SPA Girls Podcast – EP84 – Amazon Also Boughts, Algorithms, and Author Rankings
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This week we go through the book page on Amazon, deciphering some of the sections, explaining how each works and how the information gleaned can help you in your Indie career. From explaining the also boughts, to understanding the Amazon algorithms and how they affect you, and looking at the author rankings and understanding what they mean to you, we go through everything we know (and some stuff we realise we didn’t know) and pass it on to you… 🙂
First tip – Make sure you have read through everything on your Amazon page and that you understand it. By doing so you will be able to use it to your advantage.
Also boughts
Books that other people have bought that are similar to your book.
You may not see also boughts on your page until you have achieved approx. 50 sales.
You want this to be a clean area that only represents your platform and shows books that are like yours.
They should look and sound similar.
Chris Fox may be able to explain better why also boughts are so important.
Algorithms
Read up on this on KDP – they have lists and guidelines. Ignore them at your peril!
By filling out your details and ensuring that they are loaded properly on your book listing page you will have made a great start to making Amazon work for you.
There is a formula (which we may never understand) to figure out who likes your books or would be likely to.
After you release your book, don’t just get all your friends and family to buy your book – this will mess up your algorithms more than anything else.
You want people focused on your genre to buy your book.
Make it as easy as possible for Amazon to personalize and therefore market your work appropriately.
Amazon A9= Amazon Algorithms
Categories, and also boughts affect algorithms.
Sponsored Ads
Whatever the person appearing there has chosen as their keywords area match for your work.
Product Details
Just give these a quick look as they are self-explanatory
ASIN is the number Amazon will give you as a standard identifying number.
Amazon Best seller ranks
Shows how your book is doing currently – where it is ranking against every other book in the Amazon store.
There is a lot you will have no control over like –
who is publishing at the same time
where in the world people are awake or asleep (affecting buying)
Category Ranks
Where your books is ranking in the categories you or amazon have chosen
Tell us about a lower price
If you have a book free on another platform you should ask Amazon to price match as they don’t like to put up free books.
It can also help if you have deals on other platforms that Amazon is not following to mention that to them.
Verified Purchase
Reviews that say this will no doubt carry more weight than an unpurchased review.
Follow Button
You will receive notification of new works by any author you follow.
Your own list is more important, but there is no harm in pointing readers in this direction.
Finally
Don’t forget to link all books in a series
Email via Author Central or KDP that this book is part of series.
Be a good author and abide by Amazon’s rules and you will be okay.
Amazon
