?
And so I started to create, you know, these algorithms and these
inside of Excel sheets and, and I got like really hardcore into
the numbers and tracking and I was able to take that research
(04:23):
and start, you know, focusing onbooks that I was able to find.
Wow, there are a lot of people searching for this and nothing's
there or they're searching for it and there's this one book and
that's all they have and they don't.
And you can tell from their reviews or you can tell from,
you know, the experience is thatthey're not jazzed with it.
(04:44):
Stuff like, all right, now that I know this, let me approach
this, let me gather the information, let me put
something that's very clear and concise, you know, put together
and then publish it. And it would, that was the
moment where all of a sudden my writing, it wasn't just making
sales, you know, in the first month and then going away.
(05:06):
It was making consistent sales every month.
And so I was able to stack my, you know, my author income
because it was like, this book made this much and then the next
book made this much. And so they just stacked.
And it was a really awesome and liberating experience.
But then I found out that there was no information out there
about this. Nobody was.
And this was a while ago. OK.
(05:26):
Like and, and no other websites talked about it.
Nobody talked about analyzing Amazon or the marketing
component to it. And I was like, wow, you know,
maybe I should start a website so that people understand that
this not only exists, but that this is the kind of information
that publishing companies have been using for years.
(05:47):
And here we sell. Publishers are just kind of
throwing stuff on the wall and seeing what sticks.
So that's why I created kindlepreneur.com.
And as I was building that website, I realized that a lot
of authors didn't like using an Excel sheet, you know, 'cause
all of a sudden then you're like, oh, you got to do all
these things. And, you know, author's like,
ah, you know, I'm like, OK, OK. And that's why I took all of
(06:09):
that information and created what was back then it was called
KDP Rocket, Now it's called Publisher Rocket.
And so that's kind of been my journey in a nutshell.
And it was because of that work,it was because of the software,
which, you know, major publishing companies use it to
sell published, you know, individuals, best sellers all,
(06:31):
like all groups because they used it.
That's where I got connected with like Orson Scott Card and
Ted Decker and a whole bunch of others, you know, 'cause
interesting enough, by the way, a lot of those published
authors, they've written a lot of books that their publishers
have rejected and the books are just sitting there.
(06:52):
So like with Scott, which by theway, that's Orson Scott.
Carl, he, he goes by Scott, which is a little, little
something. So if you ever mean Scott and
you'll know that it was like, oh, I know you, No, no, you
know, but I know your middle name.
Anyway, Scott, he's got a whole bunch of books that are just
sitting in his drawer. They got now that now I'm like,
Scott, you need to just just go ahead and publish it on, on
(07:14):
Amazon. All of a sudden people see a new
Orson Scott Card book. Like, dude, you're gonna do
great. You'll be surprised.
Also, too, you don't have to give 70% to the publisher
instead, Yeah, sadly, you have to give Amazon 30%, but
whatever. You've got a huge e-mail list.
You've got a name like this is. So I started doing a lot of work
with them, publishing companies.They for the longest time kind
(07:37):
of Pooh poohed on Amazon. You know, they didn't.
They're like, we don't, we don'tneed to, we don't need to work
hard on it. Amazon's gonna go away.
And then they kept seeing the public self-publishing authors,
like crushing it. And all of a sudden our goodness
were behind. And so I started having
consulting gigs where I was justcalled in to help them
understand Amazon ads and to understand the Amazon algorithm
(08:02):
and what was going on with it. And so I, it's been crazy
because I've seen like all spectrums, fantasy, non fiction,
you know, or excuse me, fiction and non fiction, New York Times
best selling to self. And it's just been a really
cool, wild journey. It's an amazing one as well.
It's it's, I remember using KDP Rockers years ago and it is it
(08:23):
was an amazing tool to use. I think the results it gave you
are fantastic. And yeah, yeah.
And it's, it's, it's just goes to show like the, the quality
that you've you've you've put into something like that and
everyone else has come, come knocking at your door.
So it's a, it's a real testamentto that.
(08:44):
Well. Thank you.
Yeah. And obviously being a leader in
this, you've, you're constantly looking at Amazon and you're
looking for any new opportunities to exploit and the
new category system for books. So can you tell us a bit about
that? Yeah, so Amazon categories, let
me tell you what I mean. Amazon is, is, is they can be
(09:08):
really problematic. OK, They, they make a lot of
mistakes in my book, per SE, butit's funny.
Is I, I kind of laughingly joke and it's like, you know,
honestly, because Amazon really sucks at getting information out
there and doing things right and, you know, educating.
It's like I jokingly say I stillhave a job.
So it's like, I want to about them and say like, you guys are
terrible at this. But at the same time, I'm like,
(09:28):
well, you know, OK. Please keep screwing up.
Yeah, right. So to best explain the new
Amazon category system, let me just briefly cover the old one.
So the authors kind of understand maybe the why this
happened. Yeah, so back in the back before
the new system, which is what, like a year, year and a half ago
(09:50):
or so, OK. And and it phased in.
So that's why it's really hard to nail down the exact dates.
Not like On this date, on this time that, you know, they did
the jump. They do this weird migration
thing. It used to be that when you went
to publish your book on Amazon, so you go into KDP, they ask you
to select two categories. OK, here's the thing.
(10:12):
Those weren't categories. They were called Bisat's.
Now Bisaks are an international standardization category system.
OK Bisaks were created because they were publishing companies
that would look at their book and they would just be like,
that's a Wiccan book. That's a Wiccan category.
And then then we'd ship it off to all the stores and the stores
(10:34):
would open up the box and look at the book.
You'd be like, Wiccan. Is that fantasy or is that
nonfiction? Is that religious?
Like what, what? What do I do with this?
And so the book kept getting putin the wrong spot.
Now imagine too something like Powell's book.
You know, like a giant book store compared to a Mom Paul
bookstore. OK, Mom store might only have
(10:56):
like 4 shelves, you know. But the giant one has hundreds
of shelves, right? And so it became problematic.
So they created the standardization system where
there's only 5000 bisects, 5000 plus bisects, and that when you
go to publish a book, you would choose a BISAC.
And that BISAC has like a numbersystem.
(11:18):
So that in the computers, the store, when they get the book,
they just look at the BISAC. They're like, OK, well, our
store says that this BISAC automatically goes to that
shelf. So now there's no more, you
know, human component. People could just quickly put it
where it goes. So Amazon adopted the BISAC
system. The problem with this is that
(11:40):
Amazon has over 12,000 categories.
The Bisak is five and Amazon is 12.
OK, 5012 thousand. So because when an if an author
didn't know this, if they selected those two Bisaks, which
they didn't know is Bisaks, theyjust thought they were
categories OK, they would nine times out of 10 get put into the
(12:02):
Amazon category that's connectedwith that Bisak.
But a lot of times they would get put into something different
that they didn't select. Then on top of that too, if
because there's 12,000 categories, Amazon had a system
where authors could then contactAmazon and say, hey Amazon,
please put my book in these other categories as well.
And so authors could can contactAmazon through a form that they
(12:26):
had and convince them to put their book in like 10 plus
categories. OK.
Now, the reason why Amazon got rid of that system, OK, is
because First off, they had hundreds, if not thousands of
authors every day contacting them to then change up their
(12:46):
book into a category, OK? Amazon trying to cut costs, you
know, and increase profitability.
So killing that off was a big thing #2 is that there were
authors that were just putting their book into whatever they
wanted. And so there was a lot of times
where, you know, they might havewritten a, let's say, a romance
(13:06):
book about a math teacher, OK? And the author was trying to put
it into calculus because calculus books, you know, if you
sell two books on Amazon in the calculus category, you'd be #1
bestseller. Romance book is always perennial
#1 bestseller. So it was really mucking up the
system. So then Amazon decided, OK,
(13:29):
we're going to get rid of that and instead we're actually going
to show them inside of KDP all of our categories.
OK, so now Amazon categories andyou can select two.
OK, boom, boom, done. That's it.
No more contacting us, no more form, nada.
OK. And so it to authors, this seems
(13:51):
great. The problem is, again, Amazon
doesn't tell you all all all of it.
And I kind of feel like they lied about this one.
I think there were such huge things that they should have
told people that they didn't. Now, one thing they did admit,
and it's in fine print somewhere, it is something that
says that they hold the right tochange your categories, remove
(14:13):
your categories, or add categories however they see fit.
OK, That is something they did write down.
So you may select those two Amazon categories now and Amazon
like a week later might be like,no, thank you, We'll just throw
you into this. And a lot of authors were like,
my book does not in that. That's wrong.
(14:34):
That's absolutely wrong. But there's no form to fill out.
That sucks. So that was a little bit of an
issue, OK. And Amazon did not say what
triggers it, but I'll tell you guys in a bit, OK.
But the second thing they did all right, And this is this is
probably the most heinous thing.They created categories that no
(14:56):
matter what, if you go into thatcategory, you cannot become a
best seller in that category. Why?
Because there's no rankings in it.
And we call I, I made-up the term for this so as to help
people understand what it is. We call them ghost categories.
OK, Well get this, you got almost a 25% chance that a
(15:16):
category in Amazon is a ghost category, A1 in four chance.
There is a really good chance that there are authors out there
who selected only ghost categories, OK?
And no matter what they do in marketing, they will not hit #1
bestseller, they will, they won't understand it.
They're like, what's going on? OK, it's because you're in ghost
(15:36):
categories. And what sucks is there's no way
that you can figure out if it's a ghost category unless you do a
whole bunch of like crazy digital stuff, you know, like,
ha, it's really hard to explain,but it's OK to figure out.
OK, so there's all these authorsthat are writing incredible
(15:57):
books. They've done all their things
and then they put themselves in good those categories and they
no matter what, they don't hit their best seller status.
That sucks. I mean, that really, really
sucks. And the reason why Amazon is
doing that is, well, for a couple of reasons, but one of
the biggest ones is that they get a lot of requests from for
(16:20):
new categories. And in order to add a new
category to their system to do it right, it requires a lot of
craziness in the website structure.
You don't just create a new one and pop, there it is.
There's a new page. But then that's a lot of work.
And they don't want to have to do that so they can create a
(16:41):
category so you can, yay, there's a new category that fits
my book. And they didn't have to lift a
finger to do a lot of it. Not not to not to do anything
political here, OK or push anything.
This is not my point, but it does help illustrate the the
thing there are a lot of new LGBTQ categories.
(17:03):
You know that Amazon's been adding a massive amount of our
our ghost categories like it's crazy do.
You think like they could just be waiting to generate enough
titles within them categories before they turn them.
No, because when you look. At What is a Ghost?
You'll find ones that you know are super popular like it's
(17:23):
crazy. Like for example paranormal
romance. I think it's just paranormal
romance is a ghost that's. Huge.
Normal romance and it's a oh, give it not intended.
But that being said, though, it like, and it's it's not just
paranormal romance. It's like paranormal romance or
romance or or whatever. That is a huge category that's
(17:44):
been around for a long time, butit's a ghost category.
And and so if you put your book in that, you get nothing from
it. So that's a huge issue.
And then finally also too, there's a lot of duplicate
categories out there. So this is the third and final
major. You got to be kidding me.
OK. So for example, what I mean by
(18:05):
this is that in science fiction and fantasy, science fiction,
and I can't remember off the topof my head an example, we'll say
like alien invasion, OK, if you select that, there's also a
category in literary fiction, science fiction, alien invasion,
there's also maybe another category somewhere else.
(18:27):
They're all duplicates of each other because if you put
yourself in one, it automatically like all of the
books in those three that examples I gave, they're really
just one list. So you might be thinking to
yourself, oh, this is perfect. And then you're getting it.
It's one of the most competitivecategories you could be in, and
you don't realize it, right? But here's the fun.
(18:52):
So what? What are authors to do about
this, right? Well, First off, now that you
only get three choices, it's more important than ever to do
your research on your categories.
Just showing up to Amazon's, youknow, KDP and just randomly
selecting 3 is a really bad idea.
(19:12):
Even more so now that you know, Amazon has made it that you only
get the three and then they kindof control it.
OK with ghost categories, honestly, the best thing you
could do is just know what, whata ghost category is, which ones
are ghost categories and avoid them as much as possible.
OK, Just don't, don't play those.
(19:33):
Those are, those are bad and they're not going to do anything
for you. You feel good 'cause you marked
it, but it wise, marketing wise it it sucks.
What's the biggest sort of telltale sign you'd say for
someone looking for a ghost category?
Well, manually to do it manually, you got to go to
(19:54):
Amazon.com, the like the website.
So outside of KDP, you got to search for that category.
You got to find that category. OK.
And by the way, you can't use the category tree that shows up
on the left because they don't exist.
So they don't show up on those. You have to search for it and
find the actual node, which by the way means you have to know
the exact number. For that category, usually you
(20:15):
need software, some kind of tellto figure out what the category
node is. Go to that particular page and
if it doesn't have the name of the category on it, like so it
will just say like best seller 4627-O instead of, you know,
fantasy blah, blah, blah. That's if it's using just a
(20:36):
number that's a ghost. Now, some people may say, like
in KDP, you can click on the categories that are there.
Those aren't category pages. And I, this is one of the thing
that makes me feel like they're hiding this ghost thing is that
they send you to a marketing page, not the actual categories
(20:57):
page. So you can't click on that link
in KDP to go check out the category.
It'll just take you to somethingthat looks cool, but it's not
actually taking you to the categories page where you can
see is it ghost or is it not? So you, so the manual way is to
do that. That's one of the things that
that my team and I, we figured out and we put it in publisher
(21:20):
Rocket that now when you go to the category feature, you can
see every category that's a duplicate every and what it's
connected to, you can see if it's ghost or not.
And you know you can make a muchbetter decision.
I. Don't know of any other way
other than knowing the nodes or you know, publisher rocket so.
(21:41):
Another reason to use publisher rockets.
What another good reason to use Publisher Rockets?
Yeah, it will. But that's the thing, though,
is, is that Amazon's always changing.
And it's really important, you know, to stay on top of it.
And and again, I still don't understand why Amazon did the
ghost thing except unless you know, just being lazy to an
extent and then also not tellingpeople like that kind of sucks.
(22:06):
And then just cutting off any sort of form of communication
with anybody. Yeah, well, you know, it a
weird, a weird thing. Let's say you're a major
publishing company and you have gotten a big name author.
You know that and you're publishing that.
You know this book's gonna go great.
And then your team in your, you know, your publishing division
(22:26):
selects a whole bunch of ghost categories 'cause they don't
know it. No matter whether like, like all
of that momentum, all of that work, all of the money they
spent and they can't get a best seller tag, you know, so it,
it's, it's one of those things where it's just like, man, that
just kind of sucks that you're doing it.
So, so that's the new category system.
(22:47):
And I'm going to put one last nugget for people on this too.
Is that so the duplicates. So we talked about the, the
ghost categories, OK. We talked about their, their new
system and everything like that.Duplicate categories, though, I
actually like those. I tell authors they should maybe
target one if they can. The reason why I love the
(23:12):
duplicates, at least one OK, is that I said those 3 examples,
all three of those are in different main categories.
OK, so I, you know, made-up science fiction and fantasy is 1
main category. Literary fiction is another main
category. And then we'll say YA, OK, they
all have an alien invasion in them.
(23:34):
I get lumped into all of the alien invasion category.
Got it. But if my book sells really
well, I could either be placed as the best, you know, science
fiction and fantasy, you know, science fiction category.
I could be placed in the you know, I, I'm now the best seller
in the literary fiction, sciencefiction category as well as the
(23:55):
YA. So it gives me more options of
showing up in Amazon, especiallyif my sales are very good and I
can bump myself up to the next level.
So a duplicate's not a bad thing.
Just know that they're usually really competitive.
I would almost say to like majorpublishing companies or big time
authors, you know, or authors that have like huge e-mail lists
(24:16):
or whatever that you know for sure hit that duplicate.
Otherwise, you know, maybe be aware of the fact that you're
putting yourself in a category that you're going to have to
fight tooth and nail to have relevance in.
Nice. I saw fascinating stuff and
you've done really good researchthere as well, getting into the
nuts and bolts of the code, so that's off to you.
I'm gonna look into that for sure.
(24:38):
One of the things that's really helped me is first and foremost,
I'm an author and I'm constantlyusing Amazon and I'm constantly
trying to figure out how to makemy author business better.
The second thing is, is that, you know, having a coding
background and working with programmers, sometimes I'm able
to look under the hood of Amazonand understand more than what's
on the surface. And so combining those two
(25:00):
things together has just been like absolutely fine.
You know, it's allowed me to kind of break the news on, on
the duplicates as well as the, you know, the ghost categories.
It's what's allowed me to kind of figure out their algorithm
and their keywords. And there was another thing too,
that we developed as well was that we found that there's a
couple of keywords for each category that someone should use
(25:23):
as one of their keywords in order to really solidify their
books staying in the category. So we've kind of alerted
authors, hey, here's a couple ofkeywords you might want to put
into your seven Kindle keyword boxes so as to make sure you
have staying power in the category.
So just a lot of stuff. Sorry, I know I was drinking
from a fire hose but Amazon was just open.
(25:45):
And help. This kind of.
Stuff, I think that's not reallytheir jam.
Whatever. Displayed a desire for that.
Since you mentioned the algorithm, could you tell us a
bit about what kind of things Amazon looks for when someone
uploads a book? Yeah.
So that could be a super technical response and I'm not
(26:08):
going, I'm going to paint the story, OK?
When we let, I'm going to make us all sound like humans.
So we'll make it the Amazon human and the author human.
OK, We take our book and we upload it to Amazon.
OK, now imagine Amazon like looking at this book.
What is this is is it is it Wiccan?
(26:29):
Is it religious? Is it, you know, non fiction?
Is it fantasy? Is it I don't know what to do.
Well, when we're filling out theinformation in KDP, we're
helping them. We're saying, all right, look,
Amazon, OK, this this book is isa fiction.
It is a fantasy. It is all these things.
OK, now that could be in the words in our title and subtitle.
(26:53):
OK, that could be the categorieswe select.
It's the words we put in our book description.
It's the seven Kindle keyword boxes that we put in.
All of that is helping Amazon tosay, oh, I know not only what
this book is, but where it should go.
Got it. Thanks for the help.
OK, so it's not about doing one thing.
(27:15):
It's not like this hack where, OK, you put this one word here
and next thing you know you got it.
No, you it's not that it's everything.
The way I explain it to authors is the more confident Amazon is
with what your book is, who it'sfor, you know, like, and, and
what sub, sub genre or whatever,the more confident they are, the
(27:36):
more they do the authors that get there to KDP and they just
randomly come up with some categories and they randomly
come up with some words in theirkeywords and they throw up their
book description, you know, and,and that's all they do when they
move on, that's the one where Amazon's like, Hey, I don't
really know what to do with this.
And so they kind of sprinkle it,but they don't really help
(27:56):
'cause they can't, you tide their hands behind their back,
right? So the key is, is as an author
is, is to approach it from how do I best help Amazon?
OK, you know, for example, in nonfiction using describing, you
know, and I've, I've got articles about this, like for
example, if you type into Google, like nonfiction keywords
(28:22):
for Amazon or anything like that, or fiction keywords,
depending on what book you are 'cause they're different.
You'll find this step by step process that will help you.
But in non fiction, I found thatyou should have phrases and
words that are either the pain point, the problem that you're,
you know, running into the thingthat you're trying to struggle
with, or the way you would describe the result that you
(28:43):
want agitation words like fast, you know, I want to lose weight
fast, seven steps two, you know,like these kind of.
And then finally the demographicas in who is this book for?
You know, is this single moms? Is this, you know, busy, busy
(29:04):
parents? Is this, you know, for kids?
Is this these things help Amazonbecause now they're going to be
like, oh, okay, you know, I, I should show it in front of these
people. So those really important and
sometimes crafting the best subtitle is one that says, you
know, lose weight fast, you know, for single moms, you know,
or, or whatever, but or that might be your title.
And then your subtitle is, you know, don't have time busy with
(29:27):
work. This book will solve it, you
know, or something like that, using those words that the
customer would use to describe what they're looking for.
And then now Amazon's like, oh, when they type this in, I should
show this book here. Same thing with your keywords
and your, your book description and your categories.
They all help to say to Amazon, yes, this is really about how to
(29:48):
lose weight. This is about people who, who
you know, time is a problem and it is for these specific people.
I feel great about this. Next time somebody types that
in, I want to show that book first because it seems like it's
going to answer their problems with fiction.
It's it's about describing the story, you know, it's the
setting and time period, it's the type of main character, it's
(30:11):
the catalyst that starts the story.
It's the flavor of the genre. You know, these are all
incredibly important one, and I'm going to just breakdown one
of them specifically. But like the flavor of the genre
is probably the most important thing a fiction author could do
because, you know, let's say theword romance.
Well, not, not not to make another joke, but there's 50
(30:33):
Shades of romance here. OK, there's thousands honestly,
to be honest, because on one side of the spectrum you could
have wholesome, clean, you know,we'll say, you know, Christian
romance or something like that. And on the other hand, you got
like the BDM or, or what you know, erotica to the Max or
something. Well, it's.
Important for romance readers toensure that the book they're
getting is their kind of romance, you know?
(30:56):
And so shoppers will want to clarify that they will use those
words. You know, they will say same
thing with mystery, different types of mystery, you know,
wholesome, clean, you know, to bloody gore, you know, killers.
And the words they use to describe the story they're
looking for is incredibly important.
(31:18):
And the more you align your bookto one of those, the more
confident Amazon is on your where they should put it.
They're not gonna put, you know,Christian wholesome in the
bondage one. They're not going to.
Put blood and gore in the, you know, cozy mystery.
They're and that's the key. And so that's the first part of
(31:40):
it to the algorithm. The algorithm is taking in the
information you provide them. They call it metadata and
they're like, ah, OK, let's giveit a try.
The second part to the algorithmis then convincing them that,
yeah, you belong there. They give you the opportunity,
they show you to their customers.
And now you need to prove to them that customers are happy
(32:01):
with you being there. OK, So if I type in like, cozy
mystery in a small town, you know, or ex sleuth cozy mystery
in a small town, OK. And my cover has like, darkness
and it's got like, you know, these ominous eyes in the
(32:22):
background and somebody with a flashlight, you know, standing
there. And I don't even if your book
truly is a ex sleuth cozy mystery in a small town, there
is nothing on your cover that helps the shopper to say, oh,
yeah, that looks like a great, you know, ex sleuth cozy mystery
in a small town. Nothing.
(32:42):
You're not going to click on it.They're not going to engage.
And that book will fall out of grace and will not show up on on
searches because it's a mix match.
Your cover doesn't match what the shoppers are looking for.
You got it in front of them. It doesn't fit.
OK. Or let's say you nail the cover.
OK, you got the small town elements.
(33:03):
You've got, you know, something that shows it's ex sleuth.
You know, you've got all these elements that says, oh, this
looks like a really good comfy cozy, you know, mystery like
this is my jam. This, this is my type.
Then they click on your book, OK, and they go to look and they
start reading your book description.
And your book description is like, you know, it's written
like a book report. You know, it is giving away
(33:27):
every detail. You almost know who the killer
is already before you even, you know, or the criminal before you
even read the book. Like, and 07 different
characters introduced like he oryou write it.
And, and you, you put too much in the element of the murder,
the first murder that happened. And now it sounds like it's
scary gory. OK, then what you're going to
(33:48):
have is you'll have a lot of people engage with your book
because your book cover and yourtitle look great and it looks
like it fits. But then they get to the
disjointedness of your book description.
They're like, Nope, peace be with you and back out and they
look for another book. Well, Amazon's watching all of
this. They're watching.
And you know what? If your book is, if people are
clicking on it, they're going tokeep you around.
(34:08):
You might not be #1 but they'll keep you around because at least
shoppers are showing that, hey, when I type this in, I do engage
with this book. But if they're not converting
and they're not buying, Amazon'sall about what makes them more
money. So it'll be like, well, when
this book was here, we made a lot of money.
And then we put this new book inhere and we don't make as much
money. They bring, you know, the money
(34:29):
maker up top again, and they move your book down.
If that's the case, if you can prove to them that, Oh no, you
know, like people that typed that in, yeah, that's, that's
the book they want, and then they purchase it, then by golly,
you're going to show up #1 And this is kind of like, for
example, a very crude example. But if somebody types in your
exact title, 9 times out of 10, they're looking for your exact
(34:53):
title, whether they heard on a podcast a friend recommended or
whatever. And that's why the algorithm of
Amazon will put that book numberone for your title, because
that's what makes them more money.
However, though, there's been a lot of authors that are like,
look, I'll type in the title of my book and I can't find it
anywhere. Yeah, that's because somehow
it's been proven that when they type in that title, your book is
(35:16):
not what they're engaging with. And like, there's a couple of
people that are trying to game the system by titling their book
with like, you know, a very popular word, you know, or
something like that. You're kind of hurting yourself.
You're sending the signal to Amazon that, hey, this book
isn't popular, people don't likeit, and when we show it, they
don't engage algorithm. Quick.
(35:41):
Discussion on how Amazon's A9 algorithm works.
By the way, I call it the algorithm for all those tech
people out there that are cringing for me saying it.
I understand Amazon has lots of algorithms to call it just one
is a misnomer. That being said is when I talk
about the algorithm, I talk about their search bar algorithm
and it did used to actually havea name called a nine so.
(36:05):
There you go. Them the caveat for the for the
tech techie people out there, I acknowledge, but you know, it's
easier just to talk about the algorithm.
Definitely, yeah. I suppose we're running out of
time. But one thing I wanted to ask
you about was ads on Amazon, because I know a lot of authors
gravitate towards Amazon ads because this is where the
readers are. So it makes sense to spend money
(36:26):
on ads, but people have a lot ofmixed results with it.
So do you use ads a lot in your strategies?
I love ads and well excuse me let me say it.
I love Amazon ads. I think Amazon though honestly,
not to sound jerky or so, but ifAmazon hired me as a consultant
to step in, I swear I could fix like 5 things that would
(36:49):
dramatically improve both sides lives.
OK so I think that not as a it'snot a prideful statement, it's
not a cocky statement. It's just to state that there
are problems that exist that I'mjust scratching my head that
they didn't fix. So it's not a perfect system.
I have seen the system improve over time, but you kind of, you
kind of mention it. One of the reasons why I love
(37:10):
Amazon ads more than other ads like Facebook, etcetera and all
these is that for Amazon ads, well, let's talk about Facebook
ads. On Facebook ads, I have to be
really, really good at it because people go to Facebook
because they're bored or they're, they want to, you know,
check out the cat video or what people are eating or what's
going on, you know, all that. I got to create an ad that stops
(37:32):
them from that convinces them that at that moment they want a
book and then to send them somewhere to go get a book.
Or, you know, for some of the other strategies, just some no
name person I wanted, I want to go sign up for their e-mail
list. So I get marketed for their
book. Like that's a lot of marketing
gumption. That's a that's, that's it's
(37:54):
very doable. There are a lot of people that
make money doing it, but that's a lot of work.
You got to be really good with Amazon ads.
I don't have to convince them togo buy a book.
They're on Amazon because they wanted to buy a book.
Great. All I got to do is convince them
to buy my book. That's it.
You know, they already have an account with Amazon.
They all they have to do is click one button, you know, one
(38:15):
click buy, boom, there it is. Goes right to their Kindle, you
know, or or you know, the shipment is all processed and
done. I just got to convince them that
my book's the one. So I really enjoy that about
Amazon ads. But here's my caveat to Amazon
ads. I tell authors this all the
time. Amazon ads is a skill.
(38:36):
The best way to think of it, OK,it is not AII watched a course
and then I set some things up and then I sat back and it came
back a month later and I'm like,what happened?
I mean, honestly, your chances of success doing that is like
5%, OK. That's why you'll have a lot of
people out there that will like,you know, they'll do the Amazon
(38:57):
ads like this doesn't work. It's like, it's kind of like
learning how to juggle. You can't just throw three
things in the air when you can'tjuggle immediately, you know,
and, and not belittling anybody.It's not knocking, it's just
trying to explain it. It is one of those things where
you really have to approach it like a skill.
I want to learn how to juggle 6 balls in the air at once.
(39:17):
Great. I will start with 1-2, then
moving to three. Oh boy, you know, but to move to
four, you know, like you are sharpening your, you know, your,
your knife. You are.
And so I tell people, but it's awonderful skill.
Once you have it down and you understand and you have you, you
really understand your genre or your subsection and what works,
(39:40):
you start to gain intuition. I'll talk about that in a second
about things to do and not do. Your quickness to profitability
is a lot faster. Your propensity to make a
mistake is a lot smaller. You can find these things that
that kind of help you to get above the rest real quickly.
(40:01):
OK. And so I use the word intuition.
I think it's the best way to talk about mastering a skill and
especially in marketing. OK, my submarine captain once
said this to me and I, I, it stuck with me.
He said he doesn't believe in the word mastery.
There's no such thing. Mastery is the peak.
It's perfection. It doesn't exist.
He's like, But those that we call masters, what they really
(40:24):
have is they have intuition, OK?And you know, they intuitively
know what to do faster than most.
Can they still make mistakes? Yes, of course.
Can they still learn more things?
Yes, of course. Can they still be beat?
Of course. But they're quicker to realize
I've been beat. They've been quicker to realize
they made a mistake. They're quicker to choose the
(40:44):
right decision. OK, Well, gain intuition with
two things, OK? Knowledge plus experience.
So yes, learn how to do Amazon ads.
Matter of fact, I have a free online video course on it and
you can find it at amscourse.com.
Take the course 100% free. The key thing is, is don't just
(41:07):
try it once. Don't just try it for a day.
Don't just try it for a week, but devote time.
And I, I talk about this in the course, make like a 30 minutes
on Monday, 30 minutes on Wednesday and 30 minutes on
Friday and do that for a whole bunch of weeks, no matter what
and gain the experience, practice, try something, you
know, and, and all of a sudden you're going to be able to, I
(41:30):
can step into an ad in my genresand my topics and get it
profitable infinitely faster than, you know, four years ago,
you know, when this kind of thing was, you know, I'm even
better at it than I was, you know, six months ago because I
know these little things. And I'll, I'll give you an, I'll
give you an example between a, we'll say an intuitive Amazon
(41:56):
ads person. And I tried some things, OK, an
intuitive ads person kind of knows.
And this is one of the tricks that I've done with a certain
genre and it was for hard science, OK, which is a science
fiction that really tries to be as real in using science in
(42:16):
order to make it science fiction.
You know, So it's not just saying there's a magical, you
know, propulsion, Dr. They'll actually talk about like, you
know, Sonic pulse beam, you know, and and they'll actually
break it out. The Martian.
He's watched it or read the book.
That's hard science. OK, Well, I don't just do
advertisements for the word hardscience.
(42:38):
It's too competitive. The cost per click is too high.
There's you know, I'll I might put it in there just so the
Amazon ads knows it's hard science, but I may like make it
that only if it's like 30 cents,you know, like I'll do that.
Where I is. I go after astrophysics books,
quantum mechanics books and any other crazy science fiction like
(43:00):
or I'm sorry, science book textbooks.
And that's because nobody's advertising on those.
There's no, but I'll tell you what, if you got, if you're
reading, you know, Stephen Hawking's and stuff like that,
then your labor of genre is probably hard, you know, hard
scientific. And now all of a sudden I'm
getting clicks for like $0.10 and I'm getting really highly
(43:24):
engaged people because my book description is about the hard
science and the specifics, you know, and my advertising as
those words, you know, and everything.
It's so much easier to success. So something like that, using a
tertiary understanding that really fits is a part of what I
call the intuition of the advertisement instead of the
(43:45):
direct thing, which is hard science fiction.
You know, books like, you know, The Martian, The Martian, you
know, all these things that everybody else just sitting
there that for the first time will just kind of come up with.
And so that's just kind of a prime example.
And that comes from knowledge plus experience.
You. You start gaining you.
(44:06):
You stumble across a keyword that is somehow raking in money,
like ROI and you. You ask yourself.
What, how, how did that? And then all of a sudden when
you oh, you're like science people studying science and
textbooks, that's what it is. And you're like, you're, you
know, and that's where things just really take off.
(44:27):
So I, I wanted to explain that because a lot of people will get
started and they'll waste a month and and then they just
quit because it's like this doesn't work.
It works. It's just, it's a skill.
I still can't juggle. OK, tried hard, but you know, I
dabbled on it and you know, my kids laugh at me when the ball
hits. You know, don't be the, don't be
the, the one week juggler. If you're choosing that skill,
(44:50):
it's a great skill. It does work, but you have to
stick with it and you have to know that it's it's about
knowledge plus experience. Ah, excellent.
It's just an insightful thing. I'm, I'm pretty sure gutted that
we were out of time, but it's, it's because we could chat for
hours about Amazon and all the things that you've learned over
the years. It's just so amazing,
interesting and amazing listening to your talk.
(45:11):
So, Dave, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your
insights. Absolutely.
Well, and like I said, thank youfor having me.
No problem at all. Thanks for, Yeah, Yeah, sharing
what you learned about the categories as well, because
that's a big developments that alot of writers need to be aware
of. So thank you very much.
Absolutely. It's just one of those things
(45:32):
where I wish Amazon would make that clear.
And then that really sucks for all the authors that chose ghost
categories on thinking that they're going to hit their best
seller and nada. So more more we get that out
there the the the better it is for the self published
community. Hopefully that will change as
well. If anyone listening to The Home
wants to learn a bit more about you and Kindlepreneur and
(45:54):
publisher Rocket, where's the best place to go?
Kindlepreneur.com Matter of fact, I've got an about me page
or I've got a contact page as well.
So if you if there's something we talked about on this that
you're just like, wait, what? Hold on.
I got a question. You know, hit me up there.
Fillions. Thank you very much again, Dave,
and thank you everyone on hold for listening.
Thank you for listening to the Fantasy Risers Tool Shed.
If you'd like to join our writing community on Discord and
get access to fantasy writing classes and books on Patreon,
check the links in the description.
And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, be sure to
follow or subscribe. And to support the show, leave a
quick rating on Spotify or iTunes and share this episode on
(00:23):
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for listening.
Enjoy the show. I am delighted to be joined
today by Dave Chesson, an author, bookmark and Jedi, and
(00:47):
founder of the brilliant websiteKindle Preneur, which is devoted
to book marketing. And Amazon itself has endorsed
it, so that that's a good measure.
Dave, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me.
I'm really honoured to have thisopportunity to chat with you
because I've been using your sites for a good few years.
And when I started putting booksoff on Amazon and wasn't getting
(01:08):
any sales. So it's, it's really, I found
this so helpful. And I, I know just from reading
the bit about you on the site that you've helped some amazing
writers as well, like Austin Scott Card and Ted Decker.
So it's it's a fantastic thing that you've created.
Thank you. Yeah, it's been, it's been a
wild journey, we'll put it that way.
(01:29):
So we're going to talk a bit about that today and also very
interesting new developments on Amazon to do with categories for
books. I know you're keen to discuss
this Dave, but we're also going to chat about bookmarks and more
generally Amazon ads, how the algorithm works and, and selling
books generally, as well as a bit of writing talk as well.
(01:51):
So let's let's get back to the beginning then.
And can you tell us a bit about you and your journey and and how
you ended up where you are today?
Yeah, well, so I grew up with dyslexia and, you know, back
then there really wasn't much known about it except you maybe
got the title and that was it. There was no help for it per SE.
(02:13):
And so through my life, I alwaysthought I was just terrible at,
at English and spelling and, and, and also to writing.
Turns out that I actually have something called dysgraphia.
So, you know, like I, you just never want to watch me actually
write on paper. And so you go through your life
(02:33):
and you think to yourself, you know what, English isn't my
thing. It never will be.
I'll never be able to write. So I actually went into things
like physics, you know, and science and blah, blah, blah.
But, you know, I've really enjoyed the storytelling.
I've just, I've really enjoyed teaching.
I've always enjoyed those things.
And so my desire to write never went away.
(02:53):
My belief in myself was, was kind of the, the limiting
factor. But there came a time where it's
like, that's it. I'm going to, I'm going to
write, I'm going to do this now.Somebody who doesn't have, you
know, years of writing under their belt, you know, who's
crafted their, their writing, you know, blah, blah, blah, like
all that. Somebody's like just getting
started. For me, I knew that I can't just
(03:16):
sit down and write about anything and, and, and it be
something that makes not only people want to buy, but also
read and then say great things about it.
OK, Instead I decided to say, you know what?
I'm going to try to do as much research as I can to figure out
if there's a kind of book or a subject, you know, that people
are looking for and they're not finding.
(03:38):
Let me start with that. That will give me more
confidence in not only writing, but the amount of time and
resources I was putting into writing, right?
So I started studying Amazon. I started to ask myself, hey,
what's kind of information can they glean from them?
You know, like, First off, how can I tell if books are are, you
know, actually making sales or not?
(03:59):
And then I started, you know, analyzing how, why does Amazon
choose to show this book over another book?
Like what makes them tick and how can I best understand it?
And so I started to create, you know, these algorithms and these
inside of Excel sheets and, and I got like really hardcore into
the numbers and tracking and I was able to take that research
(04:23):
and start, you know, focusing onbooks that I was able to find.
Wow, there are a lot of people searching for this and nothing's
there or they're searching for it and there's this one book and
that's all they have and they don't.
And you can tell from their reviews or you can tell from,
you know, the experience is thatthey're not jazzed with it.
(04:44):
Stuff like, all right, now that I know this, let me approach
this, let me gather the information, let me put
something that's very clear and concise, you know, put together
and then publish it. And it would, that was the
moment where all of a sudden my writing, it wasn't just making
sales, you know, in the first month and then going away.
(05:06):
It was making consistent sales every month.
And so I was able to stack my, you know, my author income
because it was like, this book made this much and then the next
book made this much. And so they just stacked.
And it was a really awesome and liberating experience.
But then I found out that there was no information out there
about this. Nobody was.
And this was a while ago. OK.
(05:26):
Like and, and no other websites talked about it.
Nobody talked about analyzing Amazon or the marketing
component to it. And I was like, wow, you know,
maybe I should start a website so that people understand that
this not only exists, but that this is the kind of information
that publishing companies have been using for years.
(05:47):
And here we sell. Publishers are just kind of
throwing stuff on the wall and seeing what sticks.
So that's why I created kindlepreneur.com.
And as I was building that website, I realized that a lot
of authors didn't like using an Excel sheet, you know, 'cause
all of a sudden then you're like, oh, you got to do all
these things. And, you know, author's like,
ah, you know, I'm like, OK, OK. And that's why I took all of
(06:09):
that information and created what was back then it was called
KDP Rocket, Now it's called Publisher Rocket.
And so that's kind of been my journey in a nutshell.
And it was because of that work,it was because of the software,
which, you know, major publishing companies use it to
sell published, you know, individuals, best sellers all,
(06:31):
like all groups because they used it.
That's where I got connected with like Orson Scott Card and
Ted Decker and a whole bunch of others, you know, 'cause
interesting enough, by the way, a lot of those published
authors, they've written a lot of books that their publishers
have rejected and the books are just sitting there.
(06:52):
So like with Scott, which by theway, that's Orson Scott.
Carl, he, he goes by Scott, which is a little, little
something. So if you ever mean Scott and
you'll know that it was like, oh, I know you, No, no, you
know, but I know your middle name.
Anyway, Scott, he's got a whole bunch of books that are just
sitting in his drawer. They got now that now I'm like,
Scott, you need to just just go ahead and publish it on, on
(07:14):
Amazon. All of a sudden people see a new
Orson Scott Card book. Like, dude, you're gonna do
great. You'll be surprised.
Also, too, you don't have to give 70% to the publisher
instead, Yeah, sadly, you have to give Amazon 30%, but
whatever. You've got a huge e-mail list.
You've got a name like this is. So I started doing a lot of work
with them, publishing companies.They for the longest time kind
(07:37):
of Pooh poohed on Amazon. You know, they didn't.
They're like, we don't, we don'tneed to, we don't need to work
hard on it. Amazon's gonna go away.
And then they kept seeing the public self-publishing authors,
like crushing it. And all of a sudden our goodness
were behind. And so I started having
consulting gigs where I was justcalled in to help them
understand Amazon ads and to understand the Amazon algorithm
(08:02):
and what was going on with it. And so I, it's been crazy
because I've seen like all spectrums, fantasy, non fiction,
you know, or excuse me, fiction and non fiction, New York Times
best selling to self. And it's just been a really
cool, wild journey. It's an amazing one as well.
It's it's, I remember using KDP Rockers years ago and it is it
(08:23):
was an amazing tool to use. I think the results it gave you
are fantastic. And yeah, yeah.
And it's, it's, it's just goes to show like the, the quality
that you've you've you've put into something like that and
everyone else has come, come knocking at your door.
So it's a, it's a real testamentto that.
(08:44):
Well. Thank you.
Yeah. And obviously being a leader in
this, you've, you're constantly looking at Amazon and you're
looking for any new opportunities to exploit and the
new category system for books. So can you tell us a bit about
that? Yeah, so Amazon categories, let
me tell you what I mean. Amazon is, is, is they can be
(09:08):
really problematic. OK, They, they make a lot of
mistakes in my book, per SE, butit's funny.
Is I, I kind of laughingly joke and it's like, you know,
honestly, because Amazon really sucks at getting information out
there and doing things right and, you know, educating.
It's like I jokingly say I stillhave a job.
So it's like, I want to about them and say like, you guys are
terrible at this. But at the same time, I'm like,
(09:28):
well, you know, OK. Please keep screwing up.
Yeah, right. So to best explain the new
Amazon category system, let me just briefly cover the old one.
So the authors kind of understand maybe the why this
happened. Yeah, so back in the back before
the new system, which is what, like a year, year and a half ago
(09:50):
or so, OK. And and it phased in.
So that's why it's really hard to nail down the exact dates.
Not like On this date, on this time that, you know, they did
the jump. They do this weird migration
thing. It used to be that when you went
to publish your book on Amazon, so you go into KDP, they ask you
to select two categories. OK, here's the thing.
(10:12):
Those weren't categories. They were called Bisat's.
Now Bisaks are an international standardization category system.
OK Bisaks were created because they were publishing companies
that would look at their book and they would just be like,
that's a Wiccan book. That's a Wiccan category.
And then then we'd ship it off to all the stores and the stores
(10:34):
would open up the box and look at the book.
You'd be like, Wiccan. Is that fantasy or is that
nonfiction? Is that religious?
Like what, what? What do I do with this?
And so the book kept getting putin the wrong spot.
Now imagine too something like Powell's book.
You know, like a giant book store compared to a Mom Paul
bookstore. OK, Mom store might only have
(10:56):
like 4 shelves, you know. But the giant one has hundreds
of shelves, right? And so it became problematic.
So they created the standardization system where
there's only 5000 bisects, 5000 plus bisects, and that when you
go to publish a book, you would choose a BISAC.
And that BISAC has like a numbersystem.
(11:18):
So that in the computers, the store, when they get the book,
they just look at the BISAC. They're like, OK, well, our
store says that this BISAC automatically goes to that
shelf. So now there's no more, you
know, human component. People could just quickly put it
where it goes. So Amazon adopted the BISAC
system. The problem with this is that
(11:40):
Amazon has over 12,000 categories.
The Bisak is five and Amazon is 12.
OK, 5012 thousand. So because when an if an author
didn't know this, if they selected those two Bisaks, which
they didn't know is Bisaks, theyjust thought they were
categories OK, they would nine times out of 10 get put into the
(12:02):
Amazon category that's connectedwith that Bisak.
But a lot of times they would get put into something different
that they didn't select. Then on top of that too, if
because there's 12,000 categories, Amazon had a system
where authors could then contactAmazon and say, hey Amazon,
please put my book in these other categories as well.
And so authors could can contactAmazon through a form that they
(12:26):
had and convince them to put their book in like 10 plus
categories. OK.
Now, the reason why Amazon got rid of that system, OK, is
because First off, they had hundreds, if not thousands of
authors every day contacting them to then change up their
(12:46):
book into a category, OK? Amazon trying to cut costs, you
know, and increase profitability.
So killing that off was a big thing #2 is that there were
authors that were just putting their book into whatever they
wanted. And so there was a lot of times
where, you know, they might havewritten a, let's say, a romance
(13:06):
book about a math teacher, OK? And the author was trying to put
it into calculus because calculus books, you know, if you
sell two books on Amazon in the calculus category, you'd be #1
bestseller. Romance book is always perennial
#1 bestseller. So it was really mucking up the
system. So then Amazon decided, OK,
(13:29):
we're going to get rid of that and instead we're actually going
to show them inside of KDP all of our categories.
OK, so now Amazon categories andyou can select two.
OK, boom, boom, done. That's it.
No more contacting us, no more form, nada.
OK. And so it to authors, this seems
(13:51):
great. The problem is, again, Amazon
doesn't tell you all all all of it.
And I kind of feel like they lied about this one.
I think there were such huge things that they should have
told people that they didn't. Now, one thing they did admit,
and it's in fine print somewhere, it is something that
says that they hold the right tochange your categories, remove
(14:13):
your categories, or add categories however they see fit.
OK, That is something they did write down.
So you may select those two Amazon categories now and Amazon
like a week later might be like,no, thank you, We'll just throw
you into this. And a lot of authors were like,
my book does not in that. That's wrong.
(14:34):
That's absolutely wrong. But there's no form to fill out.
That sucks. So that was a little bit of an
issue, OK. And Amazon did not say what
triggers it, but I'll tell you guys in a bit, OK.
But the second thing they did all right, And this is this is
probably the most heinous thing.They created categories that no
(14:56):
matter what, if you go into thatcategory, you cannot become a
best seller in that category. Why?
Because there's no rankings in it.
And we call I, I made-up the term for this so as to help
people understand what it is. We call them ghost categories.
OK, Well get this, you got almost a 25% chance that a
(15:16):
category in Amazon is a ghost category, A1 in four chance.
There is a really good chance that there are authors out there
who selected only ghost categories, OK?
And no matter what they do in marketing, they will not hit #1
bestseller, they will, they won't understand it.
They're like, what's going on? OK, it's because you're in ghost
(15:36):
categories. And what sucks is there's no way
that you can figure out if it's a ghost category unless you do a
whole bunch of like crazy digital stuff, you know, like,
ha, it's really hard to explain,but it's OK to figure out.
OK, so there's all these authorsthat are writing incredible
(15:57):
books. They've done all their things
and then they put themselves in good those categories and they
no matter what, they don't hit their best seller status.
That sucks. I mean, that really, really
sucks. And the reason why Amazon is
doing that is, well, for a couple of reasons, but one of
the biggest ones is that they get a lot of requests from for
(16:20):
new categories. And in order to add a new
category to their system to do it right, it requires a lot of
craziness in the website structure.
You don't just create a new one and pop, there it is.
There's a new page. But then that's a lot of work.
And they don't want to have to do that so they can create a
(16:41):
category so you can, yay, there's a new category that fits
my book. And they didn't have to lift a
finger to do a lot of it. Not not to not to do anything
political here, OK or push anything.
This is not my point, but it does help illustrate the the
thing there are a lot of new LGBTQ categories.
(17:03):
You know that Amazon's been adding a massive amount of our
our ghost categories like it's crazy do.
You think like they could just be waiting to generate enough
titles within them categories before they turn them.
No, because when you look. At What is a Ghost?
You'll find ones that you know are super popular like it's
(17:23):
crazy. Like for example paranormal
romance. I think it's just paranormal
romance is a ghost that's. Huge.
Normal romance and it's a oh, give it not intended.
But that being said, though, it like, and it's it's not just
paranormal romance. It's like paranormal romance or
romance or or whatever. That is a huge category that's
(17:44):
been around for a long time, butit's a ghost category.
And and so if you put your book in that, you get nothing from
it. So that's a huge issue.
And then finally also too, there's a lot of duplicate
categories out there. So this is the third and final
major. You got to be kidding me.
OK. So for example, what I mean by
(18:05):
this is that in science fiction and fantasy, science fiction,
and I can't remember off the topof my head an example, we'll say
like alien invasion, OK, if you select that, there's also a
category in literary fiction, science fiction, alien invasion,
there's also maybe another category somewhere else.
(18:27):
They're all duplicates of each other because if you put
yourself in one, it automatically like all of the
books in those three that examples I gave, they're really
just one list. So you might be thinking to
yourself, oh, this is perfect. And then you're getting it.
It's one of the most competitivecategories you could be in, and
you don't realize it, right? But here's the fun.
(18:52):
So what? What are authors to do about
this, right? Well, First off, now that you
only get three choices, it's more important than ever to do
your research on your categories.
Just showing up to Amazon's, youknow, KDP and just randomly
selecting 3 is a really bad idea.
(19:12):
Even more so now that you know, Amazon has made it that you only
get the three and then they kindof control it.
OK with ghost categories, honestly, the best thing you
could do is just know what, whata ghost category is, which ones
are ghost categories and avoid them as much as possible.
OK, Just don't, don't play those.
(19:33):
Those are, those are bad and they're not going to do anything
for you. You feel good 'cause you marked
it, but it wise, marketing wise it it sucks.
What's the biggest sort of telltale sign you'd say for
someone looking for a ghost category?
Well, manually to do it manually, you got to go to
(19:54):
Amazon.com, the like the website.
So outside of KDP, you got to search for that category.
You got to find that category. OK.
And by the way, you can't use the category tree that shows up
on the left because they don't exist.
So they don't show up on those. You have to search for it and
find the actual node, which by the way means you have to know
the exact number. For that category, usually you
(20:15):
need software, some kind of tellto figure out what the category
node is. Go to that particular page and
if it doesn't have the name of the category on it, like so it
will just say like best seller 4627-O instead of, you know,
fantasy blah, blah, blah. That's if it's using just a
(20:36):
number that's a ghost. Now, some people may say, like
in KDP, you can click on the categories that are there.
Those aren't category pages. And I, this is one of the thing
that makes me feel like they're hiding this ghost thing is that
they send you to a marketing page, not the actual categories
(20:57):
page. So you can't click on that link
in KDP to go check out the category.
It'll just take you to somethingthat looks cool, but it's not
actually taking you to the categories page where you can
see is it ghost or is it not? So you, so the manual way is to
do that. That's one of the things that
that my team and I, we figured out and we put it in publisher
(21:20):
Rocket that now when you go to the category feature, you can
see every category that's a duplicate every and what it's
connected to, you can see if it's ghost or not.
And you know you can make a muchbetter decision.
I. Don't know of any other way
other than knowing the nodes or you know, publisher rocket so.
(21:41):
Another reason to use publisher rockets.
What another good reason to use Publisher Rockets?
Yeah, it will. But that's the thing, though,
is, is that Amazon's always changing.
And it's really important, you know, to stay on top of it.
And and again, I still don't understand why Amazon did the
ghost thing except unless you know, just being lazy to an
extent and then also not tellingpeople like that kind of sucks.
(22:06):
And then just cutting off any sort of form of communication
with anybody. Yeah, well, you know, it a
weird, a weird thing. Let's say you're a major
publishing company and you have gotten a big name author.
You know that and you're publishing that.
You know this book's gonna go great.
And then your team in your, you know, your publishing division
(22:26):
selects a whole bunch of ghost categories 'cause they don't
know it. No matter whether like, like all
of that momentum, all of that work, all of the money they
spent and they can't get a best seller tag, you know, so it,
it's, it's one of those things where it's just like, man, that
just kind of sucks that you're doing it.
So, so that's the new category system.
(22:47):
And I'm going to put one last nugget for people on this too.
Is that so the duplicates. So we talked about the, the
ghost categories, OK. We talked about their, their new
system and everything like that.Duplicate categories, though, I
actually like those. I tell authors they should maybe
target one if they can. The reason why I love the
(23:12):
duplicates, at least one OK, is that I said those 3 examples,
all three of those are in different main categories.
OK, so I, you know, made-up science fiction and fantasy is 1
main category. Literary fiction is another main
category. And then we'll say YA, OK, they
all have an alien invasion in them.
(23:34):
I get lumped into all of the alien invasion category.
Got it. But if my book sells really
well, I could either be placed as the best, you know, science
fiction and fantasy, you know, science fiction category.
I could be placed in the you know, I, I'm now the best seller
in the literary fiction, sciencefiction category as well as the
(23:55):
YA. So it gives me more options of
showing up in Amazon, especiallyif my sales are very good and I
can bump myself up to the next level.
So a duplicate's not a bad thing.
Just know that they're usually really competitive.
I would almost say to like majorpublishing companies or big time
authors, you know, or authors that have like huge e-mail lists
(24:16):
or whatever that you know for sure hit that duplicate.
Otherwise, you know, maybe be aware of the fact that you're
putting yourself in a category that you're going to have to
fight tooth and nail to have relevance in.
Nice. I saw fascinating stuff and
you've done really good researchthere as well, getting into the
nuts and bolts of the code, so that's off to you.
I'm gonna look into that for sure.
(24:38):
One of the things that's really helped me is first and foremost,
I'm an author and I'm constantlyusing Amazon and I'm constantly
trying to figure out how to makemy author business better.
The second thing is, is that, you know, having a coding
background and working with programmers, sometimes I'm able
to look under the hood of Amazonand understand more than what's
on the surface. And so combining those two
(25:00):
things together has just been like absolutely fine.
You know, it's allowed me to kind of break the news on, on
the duplicates as well as the, you know, the ghost categories.
It's what's allowed me to kind of figure out their algorithm
and their keywords. And there was another thing too,
that we developed as well was that we found that there's a
couple of keywords for each category that someone should use
(25:23):
as one of their keywords in order to really solidify their
books staying in the category. So we've kind of alerted
authors, hey, here's a couple ofkeywords you might want to put
into your seven Kindle keyword boxes so as to make sure you
have staying power in the category.
So just a lot of stuff. Sorry, I know I was drinking
from a fire hose but Amazon was just open.
(25:45):
And help. This kind of.
Stuff, I think that's not reallytheir jam.
Whatever. Displayed a desire for that.
Since you mentioned the algorithm, could you tell us a
bit about what kind of things Amazon looks for when someone
uploads a book? Yeah.
So that could be a super technical response and I'm not
(26:08):
going, I'm going to paint the story, OK?
When we let, I'm going to make us all sound like humans.
So we'll make it the Amazon human and the author human.
OK, We take our book and we upload it to Amazon.
OK, now imagine Amazon like looking at this book.
What is this is is it is it Wiccan?
(26:29):
Is it religious? Is it, you know, non fiction?
Is it fantasy? Is it I don't know what to do.
Well, when we're filling out theinformation in KDP, we're
helping them. We're saying, all right, look,
Amazon, OK, this this book is isa fiction.
It is a fantasy. It is all these things.
OK, now that could be in the words in our title and subtitle.
(26:53):
OK, that could be the categorieswe select.
It's the words we put in our book description.
It's the seven Kindle keyword boxes that we put in.
All of that is helping Amazon tosay, oh, I know not only what
this book is, but where it should go.
Got it. Thanks for the help.
OK, so it's not about doing one thing.
(27:15):
It's not like this hack where, OK, you put this one word here
and next thing you know you got it.
No, you it's not that it's everything.
The way I explain it to authors is the more confident Amazon is
with what your book is, who it'sfor, you know, like, and, and
what sub, sub genre or whatever,the more confident they are, the
(27:36):
more they do the authors that get there to KDP and they just
randomly come up with some categories and they randomly
come up with some words in theirkeywords and they throw up their
book description, you know, and,and that's all they do when they
move on, that's the one where Amazon's like, Hey, I don't
really know what to do with this.
And so they kind of sprinkle it,but they don't really help
(27:56):
'cause they can't, you tide their hands behind their back,
right? So the key is, is as an author
is, is to approach it from how do I best help Amazon?
OK, you know, for example, in nonfiction using describing, you
know, and I've, I've got articles about this, like for
example, if you type into Google, like nonfiction keywords
(28:22):
for Amazon or anything like that, or fiction keywords,
depending on what book you are 'cause they're different.
You'll find this step by step process that will help you.
But in non fiction, I found thatyou should have phrases and
words that are either the pain point, the problem that you're,
you know, running into the thingthat you're trying to struggle
with, or the way you would describe the result that you
(28:43):
want agitation words like fast, you know, I want to lose weight
fast, seven steps two, you know,like these kind of.
And then finally the demographicas in who is this book for?
You know, is this single moms? Is this, you know, busy, busy
(29:04):
parents? Is this, you know, for kids?
Is this these things help Amazonbecause now they're going to be
like, oh, okay, you know, I, I should show it in front of these
people. So those really important and
sometimes crafting the best subtitle is one that says, you
know, lose weight fast, you know, for single moms, you know,
or, or whatever, but or that might be your title.
And then your subtitle is, you know, don't have time busy with
(29:27):
work. This book will solve it, you
know, or something like that, using those words that the
customer would use to describe what they're looking for.
And then now Amazon's like, oh, when they type this in, I should
show this book here. Same thing with your keywords
and your, your book description and your categories.
They all help to say to Amazon, yes, this is really about how to
(29:48):
lose weight. This is about people who, who
you know, time is a problem and it is for these specific people.
I feel great about this. Next time somebody types that
in, I want to show that book first because it seems like it's
going to answer their problems with fiction.
It's it's about describing the story, you know, it's the
setting and time period, it's the type of main character, it's
(30:11):
the catalyst that starts the story.
It's the flavor of the genre. You know, these are all
incredibly important one, and I'm going to just breakdown one
of them specifically. But like the flavor of the genre
is probably the most important thing a fiction author could do
because, you know, let's say theword romance.
Well, not, not not to make another joke, but there's 50
(30:33):
Shades of romance here. OK, there's thousands honestly,
to be honest, because on one side of the spectrum you could
have wholesome, clean, you know,we'll say, you know, Christian
romance or something like that. And on the other hand, you got
like the BDM or, or what you know, erotica to the Max or
something. Well, it's.
Important for romance readers toensure that the book they're
getting is their kind of romance, you know?
(30:56):
And so shoppers will want to clarify that they will use those
words. You know, they will say same
thing with mystery, different types of mystery, you know,
wholesome, clean, you know, to bloody gore, you know, killers.
And the words they use to describe the story they're
looking for is incredibly important.
(31:18):
And the more you align your bookto one of those, the more
confident Amazon is on your where they should put it.
They're not gonna put, you know,Christian wholesome in the
bondage one. They're not going to.
Put blood and gore in the, you know, cozy mystery.
They're and that's the key. And so that's the first part of
(31:40):
it to the algorithm. The algorithm is taking in the
information you provide them. They call it metadata and
they're like, ah, OK, let's giveit a try.
The second part to the algorithmis then convincing them that,
yeah, you belong there. They give you the opportunity,
they show you to their customers.
And now you need to prove to them that customers are happy
(32:01):
with you being there. OK, So if I type in like, cozy
mystery in a small town, you know, or ex sleuth cozy mystery
in a small town, OK. And my cover has like, darkness
and it's got like, you know, these ominous eyes in the
(32:22):
background and somebody with a flashlight, you know, standing
there. And I don't even if your book
truly is a ex sleuth cozy mystery in a small town, there
is nothing on your cover that helps the shopper to say, oh,
yeah, that looks like a great, you know, ex sleuth cozy mystery
in a small town. Nothing.
(32:42):
You're not going to click on it.They're not going to engage.
And that book will fall out of grace and will not show up on on
searches because it's a mix match.
Your cover doesn't match what the shoppers are looking for.
You got it in front of them. It doesn't fit.
OK. Or let's say you nail the cover.
OK, you got the small town elements.
(33:03):
You've got, you know, something that shows it's ex sleuth.
You know, you've got all these elements that says, oh, this
looks like a really good comfy cozy, you know, mystery like
this is my jam. This, this is my type.
Then they click on your book, OK, and they go to look and they
start reading your book description.
And your book description is like, you know, it's written
like a book report. You know, it is giving away
(33:27):
every detail. You almost know who the killer
is already before you even, you know, or the criminal before you
even read the book. Like, and 07 different
characters introduced like he oryou write it.
And, and you, you put too much in the element of the murder,
the first murder that happened. And now it sounds like it's
scary gory. OK, then what you're going to
(33:48):
have is you'll have a lot of people engage with your book
because your book cover and yourtitle look great and it looks
like it fits. But then they get to the
disjointedness of your book description.
They're like, Nope, peace be with you and back out and they
look for another book. Well, Amazon's watching all of
this. They're watching.
And you know what? If your book is, if people are
clicking on it, they're going tokeep you around.
(34:08):
You might not be #1 but they'll keep you around because at least
shoppers are showing that, hey, when I type this in, I do engage
with this book. But if they're not converting
and they're not buying, Amazon'sall about what makes them more
money. So it'll be like, well, when
this book was here, we made a lot of money.
And then we put this new book inhere and we don't make as much
money. They bring, you know, the money
(34:29):
maker up top again, and they move your book down.
If that's the case, if you can prove to them that, Oh no, you
know, like people that typed that in, yeah, that's, that's
the book they want, and then they purchase it, then by golly,
you're going to show up #1 And this is kind of like, for
example, a very crude example. But if somebody types in your
exact title, 9 times out of 10, they're looking for your exact
(34:53):
title, whether they heard on a podcast a friend recommended or
whatever. And that's why the algorithm of
Amazon will put that book numberone for your title, because
that's what makes them more money.
However, though, there's been a lot of authors that are like,
look, I'll type in the title of my book and I can't find it
anywhere. Yeah, that's because somehow
it's been proven that when they type in that title, your book is
(35:16):
not what they're engaging with. And like, there's a couple of
people that are trying to game the system by titling their book
with like, you know, a very popular word, you know, or
something like that. You're kind of hurting yourself.
You're sending the signal to Amazon that, hey, this book
isn't popular, people don't likeit, and when we show it, they
don't engage algorithm. Quick.
(35:41):
Discussion on how Amazon's A9 algorithm works.
By the way, I call it the algorithm for all those tech
people out there that are cringing for me saying it.
I understand Amazon has lots of algorithms to call it just one
is a misnomer. That being said is when I talk
about the algorithm, I talk about their search bar algorithm
and it did used to actually havea name called a nine so.
(36:05):
There you go. Them the caveat for the for the
tech techie people out there, I acknowledge, but you know, it's
easier just to talk about the algorithm.
Definitely, yeah. I suppose we're running out of
time. But one thing I wanted to ask
you about was ads on Amazon, because I know a lot of authors
gravitate towards Amazon ads because this is where the
readers are. So it makes sense to spend money
(36:26):
on ads, but people have a lot ofmixed results with it.
So do you use ads a lot in your strategies?
I love ads and well excuse me let me say it.
I love Amazon ads. I think Amazon though honestly,
not to sound jerky or so, but ifAmazon hired me as a consultant
to step in, I swear I could fix like 5 things that would
(36:49):
dramatically improve both sides lives.
OK so I think that not as a it'snot a prideful statement, it's
not a cocky statement. It's just to state that there
are problems that exist that I'mjust scratching my head that
they didn't fix. So it's not a perfect system.
I have seen the system improve over time, but you kind of, you
kind of mention it. One of the reasons why I love
(37:10):
Amazon ads more than other ads like Facebook, etcetera and all
these is that for Amazon ads, well, let's talk about Facebook
ads. On Facebook ads, I have to be
really, really good at it because people go to Facebook
because they're bored or they're, they want to, you know,
check out the cat video or what people are eating or what's
going on, you know, all that. I got to create an ad that stops
(37:32):
them from that convinces them that at that moment they want a
book and then to send them somewhere to go get a book.
Or, you know, for some of the other strategies, just some no
name person I wanted, I want to go sign up for their e-mail
list. So I get marketed for their
book. Like that's a lot of marketing
gumption. That's a that's, that's it's
(37:54):
very doable. There are a lot of people that
make money doing it, but that's a lot of work.
You got to be really good with Amazon ads.
I don't have to convince them togo buy a book.
They're on Amazon because they wanted to buy a book.
Great. All I got to do is convince them
to buy my book. That's it.
You know, they already have an account with Amazon.
They all they have to do is click one button, you know, one
(38:15):
click buy, boom, there it is. Goes right to their Kindle, you
know, or or you know, the shipment is all processed and
done. I just got to convince them that
my book's the one. So I really enjoy that about
Amazon ads. But here's my caveat to Amazon
ads. I tell authors this all the
time. Amazon ads is a skill.
(38:36):
The best way to think of it, OK,it is not AII watched a course
and then I set some things up and then I sat back and it came
back a month later and I'm like,what happened?
I mean, honestly, your chances of success doing that is like
5%, OK. That's why you'll have a lot of
people out there that will like,you know, they'll do the Amazon
(38:57):
ads like this doesn't work. It's like, it's kind of like
learning how to juggle. You can't just throw three
things in the air when you can'tjuggle immediately, you know,
and, and not belittling anybody.It's not knocking, it's just
trying to explain it. It is one of those things where
you really have to approach it like a skill.
I want to learn how to juggle 6 balls in the air at once.
(39:17):
Great. I will start with 1-2, then
moving to three. Oh boy, you know, but to move to
four, you know, like you are sharpening your, you know, your,
your knife. You are.
And so I tell people, but it's awonderful skill.
Once you have it down and you understand and you have you, you
really understand your genre or your subsection and what works,
(39:40):
you start to gain intuition. I'll talk about that in a second
about things to do and not do. Your quickness to profitability
is a lot faster. Your propensity to make a
mistake is a lot smaller. You can find these things that
that kind of help you to get above the rest real quickly.
(40:01):
OK. And so I use the word intuition.
I think it's the best way to talk about mastering a skill and
especially in marketing. OK, my submarine captain once
said this to me and I, I, it stuck with me.
He said he doesn't believe in the word mastery.
There's no such thing. Mastery is the peak.
It's perfection. It doesn't exist.
He's like, But those that we call masters, what they really
(40:24):
have is they have intuition, OK?And you know, they intuitively
know what to do faster than most.
Can they still make mistakes? Yes, of course.
Can they still learn more things?
Yes, of course. Can they still be beat?
Of course. But they're quicker to realize
I've been beat. They've been quicker to realize
they made a mistake. They're quicker to choose the
(40:44):
right decision. OK, Well, gain intuition with
two things, OK? Knowledge plus experience.
So yes, learn how to do Amazon ads.
Matter of fact, I have a free online video course on it and
you can find it at amscourse.com.
Take the course 100% free. The key thing is, is don't just
(41:07):
try it once. Don't just try it for a day.
Don't just try it for a week, but devote time.
And I, I talk about this in the course, make like a 30 minutes
on Monday, 30 minutes on Wednesday and 30 minutes on
Friday and do that for a whole bunch of weeks, no matter what
and gain the experience, practice, try something, you
know, and, and all of a sudden you're going to be able to, I
(41:30):
can step into an ad in my genresand my topics and get it
profitable infinitely faster than, you know, four years ago,
you know, when this kind of thing was, you know, I'm even
better at it than I was, you know, six months ago because I
know these little things. And I'll, I'll give you an, I'll
give you an example between a, we'll say an intuitive Amazon
(41:56):
ads person. And I tried some things, OK, an
intuitive ads person kind of knows.
And this is one of the tricks that I've done with a certain
genre and it was for hard science, OK, which is a science
fiction that really tries to be as real in using science in
(42:16):
order to make it science fiction.
You know, So it's not just saying there's a magical, you
know, propulsion, Dr. They'll actually talk about like, you
know, Sonic pulse beam, you know, and and they'll actually
break it out. The Martian.
He's watched it or read the book.
That's hard science. OK, Well, I don't just do
advertisements for the word hardscience.
(42:38):
It's too competitive. The cost per click is too high.
There's you know, I'll I might put it in there just so the
Amazon ads knows it's hard science, but I may like make it
that only if it's like 30 cents,you know, like I'll do that.
Where I is. I go after astrophysics books,
quantum mechanics books and any other crazy science fiction like
(43:00):
or I'm sorry, science book textbooks.
And that's because nobody's advertising on those.
There's no, but I'll tell you what, if you got, if you're
reading, you know, Stephen Hawking's and stuff like that,
then your labor of genre is probably hard, you know, hard
scientific. And now all of a sudden I'm
getting clicks for like $0.10 and I'm getting really highly
(43:24):
engaged people because my book description is about the hard
science and the specifics, you know, and my advertising as
those words, you know, and everything.
It's so much easier to success. So something like that, using a
tertiary understanding that really fits is a part of what I
call the intuition of the advertisement instead of the
(43:45):
direct thing, which is hard science fiction.
You know, books like, you know, The Martian, The Martian, you
know, all these things that everybody else just sitting
there that for the first time will just kind of come up with.
And so that's just kind of a prime example.
And that comes from knowledge plus experience.
You. You start gaining you.
(44:06):
You stumble across a keyword that is somehow raking in money,
like ROI and you. You ask yourself.
What, how, how did that? And then all of a sudden when
you oh, you're like science people studying science and
textbooks, that's what it is. And you're like, you're, you
know, and that's where things just really take off.
(44:27):
So I, I wanted to explain that because a lot of people will get
started and they'll waste a month and and then they just
quit because it's like this doesn't work.
It works. It's just, it's a skill.
I still can't juggle. OK, tried hard, but you know, I
dabbled on it and you know, my kids laugh at me when the ball
hits. You know, don't be the, don't be
the, the one week juggler. If you're choosing that skill,
(44:50):
it's a great skill. It does work, but you have to
stick with it and you have to know that it's it's about
knowledge plus experience. Ah, excellent.
It's just an insightful thing. I'm, I'm pretty sure gutted that
we were out of time, but it's, it's because we could chat for
hours about Amazon and all the things that you've learned over
the years. It's just so amazing,
interesting and amazing listening to your talk.
(45:11):
So, Dave, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your
insights. Absolutely.
Well, and like I said, thank youfor having me.
No problem at all. Thanks for, Yeah, Yeah, sharing
what you learned about the categories as well, because
that's a big developments that alot of writers need to be aware
of. So thank you very much.
Absolutely. It's just one of those things
(45:32):
where I wish Amazon would make that clear.
And then that really sucks for all the authors that chose ghost
categories on thinking that they're going to hit their best
seller and nada. So more more we get that out
there the the the better it is for the self published
community. Hopefully that will change as
well. If anyone listening to The Home
wants to learn a bit more about you and Kindlepreneur and
(45:54):
publisher Rocket, where's the best place to go?
Kindlepreneur.com Matter of fact, I've got an about me page
or I've got a contact page as well.
So if you if there's something we talked about on this that
you're just like, wait, what? Hold on.
I got a question. You know, hit me up there.
Fillions. Thank you very much again, Dave,
and thank you everyone on hold for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.