Amazon categories that might screw you...

New "ghost categories" on Amazon don't get bestseller status!!

A couple months ago, Amazon made a major overhaul to how categories work on their site. I wrote about this change more fully in this article: Amazon Jerks Authors Around (Again).

Like all changes, it’s going to take some time for all the kinks and wrinkles to fully work out. But there have definitely been some issues discovered with the rolled out update. Most notably:

a) 54% of the new categories are duplicates of each other
b) 27% are “ghost” categories—which, essentially, aren’t real and you can’t become a “bestseller” in those categories. (Thus, you are wasting one of your precious 3 category slots by being in that category.)

Obviously, you need to make sure that you haven’t accidentally chosen a ghost category for your book. How can you tell?

The program I have always recommended for authors is called Publisher Rocket. (It was actually the creator of Publisher Rocket, Dave Chesson, who unearthed these Amazon category glitches and his stats/data I am using here.)

Publisher Rocket helps you identify the competition within each category (as well as keywords). This allows you to carefully and thoughtfully choose the best categories for your book that offer the greatest opportunity for visibility and reaching a category’s bestseller level. The program now also includes a tag for each category identifying it as either a “duplicate” or “ghost” category. How helpful is that?!

Even if you are a traditionally published author, you can take control over your categories, too (and use Publisher Rocket to do so) by creating an Author Central profile on Amazon and updating your book’s categories via that platform.

And Publisher Rocket is—believe it or not—affordably priced at only $97, with lifetime access and full, automatic updates on new versions.

Purchase Publisher Rocket at the link below, then open up your Amazon account and double check those categories! (p.s., if you already own Publisher Rocket, make sure to update it so you see the new category tags feature!)

Where Else Am I Hanging Out This Month?

Interview with Editor Julie Karen

Julie Karen so graciously interviewed me for her website earlier this summer. We talked author brand guide, online presence/platform building, and which book marketing activities you can STOP doing because they aren’t efficient. If you need a good editor, be sure to check out her website!

Back-to-School for Writers Bundle

I was honored to be asked to contribute to this collaborative resource bundle, created by book coaches Stacy Juba, Emma Dhesi and Kat Caldwell. This is a one-stop landing page with over 30 authors, editors, productivity experts, and book marketing experts giving away 50+ tips, tricks, worksheets and ebooks for FREE. 

Until October 7, you can get as many complimentary resources as you want, conveniently organized in one place. Simply click the button of each contributor and sign up for their newsletter to get the free gift. There are over 50 to choose from!

Fiction Marketing Academy 3.0

Save the date for October 9-15 (next week), when I will be one of the guest speakers at Fiction Marketing Academy 3.0, a pre-recorded, online conference exclusively devoted to marketing for fiction authors! My talk with host Philip Duncan focuses mostly on Time Management Tips for Authors, but we veer into other marketing waters, too.

Unlike so many online conferences, this one isn’t advertised as free, but the videos disappear within 48 hours if you don’t upgrade to a premium pass. Who has time to binge-watch an entire conference in two days?! (Did I mention my talk was on time management…?)

Philip and his partner, Brian Berni, are disrupting that gimmicky model by offering these recorded interviews free for life.

Um…So how are they making money? In addition to advertising/underwriting partners, you will see opportunities for attendees to upgrade to a premium resource bundle, if you are interested. And there will be some awesome goodies in there (including from me, *cough cough*) that you should definitely consider. But the content of the conference will remain permanently free, no strings.

Despite the $0 price tag, you do still need to register in order for them to send you the links to get access to each day’s videos.

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Please note: Some links in this email are affiliate links but do not affect your price for the product in any way.