This post is part of the virtual book tour for How to Sell More Books on Amazon, by Dana Lynn Smith.
With a vast selection of 14 million books listed on Amazon.com, it can be a challenge to get your book noticed by shoppers on the site. Here are seven ways to help customers find you and your book on Amazon:
1. Use Keywords in the Title and Subtitle of Your Book
Many shoppers search for books on Amazon by doing keyword searches, so it’s important to use relevant keywords in the title and/or subtitle of your book.
If you’re publishing in Kindle format, it’s easy to add a subtitle if the book doesn’t already have one, and there’s also a keyword area on the publishing dashboard where you can input keywords.
2. Tag Your Book with Keywords
Another way to take advantage of keyword searches is to add keywords through Amazon’s Tag feature.
On your book sales page, scroll down to the "Tags Customers Associate With This Product" area and add keywords that people might use in searching for a book such as yours. When you ask people to post reviews of your book on Amazon.com, ask them to also click on the appropriate tags (each click gives the tag one vote) or add new tags.
The tag feature works for fiction as well. Adding tags can help shoppers find your book when they search for things like "cozy mystery set in the South" or "children’s books about horses".
3. Post Reviews of Other Products
Posting reviews of other related books and products is a good way to get visibility for yourself and your book. You’ll get exposure through the "signature" at the top of your profile and you can also make subtle references in your review to the fact that you are an author or expert on the topic.
4. Publish in Kindle Format
There are more than 720,000 ebooks available in the Kindle store, and the number is rising rapidly. But that’s still far fewer than the 14 million print book listings on Amazon.com, giving you a greater chance of being found.
5. Create Lists and Guides
You can get visibility on the Amazon sales pages of competing or complementary books by creating Listmania® lists or "So You’d Like To" guides. These features let you create a list of books on a particular topic or genre, including your own book.
6. Enhance Your Personal Profile on Amazon
In your personal profile on Amazon, you can post your photo, a description of yourself and your book, and even a link to your website. Be sure create a "signature" with the name of your book or your area of expertise, because the signature will appear, along with your name, at the top of each product review that you post on Amazon. For example, my signature is "The Savvy Book Marketer."
7. Participate in Amazon Customer Communities
Check the Customer Discussions section of your own book sales page or the pages of competing books and look for discussions that you can contribute to, without being overtly promotional. For nonfiction authors, this is a way to demonstrate your expertise in a subject.
To learn more about using these tactics to get your book discovered on Amazon, read How to Sell More Books on Amazon. This new ebook, available in both PDF and Kindle format, outlines strategies for boosting visibility on Amazon.com, increasing sales, and improving profits. For more book marketing tips, follow BookMarketer on Twitter and get Dana’s free Top Book Marketing Tips ebook at www.TheSavvyBookMarketer.com