Tuesday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts

HOW TO GET YOUR BOOKS INTO THE RIGHT CATEGORIES AND SUB-CATEGORIES: READERS TO BOOKS/BOOKS TO READERS

By: M. Louisa Locke

Introduction:

Two years ago, I wrote a blog piece about the importance of using categories, keywords, and tags (which no longer exist) to make your books visible in the Kindle Store. A year later I wrote an update that expanded on this and discussed how having your book in the right categories could make free and discount promotions more effective. The basic argument I made hasn’t changed––that an author needs to understand how categories work in order to use them to improve the chance their books will be found by readers who are browsing in the Kindle store.

If you aren’t convinced of the importance of categories in improving discoverability—you might want to go back and skim through those two posts or just google “discoverability and categories” to see the multiple posts on this topic. However, for most of you, it isn’t theimportance of categories but how to get your books into the right categories that you are most interested in––and there have been a number of significant changes warranting a new update on this topic.

First, the number and kinds of categories and sub-categories in the Kindle Store have increased dramatically in the last year.

Second, the methods of getting a book into the correct categories and sub-categories have expanded, with keywords becoming particularly important.

Third, these changes have made the process even more confusing to authors.

Definitions:

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Read the full article HERE!

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If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:

1. How to Use Cross-Promotion to Sell Your Book - GalleyCat http://ow.ly/wdnX7
2. Smashwords Founder Mark Coker Publishes ‘Indie Author Manifesto’ - GalleyCat http://ow.ly/wdnZU
3. Anne R. Allen's Blog: How to Make the Bestseller Lists: Why Categories and Keywords Matter http://ow.ly/wdqCz
4. How to Get your books into the right Categories and Sub-categories: Readers to Books/Books to Readers http://ow.ly/wdqN7
5. Authors! Expand Your Kindle Readership Using Keywords http://ow.ly/wdqPI
6. Top Five Things You Can Do To Sell More Books | Self-Publishing Roundtable http://ow.ly/wdqRo
7. Ebook Marketing Podcast: Ebook Marketing Secrets Part 5 -- The Right Categories Can Make You A Bestseller http://ow.ly/wdqVk
8. How to Choose Keywords and Categories for Your Kindle eBook - Tuts+ Business Article http://ow.ly/wdqZ3
9. Seriously Write: Know Your Audience by Carla Laureano http://ow.ly/weu5w
10. How to Write a Bestselling Book This Year — The Definitive Resource List and How-To Guide | Tim Ferriss http://ow.ly/wevar
11. How Bestseller Lists Work…and Introducing the Amazon Monthly 100 | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss http://ow.ly/wevED
12. 4 Ways Visual Design Can Improve Your Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner http://ow.ly/wexH3
13. 5 Ways to Nail Social Media Branding : @ProBlogger http://ow.ly/wexKa
14. Taking notes with a laptop or tablet? Study shows pen and paper secret to smarts | The Passive Voice | http://ow.ly/wexTc

Happy writing and running, Kathy 

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My book is featured today at eBookSoda. This is a readers' site that will send you ebook recommendations tailored to your taste. Check it out!