# Things I didn't want to know or hijacked categories



## whistlelock (Jun 30, 2015)

So, I'm kicking around some ideas for a new series while I'm watching Ocean's Eleven with my wife when I think "hey, I could write a heist novel. That could be fun. I like heist movies." I mean, who doesn't like a good heist movie? The dialog is all snappy. Everyone is super clever. the plan comes together and sometimes there's a surprise twist at the end. They're fun.

Now I've read Chris Fox's Write to Market and I think that checking out what's in the category and how it's selling is a great idea. I do a Google search for Top 100 Heist books Amazon. I click the top result, reliabably labeled Top 100 Amazon Heist Books. I am not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Heist-Thrillers/zgbs/books/9536063011

From the covers, I would guess Alpha Male Erotica. Reading through some of the synopses's, it looks like Alpha Male Erotica where the Alpha steals their baby. Which I didn't know was a thing but apparently Alpha Male Baby Daddy is a thing. And how is snatching your own kid a heist and not a kidnapping is unclear to me.

But it is frankly depressing to me to find a category that's been hijacked like this. What do you think- if you follow the Write to Market philosophy in looking for a popular category that's underserved, Heist seems like it might be a good one. Except just about everything in it has zip-all to do with heists. So, yes, there is space in that market apparently wide enough to handle an Alpha Male book (see what I did there?) but is that because there really isn't a market for heist books?

What do y'all think?

_Edited. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

This really peeves me off but, sadly, it's nothing new. There are tons of cats that get hijacked like this. I keep hoping that Amazon will do something about it, but so far I remain disappointed.


----------



## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Erotica and headless abs dudes have gotten into just about every subcategory, it seems. Just have to look past it for the books that are more on-point for the subcategory.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> Erotica and headless abs dudes have gotten into just about every subcategory, it seems. Just have to look past it for the books that are more on-point for the subcategory.


There are hardly any that are on point though.


----------



## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Obviously it's an underserved cat if there is room for so many headless six packs in there.

You might try to look for heist books under a slightly different category. Maybe take one that you found, go to the product page and scroll down to the bottom where they list several more categories for the book. If you search those, you might find others.


----------



## Guest (Jul 2, 2017)

Take a look on the children's ebook category. Not so much erotica but everything else thrown in. My sons 9 and not nearly as an avid a reader as my daighter so I downloaded the kindle app to our tablet thinking I'd make him read to earn tablet time. Works great he likes reading on the tablet much more than a book. The problem however is when I filter to children's ebook, especially without going into subcategories I see tons of books i shouldn't. A lot of them are books I've read that I definitely would not let either of my kids read. I see paranormal romance, epic fantasy, sword and sorcery etc... all thrown in. Some them I could see as middle grade books maybe while others have some really gory scenes and sexual content. Then there were books I wouldn't mind as much if he read but they are still wrong category. For example I came across three series today that were by different authors but labeled almost the same way- for example- title : I have no brains, a Christian romance novel. Ok so that's probably not a horrible read for my child but it's still not a  Children's ebook.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Obviously it's an underserved cat if there is room for so many headless six packs in there.
> 
> You might try to look for heist books under a slightly different category. Maybe take one that you found, go to the product page and scroll down to the bottom where they list several more categories for the book. If you search those, you might find others.


But those books aren't heist books and shouldn't be tagged as heist books. People who are looking for heist books shouldn't have to look in a different category, when the heist category is already perfect for heist books. The people who are abusing the category should be removed.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

whistlelock said:


> So, I'm kicking around some ideas for a new series while I'm watching Ocean's Eleven with my wife when I think "hey, I could write a heist novel. That could be fun. I like heist movies." I mean, who doesn't like a good heist movie? The dialog is all snappy. Everyone is super clever. the plan comes together and sometimes there's a surprise twist at the end. They're fun.
> 
> Now I've read Chris Fox's Write to Market and I think that checking out what's in the category and how it's selling is a great idea. I do a Google search for Top 100 Heist books Amazon. I click the top result, reliabably labeled Top 100 Amazon Heist Books. I am not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Heist-Thrillers/zgbs/books/9536063011
> 
> ...


Wow, I thought everyone knew that most categories are like this on Amazon. I had to stop using Amazon search and lists to find "Sci-Fi" or "Epic Fantasy" because it's filled with "Shifter" erotica. And "Alien billionaire" love erotica.

Amazon could care less that all fiction genre categories are stuffed with erotica and genre romance. 

_Edited quote and post. Drop me a PM if you have any questions. - Becca_


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

LilyBLily said:


> If something is getting stolen, it's a heist. If a baby is getting stolen, it might be more accurate to say it's a kidnapping, but accuracy is not what keywords are about.
> 
> My suggestion is that you publish a lot of heist books, using the word heist in your title, and crowd those bare-torso dudes out of the category.
> 
> If you use the word "caper" in your keywords, you'll probably find books about Irish jigs in the same category search...


There is a different connotation to 'heist' than there is to a regular old theft. Also, if you take a look at the blurbs on some of those man-chest covers, you'll notice that while some of them say they are heist novels, there is not a single thing in the actual blurb to suggest that they are actually heist novels. If you go by the blurbs they're having-sex-to-make-a-baby novels.


----------



## Paranormal Kitty (Jun 13, 2017)

ShayneRutherford said:


> If you go by the blurbs they're having-sex-to-make-a-baby novels.


I'm more surprised that this is a thing than by the books being in the wrong category.


----------



## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

you can exclude some stuff in search. Until I stopped browsing on Amazon, I did try that. Say I want to find a actual historical romance, I would put that in the search bar and follow it by -biker, -alpha, -daddy, -mc, -shifter and so on. Anything you kind of see on the covers of some of the books. So I guess you'd search for thrillers mystery heist -daddy, -alpha and so on. At one point I had a string of like -30 words. I just gave up browsing that way and went to goodreads. 

But you can give it a shot.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

LilyBLily said:


> We can see the blurbs, but what we do NOT see are the keywords the authors used, which Amazon uses to choose the categories despite what the author chooses as categories. For instance, I put "clean and wholesome" in one of my keyword boxes, and Amazon put my book in inspirational. Uh, no. Clearly, the authors of these sex books are using certain keywords that Amazon identifies as matching a "heist" term search--whether they used that exact word or not.


One of them actually calls the book a heist book right below the blurb, so I'm assuming it's in the heist category because the author used 'heist' as one of the keywords. But judging by the blurb, there's no possible way that it actually is a heist book, so I have a strong suspicion that the author is intentionally putting the book in the heist category, despite it not being a heist book, so that it can gain more visibility in a less competitive category. This kind of thing is done in other categories as well. For example, there is a ton of motorcycle club stuff in the vigilante category, despite the fact that the blurb doesn't so much as hint at there being a vigilante anywhere in the book.


----------



## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Just report the content as inappropriate and say it's in the wrong category. Sometimes they remove it.


----------



## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

Personally I am not a fan of reporting other authors willy nilly. It's bad karma. But I am still learning about some of the more obscure categories and I have found my own books in cats that made me scratch my head, though my first instinct was not to rush out and pry them out again either. 

I write some clean YA adventure/romance and used 'clean' in the keywords. It was a real shot in the dark and that book was in the oddest categories ever- it was like the most obscure stuff that I even came close to hinting at in the blurb and keywords. I had to adjust the keywords FIVE times to get it in the right places, and it still seems like it should be in more categories. And KDP refused to help, they said I was in the right categories, but it wasn't visible (huh?).

Also, if the (ahem) *alpha* is a bank robber, then it technically can be a heist book, no? Or is really just about baby stealing? Is there a womb napping category? What a world...


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

SuzyQ said:


> Personally I am not a fan of reporting other authors willy nilly. It's bad karma. But I am still learning about some of the more obscure categories and I have found my own books in cats that made me scratch my head, though my first instinct was not to rush out and pry them out again either.
> 
> I write some clean YA adventure/romance and used 'clean' in the keywords. It was a real shot in the dark and that book was in the oddest categories ever- it was like the most obscure stuff that I even came close to hinting at in the blurb and keywords. I had to adjust the keywords FIVE times to get it in the right places, and it still seems like it should be in more categories. And KDP refused to help, they said I was in the right categories, but it wasn't visible (huh?).
> 
> Also, if the (ahem) *alpha* is a bank robber, then it technically can be a heist book, no? Or is really just about baby stealing? Is there a womb napping category? What a world...


I was trying to help my friend's son find some good YA Epic Fantasy and some interesting Sci-Fi titles and we had to keep scrolling through pages and pages of male abs on the covers!!

The boy kept asking what they were doing there to which I had no good answer.

We eventually got off Amazon and went to another online book store where this problem is more controlled.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

SuzyQ said:


> Personally I am not a fan of reporting other authors willy nilly. It's bad karma.


It has nothing to do with reporting other authors, or bad karma. As a reader, if someone is dissatisfied with their (in)ability to find the books they want in the category that they should be able to find them, they should be able to report the books that are clogging up categories they shouldn't be in. Not to mention, there are plenty of authors who put their books in the wrong categories on purpose, just so they can get higher ranks and therefore more visibility, by being in a less competitive category. Why should those authors be allowed to continue to cheat, and potentially screw over authors who might rank a lot higher in those sub-cats if the wrong books weren't taking up those spots?



SuzyQ said:


> Also, if the (ahem) *alpha* is a bank robber, then it technically can be a heist book, no? Or is really just about baby stealing? Is there a womb napping category? What a world...


If the main plot is actually about planning out and executing a heist, then it might be a heist book. If the main plot is a romance, then it should be in a romance.

Also, heist is a fairly specific kind of story. Just because a book contains a theft doesn't make it a heist. The whole point of a heist story is that the planning and execution of the theft is the main plot of the story, like Ocean's Eleven or The Italian Job.


----------



## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

These are the keywords that can get you in heist category: "heist, robbery, thief, theft." Just mention a thief or theft, and your book can end up in there. Of course, when I use keywords to get into categories where my book should be, it usually doesn't work, so yeah, blame Amazon for the mess.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

The elephant in the room is the score of romance writers who are breaking the rules of Amazon to try to make more money. Romance already has TONS on categories and subcategories but instead of using those a lot of indie authors are adding some themes from other categories and calling their romance "Sci-Fi" or "Epic fantasy" heist, etc.

A heist is a plot which revolves around the plan and execution of a robbery. Not a romance that just happens to have a heist thrown in to escape to an easier category.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Herefortheride said:


> The elephant in the room is the score of romance writers who are breaking the rules of Amazon to try to make more money. Romance already has TONS on categories and subcategories but instead of using those a lot of indie authors are adding some themes from other categories and calling their romance "Sci-Fi" or "Epic fantasy" heist, etc.
> 
> A heist is a plot which revolves around the plan and execution of a robbery. Not a romance that just happens to have a heist thrown in to escape to an easier category.


Totally this.


----------



## Melody Simmons (Jul 8, 2012)

Just do a search for "Young Adult Fantasy" and see what you get!  You'd be amazed.  From what I have seen most categories on Amazon are not "pure".  The Horror Top 100 is full of Urban Fantasy, so is Paranormal Romance. Regency is full of Victorian romance and vice-versa.  Romantic Comedy has been taken over by lots of military and bad-boy steamy romances. The problem stems from both how the authors categorise their books and from Amazon.


----------



## RandomThings (Oct 21, 2016)

Since there's nothing you can do about this and some books are there by accident, others by design, If it's not for you then you have to adjust how you search. Try:

Heist -erotica -romance 

You will see all those headless torsos disappear as though they didn't exist. It's the only way I search for books now because when I am looking for sci-fi or fantasy, I have zero interest in romance or erotica. Nothing against those genres, they just aren't what I prefer to read.


----------



## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

Amazon are obviously making money out of books being in the wrong categories or they'd have done something about it by now.

If they do decide to fix it, you can bet it's some makeshift solution that burns a lot of innocent authors and doesn't really do much to the people who should be hit. That seems to be the Amazon way.


----------



## EllieDee (May 28, 2017)

> If it's not for you then you have to adjust how you search. Try:
> 
> Heist -erotica -romance


I've done similar things for years. Like when I'm looking for a SF story, I'll maybe get results if I put in 'Galactic Alien Empire -werewolves -alpha -vampires -werebears -weredragons -shapeshifters -virgin -billionaire -hot -steamy'

And so on. You get the picture. Because damn it, these authors already have PNR, paranormal themed Erotica, and to some extent UF categories! That's plenty, so why take over others?

And there are significant differences in the genres. I don't care if the author throws in one token sentence of 'oh these werewolves are totally descended from aliens, wink wink'. That is NOT enough to make the story a Sci Fi! 

Adjusting the search terms helps, but I wish there was a way you could save those settings or make them easier to select. Something like how Ebay has boxes you can tick for the color of what you're looking for, which countries it may come from, etc. On the other hand, adding that would make Amazon even slower to load and harder to navigate than it already is...


----------



## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

What I don't understand is, does deliberate miscategorization actually help the author? 

As a reader, I just get p*ssed at the books that don't belong. It doesn't tempt me to read them.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Atunah said:


> you can exclude some stuff in search. Until I stopped browsing on Amazon, I did try that. Say I want to find a actual historical romance, I would put that in the search bar and follow it by -biker, -alpha, -daddy, -mc, -shifter and so on. Anything you kind of see on the covers of some of the books. So I guess you'd search for thrillers mystery heist -daddy, -alpha and so on. At one point I had a string of like -30 words. *I just gave up browsing that way and went to goodreads. *
> 
> But you can give it a shot.


This is exactly what I do.

Goodreads is your friend when it comes to searching for books. If books are placed in the wrong list, people get them removed. I cannot stand all the miscategorizing on Amazon. It is so annoying. These erotica and erom books are everywhere from new adult romance to YA to fantasy.

I have now bookmarked a search I do on Amazon (if and when I search there), just like Atunah I add *-* to keywords like -taboo -stepbrother -daddy etc..... I have 10 keywords at the moment.

*Heist books -*

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/heist
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/15463.Great_Books_About_Heists_Fiction_
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/30958.True_Crime_Heists


----------



## Dax (Oct 20, 2016)

I really think the category hijacking is a disservice to users, and makes the site more cumbersome. As Lynn said above, she had to go to Goodreads to browse. Maybe people like her are an outlier, but I don't think it's a win for Amazon from a customer-loyalty perspective (though it could very well be from a money perspective) when a user has to use another site to use yours more effectively. 

I've wondered what could be done about this. There is a large site, a, ahem, free purveyor of extensive stories of a certain persuasion shall we say, that has very useful categories. Broad categories for a certain type of story, and then tagged word clouds and checkboxes that you can deselect. It seems very intuitive at guiding the reader to the specific type of story that they want.

I've also wondered if it would be helpful if readers had the option to tag a story a certain way in their reviews. (I think this is how it's done on Goodreads.) Then, the Great Amazon Machine could use that to help filter categories.

I had this frustration yesterday when I was looking around in the Gothic Romance category, and found lots of stuff - including I think A Shade of Vampire - that I wouldn't consider Gothic Romance at all. To me, Gothic Romance is windswept moors and brooding men, not vampires. I suppose in the olden days of bookstores, we had a limited number of "shelves" so your book had to go somewhere. The publisher and/or bookstore owner would put it in the category that made the most sense to some random human or set of random humans. 

I don't think limiting categories is the answer, but I don't think Amazon's current approach is a service to the reader, either.


----------



## JaclynDolamore (Nov 5, 2015)

I wish they let you pick the exact categories you want to be in, and then limited it to like, three maybe. That would be a huge start. Like Fortune's Curse is in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense : Crime because it has a magical Mafia in it but it's really a funny romp of a book, not what someone who likes crime fiction would be looking for. I don't really want it there. I've tried messaging about swapping to other categories but they just added more categories without removing the less relevant ones.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

ShayneRutherford said:


> It has nothing to do with reporting other authors, or bad karma. As a reader, if someone is dissatisfied with their (in)ability to find the books they want in the category that they should be able to find them, they should be able to report the books that are clogging up categories they shouldn't be in. Not to mention, there are plenty of authors who put their books in the wrong categories on purpose, just so they can get higher ranks and therefore more visibility, by being in a less competitive category. Why should those authors be allowed to continue to cheat, and potentially screw over authors who might rank a lot higher in those sub-cats if the wrong books weren't taking up those spots?
> 
> If the main plot is actually about planning out and executing a heist, then it might be a heist book. If the main plot is a romance, then it should be in a romance.
> 
> Also, heist is a fairly specific kind of story. Just because a book contains a theft doesn't make it a heist. The whole point of a heist story is that the planning and execution of the theft is the main plot of the story, like Ocean's Eleven or The Italian Job.


This.

All this miscategorizing is spoiling the experience of browsing on Amazon.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

As someone who actually writes heist books, it's not easy to market.  There is no "hard-boiled" detective, I don't really have any romance to speak of (although there is the possibility between the main characters), and no shootouts or car chases.  Yet that's what a lot of people want to read:  rough-n-tough private eyes, a couple in a clinch, and lots of violent action.  The traditional heist (as in brains rather than brawn) can be a tough sell.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Herefortheride said:


> The elephant in the room is the score of romance writers who are breaking the rules of Amazon to try to make more money. Romance already has TONS on categories and subcategories but instead of using those a lot of indie authors are adding some themes from other categories and calling their romance "Sci-Fi" or "Epic fantasy" heist, etc.
> 
> A heist is a plot which revolves around the plan and execution of a robbery. Not a romance that just happens to have a heist thrown in to escape to an easier category.


A few of them are genuine romances, but a lot of them are actually erotica or very steamy erom. I have seen authors talking about how to get more visibility on other forums and I don't like this general talk about how adding more words and making sure there is a HEA transforms an erotic book into a romance. Then a few odd people admitting they shove these books into every category on Amazon to gain visibility.

It is also Amazon's fault for not giving these authors more chances to be more visible. Not providing a simple adult filter button like Smashwords. Why can I easily find porn DVD's and erotic books on Amazon by putting in something innocent like 'Slumber party'.

Remember this article. _12 year old girl finds porn with an innocent search._ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34258918


----------



## CABarrett (Feb 23, 2017)

Dax said:


> I've also wondered if it would be helpful if readers had the option to tag a story a certain way in their reviews. (I think this is how it's done on Goodreads.) Then, the Great Amazon Machine could use that to help filter categories.


I also think that more specific metadata would be the answer to a lot of sorting problems. Amazon seems to be playing around with collecting this information, but as a casual reviewer I've only been prompted for these categories once that I can remember. Maybe it's what the future holds...


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

This thread inspired me to send an email 

I know it's just a drop in the water but I felt good taking action and not just complaining on the internet.

I mentioned why this makes me leave their site and buy books elsewhere and I gave the names of a couple really suspect books in places they know they shouldn't be.

Maybe something will happen, maybe it won't. But it's a start and it only took a couple of minutes.


----------



## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Amazon used to have a tagging system. Authors asked their friends to go in and tag their books with their list of words, leading to Amazon removing the tagging system. 

This is why we can't have nice things.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Rinelle Grey said:


> Amazon used to have a tagging system. Authors asked their friends to go in and tag their books with their list of words, leading to Amazon removing the tagging system.
> 
> This is why we can't have nice things.


I remember that. It was like another version of keywords. I didn't understand why Amazon got rid of the tags, they seemed to help categorize the books. But yeah, the system works soo much better now.....


----------



## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

Dax said:


> I had this frustration yesterday when I was looking around in the Gothic Romance category, and found lots of stuff - including I think A Shade of Vampire - that I wouldn't consider Gothic Romance at all. To me, Gothic Romance is windswept moors and brooding men, not vampires. I suppose in the olden days of bookstores, we had a limited number of "shelves" so your book had to go somewhere. The publisher and/or bookstore owner would put it in the category that made the most sense to some random human or set of random humans.
> 
> I don't think limiting categories is the answer, but I don't think Amazon's current approach is a service to the reader, either.


I'm not going argue with the clutter issue, I do agree that it's gotten out of hand. I do think Vampire stories are often gothic though, and that's kind of part of the problem. It's more than a little bit subjective. Shade has an ancient brooding rich guy in a castle juxtaposed with a young, modern woman.

This is from wikipedia: Gothic fiction, which is largely known by the subgenre of Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance.

I don't report other authors. You are effing with someone's income. They could be relying on KDP to buy medicine for their sick children or something. And they might not be aware that there was even an issue with their categories. It's a slippery slope.


----------



## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

SuzyQ said:


> I don't report other authors. You are effing with someone's income. They could be relying on KDP to buy medicine for their sick children or something. And they might not be aware that there was even an issue with their categories. It's a slippery slope.


When blatantly miscategorized books take up the top spots in the sub-categories, it effs with the income of the authors of books that actually belong in the category that are missing out on exposure. It's business and has nothing to do with why people personally need their income, we all need our income. And if an author doesn't realize that his/her book is grossly miscategorized, getting an email from Amazon is exactly what that author needs in order to fix it. It takes an awful lot for Amazon to ban an author account, and they are known to take months in some cases to watch accounts until they have enough to strike. A random author with a miscategorized book who otherwise abides by TOS is not going to get shut down, they will get an email about it. Scammers who deliberately stack hundred of books in the wrong category, however, may be a different story.


----------



## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

ebbrown said:


> When blatantly miscategorized books take up the top spots in the sub-categories, it effs with the income of the authors of books that actually belong in the category that are missing out on exposure. It's business and has nothing to do with why people personally need their income, we all need our income. And if an author doesn't realize that his/her book is grossly miscategorized, getting an email from Amazon is exactly what that author needs in order to fix it. It takes an awful lot for Amazon to ban an author account, and they are known to take months in some cases to watch accounts until they have enough to strike. A random author with a miscategorized book who otherwise abides by TOS is not going to get shut down, they will get an email about it. Scammers who deliberately stack hundred of books in the wrong category, however, may be a different story.


I've heard of people getting banned for very minor infractions. I think a monster like Zon has so many moving parts, you can absolutely get churned out by a cranky employee who is overzealous or drunk on power.

But what you said about the other authors who are getting hurt is food for though. Maybe my thinking is wrong on this. It makes me uncomfortable though.

If we become a self policing state that makes me verrrry nervous. I will resist making historical references.

My thinking has always been: eyes on your own paper and the cream rises to the top.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

SuzyQ said:


> I don't report other authors. You are effing with someone's income. They could be relying on KDP to buy medicine for their sick children or something. And they might not be aware that there was even an issue with their categories. It's a slippery slope.


As ebbrown said, people who blatantly miscategorize their books are screwing with the income of authors who genuinely belong in those categories. And I'm pretty sure that all those steamy let's-make-a-baby-together eroms -- which don't so much as mention a theft anywhere in the blurb -- didn't just happen to wander into the heist category by accident.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

SuzyQ said:


> My thinking has always been: eyes on your own paper and the cream rises to the top.


If all things were equal, then yes, the cream would rise to the top. But the cream can't rise to the top in its own category if there's a ton of stuff up there blocking it from getting visibility, and therefore, traction.


----------



## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

Melody Simmons said:


> Just do a search for "Young Adult Fantasy" and see what you get! You'd be amazed. From what I have seen most categories on Amazon are not "pure". The Horror Top 100 is full of Urban Fantasy, so is Paranormal Romance. Regency is full of Victorian romance and vice-versa. Romantic Comedy has been taken over by lots of military and bad-boy steamy romances. The problem stems from both how the authors categorise their books and from Amazon.


To be fair on the horror one, using the word "ghost" gets you put in horror. No joke. So if you use "ghost mystery" or "ghost thriller" you get shoved in horror. That one is not always on the authors. What some of the other authors are purposely doing, though, is annoying and almost criminal.


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Here's the thing, at least in my mind.

There's using the system and gaming the system. They're different.

Authors are often advised by various pundits to find underserved categories and slot their books in those so that they can rank in them and gain further visibility.

This is good advice -- if the underserved categories actually apply to the book's content. That's _using_ the system to improve your book's visibility.

If it's done just so the author can claim "I'm a top 10 bestseller!" and the book has absolutely no business in that category, then that's _gaming_ the system.

Gaming the system screws up the system, and makes it less valuable for the whole bunch of us for the benefit of a few.

The system is set up a certain way for a reason. If you use the system to gain visibility for your book, that's kosher.

If you game the system, using it to gain visibility for your book that doesn't belong in that category, that's scamming in my opinion.

Scamming is why we can't have nice things.


----------



## TestingEnabled (May 14, 2015)

LilyBLily said:


> If something is getting stolen, it's a heist. If a baby is getting stolen, it might be more accurate to say it's a kidnapping, but accuracy is not what keywords are about.
> 
> My suggestion is that you publish a lot of heist books, using the word heist in your title, and crowd those bare-torso dudes out of the category.
> 
> If you use the word "caper" in your keywords, you'll probably find books about Irish jigs in the same category search...


This is what I'd do. Reclaim the category. More than likely anyone else looking for this would be disappointed by baby daddy. Taking over the category should be 'relatively' easy with a string of advertising to get you into the game.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> To be fair on the horror one, using the word "ghost" gets you put in horror. No joke. So if you use "ghost mystery" or "ghost thriller" you get shoved in horror. That one is not always on the authors. What some of the other authors are purposely doing, though, is annoying and almost criminal.


But using ghost and getting put into horror doesn't seem unreasonable. It's easy to understand how it would happen, and it doesn't seem like willful miscategorization. It's the other blatant, deliberate stuff that's so aggravating to readers, and hurtful to other authors.


----------



## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> If all things were equal, then yes, the cream would rise to the top. But the cream can't rise to the top in its own category if there's a ton of stuff up there blocking it from getting visibility, and therefore, traction.


Scum also rises to the top.


----------



## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

The #2 book in the "Heist" category has "Bad Boy Baby Romance" as part of its title and in the description states: "over 50,000 words of hot sex."

Yet, it's over 1,000 pages. I think that's one of those scammy books Phoenix writes about. 









Amazon does not care.

As a reader, it annoys me even more than as an author when I'm trying to find real thrillers to read.


----------



## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> But using ghost and getting put into horror doesn't seem unreasonable. It's easy to understand how it would happen, and it doesn't seem like willful miscategorization. It's the other blatant, deliberate stuff that's so aggravating to readers, and hurtful to other authors.


Which is why I added the second part of the statement.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Everything *Sela, ebbrown* and *ShayneRutherford* said.

There are dozens of authors who do this on purpose because they know their books are going to be hidden away on Amazon. I have seen the discussions and some authors will tell these authors 'that's a black hat gaming the system move, please don't do it because sometimes Amazon comes down on groups of authors, not just one individual.'

Karma has nothing to do with it. Imagine what it's like for avid readers looking for their next book and getting stepdad and secret baby books in every category. If I want erotica, I will go look for it. Those books are about alpha bad boys, men connected to the mafia and motorbike gangs and a lot of them are erotica with a HEA tacked on the end. Most of them are not heist books.

It's frustrating. I hate searching on Amazon. Imagine how many readers feel the same way. I think you are helping by reporting these miscategorized books. I have reported some and I have also reported books with fake stories (gibberish or blank pages) stuffed in to increase the number of pages.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> Which is why I added the second part of the statement.


I know. I was agreeing with you.


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Rinelle Grey said:


> Amazon used to have a tagging system. Authors asked their friends to go in and tag their books with their list of words, leading to Amazon removing the tagging system.
> 
> This is why we can't have nice things.


Friends tagging friends' books wasn't the only abuse. My books were tagged in the UK with words that had no relevancy. It was malicious. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who had this happen.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Alan Petersen said:


> The #2 book in the "Heist" category has "Bad Boy Baby Romance" as part of its title and in the description states: "over 50,000 words of hot sex."
> 
> Yet, it's over 1,000 pages. I think that's one of those scammy books Phoenix writes about.


No, this is what it says: "It is over 50,000 words of hot sex and exciting action, and comes with two exclusive bonus novels. Enjoy!"

It clearly states what's inside.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

NeedWant said:


> No, this is what it says: "It is over 50,000 words of hot sex and exciting action, and comes with two exclusive bonus novels. Enjoy!"
> 
> It clearly states what's inside.


And it's clearly not a heist.

Are you claiming otherwise?


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Herefortheride said:


> And it's clearly not a heist.
> 
> Are you claiming otherwise?


I was clearly commenting on the bonus book and page count issue.

As for heist, the author might have deliberately wanted to be in that category (which would be wrong), or they could have used one of these keywords: "heist, robbery, thief, theft" and gotten in there anyway. So having a keyword like "baby theft" would get that book into the heist category.


----------



## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

BellaJames said:


> Everything *Sela, ebbrown* and *ShayneRutherford* said.
> 
> There are dozens of authors who do this on purpose because they know their books are going to be hidden away on Amazon. I have seen the discussions and some authors will tell these authors 'that's a black hat gaming the system move, please don't do it because sometimes Amazon comes down on groups of authors, not just one individual.'
> 
> ...


You guys are winning me over to the side of thinking this is a massive problem and unfair, but I don't think its fair to say all man chest books are erotica. There are lots of books that feature a brawny chest (covered or not) that are romance. It's not all flotsam. Also please be careful with the lumping. Don't dismiss romance or even erom as being 'whatever' or 'less than'. You (not you-you but the general you) can start to sound like a misogynist.

That being said, I agree, there is a lot of flotsam. It annoys me too.

I'm starting to wonder if there is a message board somewhere where someone told everyone to throw their garbage books into heist.


----------



## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

NeedWant said:


> No, this is what it says: "It is over 50,000 words of hot sex and exciting action, and comes with two exclusive bonus novels. Enjoy!"
> 
> It clearly states what's inside.


Yes. Not a heist book but a bad boy baby romance of 50,000 words of hot sex. But you're right I should not hijack this into a KU padding thing and keep the focus on sub-cat hijacking which this book appears to be doing.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

sela said:


> Here's the thing, at least in my mind.
> 
> There's using the system and gaming the system. They're different.
> 
> ...


*There's using the system and gaming the system. They're different.*

Indies aren't the only ones gaming the system. Trad publishers are dong it big time, and Amazon is looking the other way. "Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh: A Novel" is the title of a book that isn't a novel. It's a book of short stories written by Mo Yan, one of the most critically acclaimed writers in China, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2012. The Kindle categories for his book are *#1 Caribbean & Latin American, #2 Japanese, #3 Chinese*. I read the book. There is nothing even remotely related the Caribbean or Latin America in it. I don't believe for a second that Mo Yan picked these categories: his publisher picked them and got away with it because Amazon allowed it. It's happening everyday. The bestselling books on Amazon that are traditionally published have different categories for their Kindle books, paperback books, and hardcover books. These categories are carefully selected to secure staying power on the Kindle bestseller list, where most of the books are sold. Check it out. Look at the categories for the latest bestsellers by writers like John Grisham. This trick is used in every category from women's literary fiction to thrillers.


----------



## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

ShayneRutherford said:


> This really peeves me off but, sadly, it's nothing new. There are tons of cats that get hijacked like this. I keep hoping that Amazon will do something about it, but so far I remain disappointed.


People hijack cats  Oh - you mean categories. Phew


----------



## CallMeRed (May 12, 2016)

SuzyQ said:


> I'm starting to wonder if there is a message board somewhere where someone told everyone to throw their garbage books into heist.


Maybe, but it's not just the heist category. Tons of categories have this. Just the other day I was looking for a good family saga to read and found all this erotica that was clearly NOT family saga jamming up the top 100.

It's frustrating on both ends as a reader and a writer. I debated reporting as well, but in the end didn't because I felt like it would be bad juju.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

Marian said:


> *There's using the system and gaming the system. They're different.*
> 
> Indies aren't the only ones gaming the system. Trad publishers are dong it big time, and Amazon is looking the other way. "Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh: A Novel" is the title of a book that isn't a novel. It's a book of short stories written by Mo Yan, one of the most critically acclaimed writers in China, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2012. The Kindle categories for his book are *#1 Caribbean & Latin American, #2 Japanese, #3 Chinese*. Mo Yan didn't pick these categories: his publisher picked them and got away with it because Amazon allowed it. It's happening everyday. The bestselling books on Amazon that are traditionally published have different categories for their Kindle books, paperback books, and hardcover books. These categories are carefully selected to secure staying power on the Kindle bestseller list, where most of the books are sold. Check it out. Look at the categories for the latest bestsellers by writers like John Grisham. This trick is used in every category from women's literary fiction to thrillers.


Oof. This goes back to my thing about not reporting the little guys.

By the by, I did get a note from Zon once about taking my book out of the 'angel' category. There was a main character who was a half angel in it, but I was shooting for other more relevant categories. It wasn't an angelcentric story though, though in later books there were even more angels (loads almost). When I wrote back and explained the situation they left it in angel, and still didn't put it in the right cats. So I was kind of settling for angels.

I didn't even know that angels WAS a category before that.

Also, maybe this will explain my stance- pretty sure someone reported me in that case! Someone who did NOT read my book.

Gangs of indie authors roaming around and reporting people that they perceive as 'in their way' is not a really fair way to police the categories.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

SuzyQ said:


> You guys are winning me over to the side of thinking this is a massive problem and unfair, but I don't think its fair to say all man chest books are erotica. There are lots of books that feature a brawny chest (covered or not) that are romance. It's not all flotsam. Also please be careful with the lumping. Don't dismiss romance or even erom as being 'whatever' or 'less than'. You (not you-you but the general you) can start to sound like a misogynist.
> 
> That being said, I agree, there is a lot of flotsam. It annoys me too.
> 
> I'm starting to wonder if there is a message board somewhere where someone told everyone to throw their garbage books into heist.


I'm not trying to be funny but these topics have been talked about on this site for months. This is not a new discussion.

I mainly read romance (new adult, contemporary and some erom) and I can see when a book is romance or erotica by taking a look at the title, the blurb, then the look inside. Sometimes it is not so obvious until you purchase the book or download a free copy and read it.

I am disappointed by the amount of authors who are writing erotica and tacking on a HEA, then putting it into romance. I saw a review yesterday by a Goodreads friend and she was disgusted by a book in the top 100 this week, it is full of very graphic sex written like a porn script and a sudden HEA at the end. It is categorized as contemporary romance.

There are discussions in other places (not on this forum) about transforming erotic shorts into a longer romance story because romance is where the money is at. I personally don't think it is that easy.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

SuzyQ said:


> You guys are winning me over to the side of thinking this is a massive problem and unfair, but I don't think its fair to say all man chest books are erotica. There are lots of books that feature a brawny chest (covered or not) that are romance. It's not all flotsam. Also please be careful with the lumping. Don't dismiss romance or even erom as being 'whatever' or 'less than'. You (not you-you but the general you) can start to sound like a misogynist.


I think there are a couple of separate issues at play here. First, you're totally right, not all man-chest books are erotica. Although, even if they were, there's nothing wrong with erotica, either. Second, I don't think anyone is trying to dismiss romance or erom as 'whatever' or 'less than'. It's just that, most of the books that do this category-hijacking thing are erotic romance, and it's difficult to discuss the subject without getting frustrated and lumping all the books that do it into one big aggravating category of man-chest books, because that's practically all we see taking over the category we want to read. So it's not about the erom books being less than - it's about the fact that we'd be hacked off no matter what books were hijacking the category, and in this particular case, it just so happens to be man-chest books. I dare say we'd be just as frustrated if it was little kids' chapter books.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Alan Petersen said:


> Yes. Not a heist book but a bad boy baby romance of 50,000 words of hot sex. But you're right I should not hijack this into a KU padding thing and keep the focus on sub-cat hijacking which this book appears to be doing.


My main issue with what you said was the misrepresentation of the blurb and the subsequent shock based on said misrepresentation.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

SuzyQ said:


> Gangs of indie authors roaming around and reporting people that they perceive as 'in their way' is not a really fair way to police the categories.


It kind of depends on if the people who are 'in the way' are playing by the rules (or at least by the spirit of the rules) or are just gaming the system and screwing over other people in the process.


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

SuzyQ said:


> Oof. This goes back to my thing about not reporting the little guys.
> 
> Gangs of indie authors roaming around and reporting people that they perceive as 'in their way' is not a really fair way to police the categories.


I don't believe in reporting people. I do believe in fairness. Amazon has total control of categories and what is shown on their website. If Amazon permits publishers to get creative with categories, there is nothing that we can do about it. Presently, covers with bare chested men are on the first pages of AMS carousels for women's literary fiction. From here it looks like the only way it will change is if people will stop using their search system because it's dysfunctional. There is also the bottom line, no pun intended. Amazon is the biggest seller of erotica in the world. It's certainly far more lucrative than literary fiction.


----------



## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

It's really easy to get into the wrong category by accident. Until Amazon changes they keyword into categories system, this will keep happening.


----------



## Tulonsae (Apr 12, 2015)

Content removed due to TOS Change of 2018. I do not agree to the terms.


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Herefortheride said:


> The elephant in the room is the score of romance writers who are breaking the rules of Amazon to try to make more money. Romance already has TONS on categories and subcategories but instead of using those a lot of indie authors are adding some themes from other categories and calling their romance "Sci-Fi" or "Epic fantasy" heist, etc.
> 
> A heist is a plot which revolves around the plan and execution of a robbery. Not a romance that just happens to have a heist thrown in to escape to an easier category.


I personally don't get this whole business of hacking categories. Shouldn't you categorize your book properly so your true audience can find your book?

I can't see how it can work if your book shows up in "heist" and it's really a bad boy baby eRom but maybe I'm just a bad business person...

I highly doubt that eromance readers looking for steamy bad boy baby romances go to the Kindle Store and search Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Crime Fiction > Heist categories to find books to read.

Does it help the algorithms in some way to be ranking in an underserved category?

The only thing I can think is that the author to garner wants that elusive TOP 10 Bestseller claim or even #1 Bestseller yellow sticker.

Romance is such a huge genre with such big numbers that it's really hard to gain visibility if you're writing in a main category like contemporary romance or new adult romance. If you put your book in CR or NAR, you have to compete against tens of thousands of other books for visibility. If your book gets put into Erotica, you might as well kiss visibility on the main search pages goodbye.

Look, those erom books in the heist category?

The #1 HEIST book is #27 in the Kindle store so it's selling like hotcakes. #2 is #527 in the Kindle store. How can being in the heist category help sales? I don't get it, but it must work.

Hey, I have a bank robbery in my latest romance, which is a romantic suspense / new adult romance. Maybe if I put it in heist, it would be more visible...

Nope. Not gonna do it. It's not a heist story.


----------



## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

sela said:


> I personally don't get this whole business of hacking categories. Shouldn't you categorize your book properly so your true audience can find your book?


I completely agree. I know that my books sell much better and reach the correct readers when they are categorized well. When they're not categorized correctly, it shows in the reviews. When they're targeted to the correct audience it makes all the difference.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

sela said:


> I personally don't get this whole business of hacking categories. Shouldn't you categorize your book properly so your true audience can find your book?
> 
> I can't see how it can work if your book shows up in "heist" and it's really a bad boy baby eRom but maybe I'm just a bad business person...
> 
> ...


I totally agree. BUT.... chances are, these writers ARE categorizing their book properly. But they're also throwing in the kitchen sink. You know the old marketing saying: you can't get too many eyes on your product. It's like that email scam that's mentioned on another thread: for every 100,000 people who ignore or get irritated by seeing a bad-boy eRom book in a heist category, there might be _one_ reader who says, "hmm, I wasn't looking for that type of book, but it looks interesting."

I hate it and think Amazon should do something about it, but I know they won't. Why should they? All the rest of us authors can do is categorize our books correctly, promote them accordingly, and see what happens.


----------



## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

People who hijack your category are not your "fellow author competitors" any more than book-stuffers are. They are fellow authors that have either decided to get into the wrong category (in which they deserve to be held accountable), or have been placed there unwittingly. In either case, the remedy is for them to be placed in the correct category. The only way to get Amazon to take action is to report the book.

Nobody has ever lost their account or even been given a nasty-gram (to my knowledge) for having a book in the wrong category.

Think of it just the same as if you had a booth at a book fair in a certain section--say, the thriller section. Signs point to the various sections and customers will happily head for their favorite genres to browse the enticing print copies.

Or will they? As you set up your booth, you notice that of the 20 booths in your Thriller section, 14 of them are setting up non-thriller books. Some are chesties, some are stacking up softcore porno mags and DVDs, some are clearly paranormal/urban fantasy featuring high-school kids with powers (not slamming these cats, just random examples). And you notice that the lines of thriller browsers hardly ever make it past the first four or five non-thriller booths before turning away in confusion or irritation. "Hey, come over here!" you say, but in the confusion, your voice goes unheard. Pretty soon it's a total free-for-all and you notice hordes of people going elsewhere, even leaving the festival unhappy. By the end of the day your $150 booth has netted you seven sales and an aching butt from the folding chair they gave you, minus a $14 hamburger, fries and a coke.

Still think you shouldn't complain to the festival organizers about your "fellow author competitors" who pulled a bait and switch, they they shouldn't be held accountable and at least moved to the appropriate section tomorrow?


----------



## Dax (Oct 20, 2016)

SuzyQ said:


> I'm not going argue with the clutter issue, I do agree that it's gotten out of hand. I do think Vampire stories are often gothic though, and that's kind of part of the problem. It's more than a little bit subjective. Shade has an ancient brooding rich guy in a castle juxtaposed with a young, modern woman.
> 
> This is from wikipedia: Gothic fiction, which is largely known by the subgenre of Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance.
> 
> I don't report other authors. You are effing with someone's income. They could be relying on KDP to buy medicine for their sick children or something. And they might not be aware that there was even an issue with their categories. It's a slippery slope.


You're quite right. One could even argue that vampire romances like ASoV is a modern Gothic romance, in a way. My example here wasn't as strong an example as others have posted, just from my own personal experience.

I don't _mind_ ASoV being in Gothic Romance, and for some young readers that may be all they've ever known as Gothic Romance. But it would be very nice if there was a way I could deselect a tag like "vampire" under the Gothic Romance category, or "paranormal romance" and get more traditional things like _Jane Eyre_ or _Rebecca_.

I generally fall on the side of "don't hate the player, hate the game". Little things like Bella Forrest showing up in GR when, as you point out, there is an element of GR to her stories, clearly aren't a great example of authors exploiting the system but rather an example of a less-than-stellar UX. This seems to be an area where Amazon could do a great deal more work to improve the customer experience.

EDIT: So it seems that there may be two distinct issues. One: authors exploiting categories, and bizarre books ending up in the strangest of categories. Two: customers being unable to use the categories effectively, even if the categories are somewhat representative of the book's content. Said differently, because I don't think I'm wording this very well, customers are not able to drill down or navigate to the exact type of book they want. I think that this is generally the effect of Romance / ERom appearing in a great deal of categories, too. Regardless of the R/ER deluge, it seems to me like the UX could still be improved somehow. In any tweaks that Amazon considers, it should be mindful that these are two distinct issues that may require different solutions, rather than a broad brush.


----------



## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

Crystal_ said:


> It's really easy to get into the wrong category by accident. Until Amazon changes they keyword into categories system, this will keep happening.


Exactly. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt in this kind of situation.

And if anyone thinks authors are not ganging up on their legitimate competition bc they 'disagree' with the categorization or whatever, you have never had twenty people upvote a particularly nasty one star in one hour when your book rank gets high enough to gain notice.

Maliciously going after another author is almost as bad as massive book stuffing and click farming.


----------



## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

Didn't everyone get the Amazon email?

"All covers submitted after July 1 must contain male abs."


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

SuzyQ said:


> And if anyone thinks authors are not ganging up on their legitimate competition bc they 'disagree' with the categorization or whatever, you have never had twenty people upvote a particularly nasty one star in one hour when your book rank gets high enough to gain notice.
> 
> Maliciously going after another author is almost as bad as massive book stuffing and click farming.


I've seen authors getting some pretty vicious (and inaccurate) one star reviews after coming here for help. And since they were selling nothing, those were the only reviews their books got. And of course they got a bunch of upvotes from people here.

People who feel like they have the moral high ground (even when they're wrong or don't have all the facts) are just as dangerous to the indie community as some scammers.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> And how many threads here on this very site tell people to stuff every relevant keyword they can think of that searchers might use into those keyword boxes?


This is the exact reason that keyword stuffing is a bad idea. It ruins the search function.



Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> This whole thread reads like a "let's get them" motivational speech. Anytime anyone mentions that categories are quite often associated with a book by accident, it gets completely ignored or talked down.


I don't think anyone is saying 'let's get 'em'. And no one gets in trouble for miscategorized books anyway. But if enough people complain that books are in the wrong spot, maybe Amazon will fix the search algorithms so this kind of thing stops happening.



Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> The fact is, if I were looking for a baby heist book or a baby theft book, those would be the search terms I might use, so if the books end up in some "heist" category because of Amazon's keyword to category system, I don't think those authors should be changing them just to make a few people here happy. And I don't think it says anything good about the authors here who are talking like this as some big scam.


Heist is a term that covers a very specific type of story, like Ocean's Eleven. Not every story about theft is a heist story. So it's not about making a few people here happy - it's about the fact that all of the people who might like to read a heist book are getting stuck with a whole ton of books that aren't what they want, in the one specific category where they should be able to find it. And it may be a scam, or it may just be that Amazon's keyword function is fubar, but if people who are having a crappy user experience can't report that crappy user experience to Amazon, how is anything ever going to get fixed?

And I just wanted to add, I've seen plenty of examples where people suggested that authors should put their books in a less competitive category so they can get higher in the ranks and get more visibility. I *assume* that the people doing the advising meant 'a less competitive but still appropriate category', but that isn't always what happens. Some people really do stick their books in totally inappropriate categories so they can try to rank higher. People aren't making that up - that's advice that's been going around for quite a while now.

ETA: I had to switch over to my phone to add this pic...










Can anyone honestly look at this and not see something wrong with these results? This is the top 20 in the Heist category, btw. When people go looking for books like Ocean's Eleven, this is what they're being shown. And whether it's been done on purpose or as a result of Amazon's algorithms, the only way that's ever going to be fixed is if enough people complain about poor user experience.


----------



## Joseph Malik (Jul 12, 2016)

Maybe I should do a shirtless author photo for Book II.


----------



## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

I think part of the problem is that position in the categories/subcategories is determined by its overall placement in the store, not how well it's doing in the subcategory. This makes it pretty hard for the cream to rise to the top when you're in a subcategory that's not as big a seller as the miscategoriesed books.

Just for the record, this happens within romance too. Look at the top few pages of the fantasy romance category, and it's full of paranormal. Yes, at a stretch you could call that 'fantasy', but it's not what readers are after when they choose that category instead of paranormal!


----------



## NeilMosspark (Sep 30, 2016)

So a small wonder comes to mind after reading all of this.

If Automated curation does not work the. We need a human to curate the content. If the human curates the content they produce websites like good reads and organized sites like kobo. Then it progresses to only curating high quality content.
Then we are back at something hybrid to indie and trad publishing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> Here's the thing, though: how many people are searching for "heist" books using your definition of what it should be, and how many are looking for "baby heist," "heist romance," "sexy heist book," etc ad infinitum?


It's not my definition. It's just the definition of a specific genre. Genres were invented to allow people to find the books they were looking for, and if suddenly the definition doesn't mean anything close to what it used to, that's no good for all the people who still want to find books that fit the old definition and now no longer can.



Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> Suggest people report it if you want, but how much you want to bet half the reports from here will end up with the word "scam" in there somewhere?


I thought we were giving authors the benefit of the doubt. If you have to give authors the benefit of the doubt that they're not scamming, then I think we also have to give authors the benefit of the doubt that they'll report books like that as simply being miscategorized and not a scam.


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

This issue is the very reason I search on Goodreads for books to read/do research. It's the purest of the pure lists created by readers. To be honest, I don't care if it's intentional or not, it makes me mad when I can't find my favorite types of books because there are shirtless abs everywhere (which I do NOT find attractive because personally hairless men are...just...no...ick!). Anyway, in attempting to research women's fiction for my next novel, I found nothing but shirtless abs there! In Women's Fiction? Are you kidding me? So, Goodreads it is.

Look, I understand that erotica authors get pushed down into the Amazon dungeons and I don't agree with that at all. However, I believe that other authors should strive to be more respectful and put their books in proper categories.



Joseph Malik said:


> Maybe I should do a shirtless author photo for Book II.


Can it hurt?


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

It is possible to get in the wrong categories by accident. It happened to me with my eRom book. I used a friend's keywords, and she used inspirational in the keyword string. So my eRom sold so well that it ranked in Romance > Inspirational... Which anyone who knows anything about inspirational romance knows is usually Christian. UGH! It was both our faults for using that keyword. She understood inspirational to be something different than religious, or Christian and I didn't check her keywords well enough to pick up on it. This was back in 2014 when I knew nothing about keywords, etc. 

As soon as I saw the ranking in the Inspirational Romance category, I cleaned up my keywords. 

So it does legitimately happen. However, I don't think that's what happened in the heist category. I think that there is a tactic out there in indie land to hack categories in order to get a nice yellow sticker for #1 bestseller or just for greater visibility or bragging rights. It's ridiculous on its face for a book about a couple meeting and having hot sex and then the woman getting pregnant to be categorized as Fiction / Thrillers / Heist just because the hero is a former bank robber. If a heist is not a central part of the story, it's not properly in heist. Put it in Romantic suspense.  

I mean, it's no skin off my back personally. I write contemporary, new adult and erotic romance. Those are huge categories with the most competition so some hacking of sub sub categories means nothing much to me. I don't report authors as a rule because I don't have the time to spend angsting about other authors behaving unethically or bad behaviour, although I have reported scam books in the past (those silly ones with the donkey and horse and dog) but I will call it out when I see it.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> Here's the thing, though: how many people are searching for "heist" books using your definition of what it should be, and how many are looking for "baby heist," "heist romance," "sexy heist book," etc ad infinitum?
> 
> You--we--whoever--might want heist to only be used in keywords for a very specific niche but that hardly seems likely. Amazon is at fault here. If anyone needs to be called out over this kind of thing, it's Amazon. They use keywords in weird combinations to put books into categories and the better a book is selling, the more categories that book is likely to end up in and the higher the rank in that category. If it's pushing out other books, that's _Amazon's_ fault.
> 
> ...


The heist example was just one of many. As I already pointed out, this same thing happens in Epic Fantasy and sci-fi searches. A screen full of male ab covers and talks about "sex and romance".

This is a systemic problem and it's very sad.

YOu can't tell me that every category of books are a subgenre of Romance and erotica.


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Herefortheride said:


> The heist example was just one of many. As I already pointed out, this same thing happens in Epic Fantasy and sci-fi searches. A screen full of male ab covers and talks about "sex and romance".
> 
> This is a systemic problem and it's very sad.
> *
> YOu can't tell me that every category of books are a subgenre of Romance and erotica.*


Yes! My point exactly.

It's been ages since I've read a fantasy novel but I think the last time I checked, I had to actually find authors' names on Goodreads and look the books up on Amazon that way because everything in fantasy was actually paranormal romance, not sword and sorcery, you know? It's frustrating.

Like with the Women's Fic category. Ok...yes, many women's fic books have romance subplots but not erom. This tells me that these authors are using women's fiction keywords to get into that category. I don't see how else the books would end up there.


----------



## Lady Runa (May 27, 2012)

Thank you all, guys. That's very refreshing to hear. I couldn't understand what was going on. It's near impossible to do market research on Amazon these days as all you get in every category is vampires, werewolves and shirtless dudes. I write UF but I DON'T WANT to write about any of them and those top results give you the impression they're all the reader wants to buy.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> Oh yes. I use one word keywords for each of the seven keywords Zon allows so I'm just a spectator here. But I've had my books end up in some really odd categories - using only _seven_ keywords.
> 
> And how many threads here on this very site tell people to stuff every relevant keyword they can think of that searchers might use into those keyword boxes?
> 
> ...


Have you read these types of books? They are not baby heist or kidnapping books. Most of them contain no great organised bank/casino robberies and no great escape from the law. No. They are about alpha men who are in motorbike gangs or connected to the mafia. Some are stories where the heroine and hero are forced to marry or his mission is to get her pregnant so that she belongs to him. Some are about revenge (killing her ex from a rival gang or getting a forbidden woman pregnant so that she belongs to him)

I've read a few of the MC and connected to the mafia books. To be honest, I did not like them. There was no action, just an alpha man talking about how much of a bad dangerous man he was and lots of unprotected sex. If there was action, it was not on the page.

I think these authors know exactly what they are doing. The books are categorized like this:

# in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Crime > Heist
#in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Crime Fiction > Heist

I think that looks wrong.

These authors are putting 'Heist book' in the blurb so this is something that is obviously helping these books get more visibility.

I think they are choosing keywords and categories that get them to rank higher in smaller sub-cats and like Sela said, then they become a bestseller faster. Aren't these books romances with some suspense.

I do think Amazon has to take their share of the blame. They are making it harder for some authors to get visibility and sometimes adding one or two keywords can push you into the wrong category. Amazon doesn't clean up their shop enough so these books sit there in the wrong cat.

I just know that these authors know that a person looking for a heist book would probably be looking for something more like Ocean's Eleven and not with a naked guy on the front cover. I'd be looking here http://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/heist

Romance could be included in the book but not as the main plot.

I just noticed that a few of these books have the same words at the end of the blurb. These are three different author pen/real names. Tell me these authors are not connected.

Blurb one - _*is a full-length, standalone bad boy baby HEIST romance with an HEA, no cheating, and some very hot sex!*_
Blurb two - _*is a full-length standalone bad boy HEIST baby romance. Comes with additional bonus content.*_
Blurb three - _* is a full-length, standalone bad boy HEIST romance with an HEA, no cheating, and some very hot sex! Comes with additional bonus content*_


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

BellaJames said:


> Have you read these types of books? They are not baby heist or kidnapping books. Most of them contain no great organised bank/casino robberies and no great escape from the law. No. They are about alpha men who are in motorbike gangs or connected to the mafia. Some are stories where the heroine and hero are forced to marry or his mission is to get her pregnant so that she belongs to him. Some are about revenge (killing her ex from a rival gang or getting a forbidden woman pregnant so that she belongs to him)
> 
> I've read a few of the MC and connected to the mafia books. To be honest, I did not like them. There was no action, just an alpha man talking about how much of a bad dangerous man he was and lots of unprotected sex. If there was action, it was not on the page.
> 
> ...


It's worse than I thought.


----------



## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Herefortheride said:


> It's worse than I thought.


My suspicion is that this is a Patterson-style publisher who provides the latest most marketable plotlines, engages ghostwriters for the content, and centrally markets the books across pen names to stay under the radar. It's basically just a business, providing junk food for the masses, and given how so many argue here, I see nothing much wrong with it. I'm not even convinced that they willfully aim at the most outrageously wrong categories, I think that's just a consequence of massive keyword stuffing the category slots. It's just a result of the current system.

I haven't used Amazon search to find reading matter in at least a decade now. I use Goodreads instead.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Nic said:


> My suspicion is that this is a Patterson-style publisher who provides the latest most marketable plotlines, engages ghostwriters for the content, and centrally markets the books across pen names to stay under the radar. It's basically just a business, providing junk food for the masses, and given how so many argue here, I see nothing much wrong with it. I'm not even convinced that they willfully aim at the most outrageously wrong categories, I think that's just a consequence of massive keyword stuffing the category slots. It's just a result of the current system.
> 
> I haven't used Amazon search to find reading matter in at least a decade now. I use Goodreads instead.


On the one hand I think these authors are doing something right by writing books that are entertaining a huge group of avid readers. 
On the other hand I think these authors are doing something wrong in putting their books in the wrong cat or when they find out their books are in a category that is not appropriate, at least inform Amazon or change some keywords.

If I was not a romance fan then I would be so mad at seeing romance showing up in every sub-cat. Yes a lot of books contain a romantic relationship somewhere in the book but putting your bad boy baby making book here

# in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Crime > Heist
#in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Crime Fiction > Heist

feels wrong.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

Nic said:


> My suspicion is that this is a Patterson-style publisher who provides the latest most marketable plotlines, engages ghostwriters for the content, and centrally markets the books across pen names to stay under the radar. It's basically just a business, providing junk food for the masses, and given how so many argue here, I see nothing much wrong with it. I'm not even convinced that they willfully aim at the most outrageously wrong categories, I think that's just a consequence of massive keyword stuffing the category slots. It's just a result of the current system.
> 
> I haven't used Amazon search to find reading matter in at least a decade now. I use Goodreads instead.


A pity but that's where I'm at as well.

I also love a good heist story. I'm keen on clever set-ups and problems with the plan that must be solved on the fly during the actualy heist scene.

What I'm not looking for is an erotica about bikers trying to get women prognant to "claim her".

This is not a heist.


----------



## R.U. Writing (Jul 18, 2015)

I love heists. Unfortunately, I noticed the problem in this category over a year ago. It's been a problem for a long time.

As a reader, the entire catalog here is off-putting.

As a writer, the problem is that I'm not competing against the books in this category for eyeballs, I'm competing against EVERY book on Amazon for eyeballs in this category--so my heist book (a small audience) would have to sell better than all of these romance books (a giant audience) for a place at the heist table. Sigh.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Wait.  I know we've been mentioning 'baby-stealing' and even 'forced pregnancy' (ugh   ) as erroneous examples of a heist, but some comments seem to suggest that 'baby heist' is actually a thing in some books.  Please tell me it's not so.  And if it is, can we get them to use a different term other than heist?

I want my category back.


----------



## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

As a reader, the book browsing experience is salted and off-putting. Imagine if the same were happening on Amazon Prime video or Netflix. Viewership would drop. I've stopped browsing and rely on newsletters, ads, and word-of-mouth.
As a writer, it's a shame. Accidental category placements do happen and a change to keywords or an email to KDP Support is easy enough.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2017)

LilyBLily said:


> If something is getting stolen, it's a heist.


But that doesn't mean it belongs in THAT category. Just because two people have a romantic relationship in a book doesn't mean it goes under romance. Just because a book has women in it does not mean it goes under woman's fiction. The presence of African-American characters does not automatically put a book under African-American literature.

The problem is that Amazon is broken in regards to this because they genuinely don't care. And authors continue to do this because they want to find the easy way to get a "bestseller" tag so they cram their books into small categories they don't belong in so they can get into the top ten or top 100 and say "I'm a bestseller." The only hope is to find ways other than depending on Amazon discoverability to sell books.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Jena H said:


> Wait. I know we've been mentioning 'baby-stealing' and even 'forced pregnancy' (ugh  ) as erroneous examples of a heist, but some comments seem to suggest that 'baby heist' is actually a thing in some books. Please tell me it's not so. And if it is, can we get them to use a different term other than heist?
> 
> I want my category back.


I have not seen baby stealing or kidnapping in any of the books I've read. There might be others where that does happen.

The ones I've read are about MC gang members and men connected to the mafia are either taking revenge (hurting or killing) another gang member, getting revenge on someone by hooking up and impregnating a woman linked to their enemy (daughter, sister, ex-girlfriend).

OK, In some of these stories the woman is kidnapped or there is the threat of being kidnapped. In others she is involved in a sex slave auction. 
I haven't seen any actual heists, like *Ocean's Eleven* or *The Italian Job* type heists in these books.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But that doesn't mean it belongs in THAT category. Just because two people have a romantic relationship in a book doesn't mean it goes under romance. Just because a book has women in it does not mean it goes under woman's fiction. The presence of African-American characters does not automatically put a book under African-American literature.
> 
> The problem is that Amazon is broken in regards to this because they genuinely don't care. And authors continue to do this because they want to find the easy way to get a "bestseller" tag so they cram their books into small categories they don't belong in so they can get into the top ten or top 100 and say "I'm a bestseller." The only hope is to find ways other than depending on Amazon discoverability to sell books.


All of this


----------



## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

CallMeRed said:


> Maybe, but it's not just the heist category. Tons of categories have this. Just the other day I was looking for a good family saga to read and found all this erotica that was clearly NOT family saga jamming up the top 100.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I echo your frustration as a writer of a family saga which clearly says 'family saga' on the cover and in the title, but is buried in nowhere land while trillionaire, billionaire, westerns and several pages of pre-orders that also appear not to be family sagas are on the first pages. Wish I knew how they do it  . I tried all sorts of searches 'fiction family saga' novel family saga' etc to see if there were any tags that would help, but the only search that gets my book on the first page is if I add 'South Africa' to the search, and not many people would specifically search for that .


----------



## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

I'm curious.

For those of you who'd like to see changes in how Amazon categorizes books, how would _you_ build the "perfect" categorization system?


----------



## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Rosie A. said:


> Like with the Women's Fic category. Ok...yes, many women's fic books have romance subplots but not erom. This tells me that these authors are using women's fiction keywords to get into that category. I don't see how else the books would end up there.


Before I found KBoards I assumed that 'women's fiction' meant any fiction that would appeal specifically to women. I've heard men say, "This is a woman's book" after reading a few pages and putting the book down. I'm sure I'm not the only one, and some websites would also categorize the same way, so that could be a genuine misunderstanding.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

Anarchist said:


> I'm curious.
> 
> For those of you who'd like to see changes in how Amazon categorizes books, how would _you_ build the "perfect" categorization system?


I'd send out an announcement that the categories would be changed to more accurately reflect their intended genre and in the future authors must be careful NOT to purposefully miscategory their books. If writers continued to stuff their erotica into heist, family story, and epic fantasy they would be punished accoringly and this would magically come to an end.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Before I found KBoards I assumed that 'women's fiction' meant any fiction that would appeal specifically to women. I've heard men say, "This is a woman's book" after reading a few pages and putting the book down. I'm sure I'm not the only one, and some websites would also categorize the same way, so that could be a genuine misunderstanding.


I think some authors genuinely do not understand what types of books should go into some sub-genres or cats like women's fiction. I see writers posting these questions quite a bit on different reddit subs. 
I think some people do think any book about women is _women's fiction _and any book with steamy sex scenes is _NA romance_.

However with these books being placed into Heist or straight erotica being placed in contemporary romance, most of these authors know what they are doing. They know their book is not a Heist crime novel. Some authors are trying to get to the bestseller status as fast and easy as they can by placing their book everywhere.
When you write 'Heist book with hot sex' in your blurb and have a man with six pack abs on the front cover, you know what you are doing.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2017)

Part of the problem in my mind is that we shouldn't have to go Goodreads or newsletters or some other source to death for books. It defeats the purpose or at least drags it out if you have kindle unlimited and want to see the books available to you, or if you were doing what I was and looking for free books for your kid. My sons a capable but not an avid reader. He had no idea what type of books he likes so my though was to download a bunch of free books and then if he liked them I could look for similar books are purchase the rest of a series for him. So to need to go back and forth between Amazon and some other location to pick out which books are actually children's books age 8-middle grade then. Determine if they are in ku or free is a pain in the butt. If the paranormal romance, Christian romance and others that don't belong their weren't there I could have actually done what I wanted and been done. Instead I ended up subscribing to half a dozen newsletters that I didn't want so I. Can get daily notifications for free and cheap books in the catagory because that takes less time and my time is valuable to me at least even if not all of you arguing that if Amazon allows it oh well screw the reader.

I totally get it happens by accident. Pretty sure the sheer number of accidents out there lend to the fact it is not entirely accidental.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2017)

Anarchist said:


> For those of you who'd like to see changes in how Amazon categorizes books, how would _you_ build the "perfect" categorization system?


For starters, they could adopt the actual book industry standards:
http://bisg.org/page/BISACEdition

Then enforce those standards. If a book's primary category is listed as *FIC005000 FICTION / Erotica / Genera*l then no amount of keyword stuffing should allow it to seep into any sub-category for *FIC050000 FICTION / Crime*. If they used the BISAC codes, they could create a program that would allow authors to then select their sub-categories from a pre-generated list. In this way, they could actually allow authors to select more than two categories.

For example, an author that selects Romance might get a prompt that says:



> You have selected *FIC027020 FICTION / Romance / Contemporary*, would you like to add your book to any of the following related categories?
> 
> FIC027000 FICTION / Romance / General
> FIC027260 FICTION / Romance / Action & Adventure
> ...


This wouldn't be perfect, but nothing will be perfect. But it would stop a lot of the more obvious abuses AND allow authors more freedom in selecting the right categories.


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> For starters, they could adopt the actual book industry standards:
> http://bisg.org/page/BISACEdition
> 
> Then enforce those standards. If a book's primary category is listed as *FIC005000 FICTION / Erotica / Genera*l then no amount of keyword stuffing should allow it to seep into any sub-category for *FIC050000 FICTION / Crime*. If they used the BISAC codes, they could create a program that would allow authors to then select their sub-categories from a pre-generated list. In this way, they could actually allow authors to select more than two categories.
> ...


It's a great idea, but trad publishers would never agree to this. They are big abusers of the system.


----------



## Joseph Malik (Jul 12, 2016)

Rosie A. said:


> Can it hurt?


I'm already getting email from female readers sporting bikini armor or less. I'm good.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

Marian said:


> It's a great idea, but trad publishers would never agree to this. They are big abusers of the system.


They wouldn't have to agree with it. They would be placed there. If it was found that big trad publishers were wantonly breaking the rules they get punished in the algorithmns, a written notice and removed from those categories.


----------



## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> For starters, they could adopt the actual book industry standards:
> http://bisg.org/page/BISACEdition
> 
> Then enforce those standards. If a book's primary category is listed as *FIC005000 FICTION / Erotica / Genera*l then no amount of keyword stuffing should allow it to seep into any sub-category for *FIC050000 FICTION / Crime*. If they used the BISAC codes, they could create a program that would allow authors to then select their sub-categories from a pre-generated list. In this way, they could actually allow authors to select more than two categories.
> ...


You have to use this system when choosing genres through CreateSpace.


----------



## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Rinelle Grey said:


> I think part of the problem is that position in the categories/subcategories is determined by its overall placement in the store, not how well it's doing in the subcategory. This makes it pretty hard for the cream to rise to the top when you're in a subcategory that's not as big a seller as the miscategoriesed books.
> 
> Just for the record, this happens within romance too. Look at the top few pages of the fantasy romance category, and it's full of paranormal. Yes, at a stretch you could call that 'fantasy', but it's not what readers are after when they choose that category instead of paranormal!


I accidentally keyword into the romance > fantasy category with the incredibly reasonable keyword "Cinderella fantasy," a super common trope in billionaire romance. I'll admit, once I was in that category and saw that it was nothing but sexy romances, I keyworded into it on purpose. The way the system is set up now, you're at a disadvantages if you don't keyword into as many categories as you can (assuming other authors are doing the same thing). Amazon needs to totally overhaul their system and offer some guidance as to what should actually go into a category.

I put my romances in women's fiction and I think they belong there--they're as much about the heroine coming into herself as they're about love. But they're are no guidelines, so how can I say for sure?


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

I see the "heist" problem being the result of two things:

1. A general angst about visibility that is leading to some authors / publishers trying to find any kind of edge they can get, legal or not, ethical or not.

I understand this angst. It's darn hard to get visible these days, and more costly than ever. I never spent money on a launch back in the day (shakes cane) but now, I have to use a mailing list, new release notices from Bookbub and D2D, plus Facebook and AMS ads to get any movement. 

BUT I am not going to use unethical / blackhat / TOS-breaking tactics to get visibility. I'm not going to put my books into wrong categories on purpose in order to get a yellow sticker, or put in bonus material with incentives to click to the end of the book so I can get un-read page reads in KU, or buy thousands of my own books to get a bestseller tag. I'm not going to publish 10 books of 10 books, rearranged in 10 different ways, with 10 different covers with incentivized links in order to get un-read page reads in KU, or whatever the reason they do that.

Each of us has to be clear about our own ethics and act accordingly. There will always be scammers and cheats and frauds that mess up things for the rest of us honest folk. The better designed a system is, the less able these scammers and cheats are able to scam and cheat.

Which leads me to:

2. Amazon's broken system that is premised on automation so they can remove as much human involvement as possible. Humans cost a lot of money and cut into profit, so the fewer you can use the better to your bottom line. Damn the consequences.  

Sure, I don't like the old trad publisher human-curated system that decided based on individual taste and sense of the market what books become visible to readers, but the current system in Amazon is not working well either. It's subject to being hacked and scammed and harms those authors who act ethically and follow TOS. 

Amazon algorithms used to work pretty well, showing books that readers might want to read but now? If you don't pay, it seems you don't play on Amazon. The success of Bookbub and Facebook ads has, in a way, been too successful for our own good. It made Amazon finally realize they can go after our indie margins by making us pay via Amazon ads in order to get the kind of visibility books used to get without them.

/grumble

/get off my lawn


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Herefortheride said:


> They wouldn't have to agree with it. They would be placed there. If it was found that big trad publishers were wantonly breaking the rules they get punished in the algorithmns, a written notice and removed from those categories.


That won't happen. Big trad publishers are given concessions that we don't get.


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

sela said:


> I see the "heist" problem being the result of two things:
> 
> 1. A general angst about visibility that is leading to some authors / publishers trying to find any kind of edge they can get, legal or not, ethical or not.
> 
> ...


This^^

It's working well for Amazon. It's a brilliant idea; whoever thought of it should get a big bonus. Amazon is being paid twice for every book they sell through AMS. They're paid for the click and they're paid for the sale.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

So...it seems people don't like the fact that Amazon gives us two categories but should only limit us to one when we publish?

Or is it just romance that should be segregated from the rest of the categories because man chest offends some people?


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2017)

NeedWant said:


> So...it seems people don't like the fact that Amazon gives us two categories but should only limit us to one when we publish?
> 
> Or is it just romance that should be segregated from the rest of the categories because man chest offends some people?


You should be limited to the categories that actually reflect your book. Period. Full stop. Erotica and romance are the worst offenders, but by no means the only. It has nothing to do with being offended. It has to do with the fact that, when I want to find a HORROR NOVEL I have to scroll through pages of paranormal romances first. When I want to find a thriller, I have to scroll through pages of romances first. As someone else noted, you can't search for children's books without also finding YA and even NA books crammed in there. When I want to find, well, ANYTHING, on Amazon, I have to scroll through pages of unrelated stuff first.

I am complaining AS A CONSUMER. If I go into the supermarket and go to the produce aisle, I don't expect to find avocado shampoo or citrus scented deodorant there blocking out all of the produce. I expect to find produce. When I go to the dairy aisle, I don't want to push through shelves of milk shower gels or yogurt face creams. I expect milk and cheese and such.


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

People see romance and erotica as easy targets, ripe for get-rich-quickly schemes. As a result, they think they can throw together some trashy story, get a man chest cover, and stuff keywords and hack categories and make a mint in KU.

Problem is, the really savvy ones can. 

The romance audience is UUUGE. Tapping it is seen by many business-minded types as easy money with passive income potential.

If they're smart, they can. Hire some ghost writers, direct them to write to trend, hitting the tropes, publish fast, publish cheap, and rake it in. 

These are smart business people. 

Hacking categories is a way to get greater visibility. Stuffed books with incentivized back matter is a way to get unearned page reads. Stuffing keywords is a way to get higher in the pop lists.

Part of me is in awe. They are clearly giving a large audience what they want or their books would not sell. 

The artist part of me is miffed. The part of me that wants to write books that please me and readers like me. I want to write emotionally fulfilling romance novels that are evergreen and please my ever-growing audience. I don't want to become a factory owner or an absentee landlord or enslave myself to a treadmill but the romance book mills seem to be forcing us all to write more faster. 

So, there are primarily "writers" out there trying to find their audience, because they love to write and want to do it for a living.

Then, there are the primarily "business people" who see publishing as a get-rich-quick scheme, a side hustle, who do it to make passive income. They may be writers or may just see publishing as an easy market to tap.

Those of us who consider themselves writers first, who got into this because we wanted to write books, have to think like the business people in order to compete. If we want to make a living at this without becoming book mills, we have to do the storytelling thing better and do the marketing thing as well. We don't have to write two books a month, or hack anything, or scam. We have to write commercial books that are visible.

That's the issue for us. How to write commercial books and make them visible so we can do this for a living.

It seemed way too easy for me when I started in 2012/2013 and found success. It seems a lot harder now because the industry is maturing, there are more and more entrants, and the competition is fierce. You have to be really smart and savvy in a business sense to succeed, in addition to being able to write a compelling genre-appropriate story.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> It's just romance. Guaranteed. Haven't you see how many times it's been brought up that romance has plenty of subcategories of its own and shouldn't encroach on other people's categories?
> 
> As a romance reader, I don't really care. I like finding romance in "romance." But it is a big double standard. Mystery can be in fantasy if it's a fantasy mystery, and science fiction can also be in crime if it's a techno thriller, but romance can't be in suspense because romance already has a suspense category. That's what I'm hearing here. If that's not what's meant, then I'm just missing it entirely.
> 
> But if that's to work, then _everyone_ should be limited to one category. It's only fair, right?


Exactly. It's *always* romance they're complaining about. I don't see anyone complaining that the Dresden Files can be found in the Mystery PI category. Shouldn't fantasy have its own PI category?



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> You should be limited to the categories that actually reflect your book. Period. Full stop. Erotica and romance are the worst offenders, but by no means the only. It has nothing to do with being offended. It has to do with the fact that, when I want to find a HORROR NOVEL I have to scroll through pages of paranormal romances first. When I want to find a thriller, I have to scroll through pages of romances first. As someone else noted, you can't search for children's books without also finding YA and even NA books crammed in there. When I want to find, well, ANYTHING, on Amazon, I have to scroll through pages of unrelated stuff first.


I don't like blatant miscategorization either. Like putting a book into interracial when the couple is not or LGBT when it's about straight people. But putting a romance into mystery/crime when the main attraction is that the love interest is a criminal? I don't see a huge problem there.



> I am complaining AS A CONSUMER. If I go into the supermarket and go to the produce aisle, I don't expect to find avocado shampoo or citrus scented deodorant there blocking out all of the produce. I expect to find produce. When I go to the dairy aisle, I don't want to push through shelves of milk shower gels or yogurt face creams. I expect milk and cheese and such.


That analogy doesn't really work when it comes to books, though. All books are produce, just different kinds of produce. So it would be more like seeing a banana stand covered in apples or carrots.


----------



## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

If I wrote a book about someone stealing a baby, I would absolutely use one of those keywords that get the book into the heist category. How could you not use the keyword "theft" or "robbery" in your keywords with that plot line?

I might use "heist" as well because the point of keywords is to target search terms. Yes, it's not a heist, but if some readers will think it is a heist, then I might as well target them when I search.

This is on Amazon, not on the authors.


----------



## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

If you haven't read the NY times article about working at Zon, you should. They want us to figure out how to get visibility and shake the money out of the trees. He fosters competition on purpose. That's the whole point of the shared KU pot.

At first the pages read were to get the GOOD authors to be compensated, or at least the readable ones. 

It is literally a jungle and I think it's deliberate. This is never going to be solved. But you can get individual indie authors in trouble by targeting them. I personally find that a disturbing instinct.

I agree with @Crystal_ it's not on the authors, its on the company that threw us all into an arena with nothing but spears and out wits to survive.

I am a little baffled about the women's literature issue- I thought romance fell under that. No?


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> I don't like blatant miscategorization either... But putting a romance into mystery/crime when the main attraction is that the love interest is a criminal? I don't see a huge problem there.


Just because the love interest is a criminal doesn't make the story a mystery. If there's a mystery to solve, then it's a mystery. If the main thrust of the story is about a crime, then it's crime. If it's a romance about a criminal and the woman falling in love with him, then it's a romance.

Romance readers don't like it when authors try to shove their non-HEA stories into the romance category. Why would you think that mystery readers should like it when romance readers try to shove their non-mystery book into mystery?


----------



## Elliott Kay (Jan 12, 2016)

What has me baffled is how so many people talk about "erotica" as an Amazon dungeon where you get no visibility at all. Yet here we're talking about stuff that is tagged with "erotica" showing up in completely different categories?

This is like Schrodinger's erotica tag or something.

Which is it? Does erotica get you banished or does erotica get you everywhere?


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

BellaJames said:


> I have not seen baby stealing or kidnapping in any of the books I've read. There might be others where that does happen.
> 
> *The ones I've read are about MC gang members and men connected to the mafia are either taking revenge (hurting or killing) another gang member, getting revenge on someone by hooking up and impregnating a woman linked to their enemy (daughter, sister, ex-girlfriend).
> 
> ...


As horrible as those story-lines sound, they are in no way, shape, or form examples of heist stories. (as has been mentioned) Someone upthread may have used this biker/baby/revenge thing as an example, but it's not a good one.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Just because the love interest is a criminal doesn't make the story a mystery. If there's a mystery to solve, then it's a mystery. If the main thrust of the story is about a crime, then it's crime. If it's a romance about a criminal and the woman falling in love with him, then it's a romance.
> 
> Romance readers don't like it when authors try to shove their non-HEA stories into the romance category. Why would you think that mystery readers should like it when romance readers try to shove their non-mystery book into mystery?


Actually, the main category is *Mystery, Thriller & Suspense* and then it narrows down to crime, heist, etc. There doesn't have to be a mystery to solve for a book to be in that category.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> I accidentally keyword into the romance > fantasy category with the incredibly reasonable keyword "Cinderella fantasy," a super common trope in billionaire romance. I'll admit, once I was in that category and saw that it was nothing but sexy romances, I keyworded into it on purpose. The way the system is set up now, you're at a disadvantages if you don't keyword into as many categories as you can (assuming other authors are doing the same thing). Amazon needs to totally overhaul their system and offer some guidance as to what should actually go into a category.
> 
> I put my romances in women's fiction and I think they belong there--they're as much about the heroine coming into herself as they're about love. But they're are no guidelines, so how can I say for sure?


If you use a keyword or put your book into a category in good faith, that's really all you can do. It's the people who are stuffing impregnation romances that contain no theft of any sort into the crime > heist category who are acting in bad faith and abusing the system.

If there happens to be baby theft going on, that's called kidnapping, and there's a category for that, which is not the heist category. And honestly, just because there's a flaw in Amazon's search function, doesn't mean that people should abuse it. If everyone went by the spirit of the rules instead of trying to climb over everyone else by stuffing every last keyword in that they can, the system would work a lot better for everyone.


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> You should be limited to the categories that actually reflect your book. Period. Full stop. Erotica and romance are the worst offenders, but by no means the only. It has nothing to do with being offended. It has to do with the fact that, when I want to find a HORROR NOVEL I have to scroll through pages of paranormal romances first. When I want to find a thriller, I have to scroll through pages of romances first. As someone else noted, you can't search for children's books without also finding YA and even NA books crammed in there. When I want to find, well, ANYTHING, on Amazon, I have to scroll through pages of unrelated stuff first.
> 
> I am complaining AS A CONSUMER. If I go into the supermarket and go to the produce aisle, I don't expect to find avocado shampoo or citrus scented deodorant there blocking out all of the produce. I expect to find produce. When I go to the dairy aisle, I don't want to push through shelves of milk shower gels or yogurt face creams. I expect milk and cheese and such.


Ditto. The issue is consumer expectation and visibility combined.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2017)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Just because the love interest is a criminal doesn't make the story a mystery. If there's a mystery to solve, then it's a mystery. If the main thrust of the story is about a crime, then it's crime. If it's a romance about a criminal and the woman falling in love with him, then it's a romance.


Thank you. The existence of a crime, or criminal, does not automatically make a story a mystery. Mystery as a genre has specific tropes, just like romance. And the notion that just because the love interest is a criminal means the book should be labeled a mystery is just as wrong as the notion that just because two people hook up the book should be a romance.

There are some cozy mysteries which do legitimately also fall under the romance category. There are erotic thrillers that fall under both the erotica and thriller genres. There are some categories which have spillover under certain circumstances. But in those cases, the stories actually WORK to meet the expectations of those genres. It isn't just "My love interest is a cop, so I'm gonna shove this under "police procedural."


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2017)

NeedWant said:


> Actually, the main category is *Mystery, Thriller & Suspense* and then it narrows down to crime, heist, etc. There doesn't have to be a mystery to solve for a book to be in that category.


What? That's like saying "A romance doesn't have to have a HEA or HFN to be in that category."


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Actually, the main category is *Mystery, Thriller & Suspense* and then it narrows down to crime, heist, etc. There doesn't have to be a mystery to solve for a book to be in that category.


Yes, I realize that. I was referring to where you specifically said "But putting a romance into mystery/crime when the main attraction is that the love interest is a criminal? I don't see a huge problem there." So, no, there doesn't need to be a mystery to solve for a book to be in crime fiction. But if a book happens to be in the mystery category, it should be a mystery first, and if there's a romance it should be the b-plot.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> What? That's like saying "A romance doesn't have to have a HEA or HFN to be in that category."


Ever heard of Nicholas Sparks?

And not sure I get your point. Are you saying every book in the thriller genre is a mystery?


----------



## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

NeedWant said:


> Exactly. It's *always* romance they're complaining about. I don't see anyone complaining that the Dresden Files can be found in the Mystery PI category. Shouldn't fantasy have its own PI category?


Yeah, it should.

Part of the problem is that Amazon's subcats aren't granular enough. I think they've expanded them quite a bit. I mean, looking at the Dresden books, it's pretty cool that you can get into Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Supernatural > *Vampires*, or Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Supernatural > *Werewolves & Shifters*, or Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Supernatural > *Witches & Wizards*. That's great. But they could expand waaaay more. There's nothing lost by doing so, as shoppers don't have to drill down to the most granular level if they don't want to.

And as Crystal_ pointed out, the way they make indies get into subcats through keywording is not effective. My second book ends up in Swords & Sorcery if I put "dragons" in as a keyword, and it's not Swords & Sorcery in the least. They need to just let us choose subcats directly.

Being Amazon, they want to solve this problem without investing in real-people eyes to police the system. The only way to do that, I think, is to 
1) make subcats granular enough to be very attractive (because they'll concentrate just the right segment of reader eyes),
2) let authors choose which subcats they want directly, and 
3) limit each book to just two or three subcats, so that putting a paranormal mystery in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators, where most readers will be looking for non-fantasy, will feel like a waste of a marketing opportunity, not a "Well, why not??" freebie.

Of course the problem is especially visible with romance and erotica. Something like one in six books on Amazon is romance or erotica, and such an abundant group is going to be very visible. But I doubt it shows up _at a higher rate_ with romance and erotica (except perhaps for efforts to avoid the dungeon, another thing that should go). All kinds of books are miscategorized.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Ever heard of Nicholas Sparks?


Last time I was in a book store, Nicholas Sparks was shelved in the Fiction & Literature section, not the romance section.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Last time I was in a book store, Nicholas Sparks was shelved in the Fiction & Literature section, not the romance section.


Check his Kindle cats. He's in romance. Should we report his books to Amazon? Should we call his publishers scammers?


----------



## hunterone (Feb 6, 2013)

whistlelock said:


> So, I'm kicking around some ideas for a new series while I'm watching Ocean's Eleven with my wife when I think "hey, I could write a heist novel. That could be fun. I like heist movies." I mean, who doesn't like a good heist movie? The dialog is all snappy. Everyone is super clever. the plan comes together and sometimes there's a surprise twist at the end. They're fun.
> 
> Now I've read Chris Fox's Write to Market and I think that checking out what's in the category and how it's selling is a great idea. I do a Google search for Top 100 Heist books Amazon. I click the top result, reliabably labeled Top 100 Amazon Heist Books. I am not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Heist-Thrillers/zgbs/books/9536063011
> 
> ...


I like Heist movies but I have studied folks who have attempted to do them as books and for some reason they don't seem to carry over. I don't know why. But i have yet to see a book do well as a heist. I love the movies though.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Check his Kindle cats. He's in romance. Should we report his books to Amazon? Should we call his publishers scammers?


Regardless of his Kindle cats, a great number of romance readers are very vehement about the fact that a romance needs an HEA or at last a HFN in order to be considered a true romance. All you have to do is look at the romance blurbs out there that end with some disclaimer about how the book is 'a guaranteed HEA' to know that it matters to a lot of readers.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Becca Mills said:


> Yeah, it should.
> 
> Part of the problem is that Amazon's subcats aren't granular enough. I think they've expanded them quite a bit. I mean, looking at the Dresden books, it's pretty cool that you can get into Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Supernatural > *Vampires*, or Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Supernatural > *Werewolves & Shifters*, or Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Supernatural > *Witches & Wizards*. That's great. But they could expand waaaay more. There's nothing lost by doing so, as shoppers don't have to drill down to the most granular level if they don't want to.
> 
> ...


Yup, I see this as more an Amazon problem than an author one. Some books are grossly miscategorized, but some just put their books in the closest subcategory they can find. Also, certain keywords, as you said, get you into certain subcategories. I know some of mine end up in horror and they're not horror at all.

I think my main problem is the people reporting these authors as if the authors are doing something criminal. They're not putting their books in children's literature because there's a baby in them. They put it in mystery, thriller, suspense/crime/heist. Or they ended up there because of putting something like "baby thief" in the keywords.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

NeedWant said:


> Actually, the main category is *Mystery, Thriller & Suspense* and then it narrows down to crime, heist, etc. There doesn't have to be a mystery to solve for a book to be in that category.





Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> What? That's like saying "A romance doesn't have to have a HEA or HFN to be in that category."


I write books in the Mystery/Thriller/Suspense --> crime, heist, etc. categories. Mysteries are not required.


----------



## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

NeedWant said:


> Yup, I see this as more an Amazon problem than an author one. Some books are grossly miscategorized, but some just put their books in the closest subcategory they can find. Also, certain keywords, as you said, get you into certain subcategories. I know some of mine end up in horror and they're not horror at all.
> 
> I think my main problem is the people reporting these authors as if the authors are doing something criminal. They're not putting their books in children's literature because there's a baby in them. They put it in mystery, thriller, suspense/crime/heist. Or they ended up there because of putting something like "baby thief" in the keywords.


I'm sure there are _some _authors/publishers who intentionally miscategorize, though it's hard to see why grossly miscategorizing a book would appeal to anyone. If you're trying to sell erotica, why would putting it in children's literature seem like a good marketing move? People who are looking for erotica have very little chance of coming across your book in kids' lit. I have to think that kind of thing happens unintentionally.

I think Amazon can fix all this -- the accidental miscategorization and any abuses that are happening -- by dangling the carrot of interested readers' eyes in the places they want authors to put their books. It seems like a relatively easy thing to fix. Maybe I'm just not seeing something.


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

SuzyQ said:


> I am a little baffled about the women's literature issue- I thought romance fell under that. No?


Yes and no.

Let me start with no first. Women's Fiction is a specific type of story (like a heist story) where the main plot is about a woman's emotional journey to self-discovery. The main plot is not a romance or mystery or thriller.

Yes, romance can be (and many times it is) a SUBPLOT in this type of story. But again, it's not THE plot.

So, no. I'm sorry and mean no disrespect here when I say that a Billionaire romance is not what a reader of Women's Fic looks for when they want to read such a book. I read Women's Fic and have never wanted to, or been interested in, a Billionaire romance. Hot sex with a make-believe rich alpha man is not what I search for in Women's Fic. Examples of such a book include Brooklyn, The Champagne Queen, The Tea Planter's Daughter, The Affair, The Milliner's Secret, etc. They are unique books designed to give women a fictional insight into an emotional journey. They are not romance.



ShayneRutherford said:


> If there happens to be baby theft going on, that's called kidnapping, and there's a category for that, which is not the heist category. And honestly, just because there's a flaw in Amazon's search function, doesn't mean that people should abuse it. If everyone went by the spirit of the rules instead of trying to climb over everyone else by stuffing every last keyword in that they can, the system would work a lot better for everyone.


I absolutely agree. Yes, it's hard for all of us. Yes, visibility stinks because everyone and their mother is writing books...some do it for the love of writing and others, like Sela mentioned, do it for the business. Whatever the reason, we all have to deal with the fact that the market is maturing, saturated, and competition is high. It looks bad on Amazon when readers pretty much only see these types of books dominating the search pages. Don't get me wrong, Amazon is still king, but yes, it looks unprofessional when books are categorized wrong.

I also agree with others here that this is mainly Amazon's doing. However, those of us who know better are wise to place our books in the right categories for the sake of the readers mostly.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Regardless of his Kindle cats, a great number of romance readers are very vehement about the fact that a romance needs an HEA or at last a HFN in order to be considered a true romance. All you have to do is look at the romance blurbs out there that end with some disclaimer about how the book is 'a guaranteed HEA' to know that it matters to a lot of readers.


I don't read romance, but I don't think something has to have a HEA or HFN to be a romance. There are tragic romances out there. And Nicholas Sparks novels are definitely romances: they're focused on a couple falling in love.

I think the HEA/HFN disclaimers are for readers who want a certain kind of romance.


----------



## Elliott Kay (Jan 12, 2016)

NeedWant said:


> I don't read romance, but I don't think something has to have a HEA or HFN to be a romance.


I think I see your problem here.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

NeedWant said:


> I don't read romance, but I don't think something has to have a HEA or HFN to be a romance. There are tragic romances out there. And Nicholas Sparks novels are definitely romances: they're focused on a couple falling in love.
> 
> I think the HEA/HFN disclaimers are for readers who want a certain kind of romance.


Uh-oh. You uttered the Opinion That Must Not Be Voiced. Heresy!!  

(Don't worry, though, even some who do read romance think the same. A small minority, maybe, but still.)


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

NeedWant said:


> I don't read romance, but I don't think something has to have a HEA or HFN to be a romance. There are tragic romances out there. And Nicholas Sparks novels are definitely romances: they're focused on a couple falling in love.
> 
> I think the HEA/HFN disclaimers are for readers who want a certain kind of romance.


I'm sorry, but no. The definition of genre romance is that the story must end with HEA or HFN. Nicholas Sparks writes love stories, not romance. Romance is about a couple's emotional journey to forever. It's about commitment.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Becca Mills said:


> I'm sure there are _some _authors/publishers who intentionally miscategorize, though it's hard to see why grossly miscategorizing a book would appeal to anyone. If you're trying to sell erotica, why would putting it in children's literature seem like a good marketing move? People who are looking for erotica have very little chance of coming across your book in kids' lit. I have to think that kind of thing happens unintentionally.
> 
> I think Amazon can fix all this -- the accidental miscategorization and any abuses that are happening -- by dangling the carrot of interested readers' eyes in the places they want authors to put their books. It seems like a relatively easy thing to fix. Maybe I'm just not seeing something.


I do have a problem with grossly miscategorized books. I just don't see the book in question (that bad boy baby book) as being grossly miscategorized. Just like I don't see Dresden Files being in Mystery/PI as being grossly miscategorized. He's a PI and he's solving a mystery, it's just of the supernatural variety.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

NeedWant said:


> I do have a problem with grossly miscategorized books. I just don't see *the book in question (that bad boy baby book)* as being grossly miscategorized. Just like I don't see Dresden Files being in Mystery/PI as being grossly miscategorized. He's a PI and he's solving a mystery, it's just of the supernatural variety.


After all the various topics and examples brought up in this thread, I don't recall which category was mentioned for the bad boy baby book. If it's heist, then yes, it is terribly miscategorized. Unless the bad boy carefully plans a clever and sophisticated heist and carries the baby in a front pack.....


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> I think my main problem is the people reporting these authors as if the authors are doing something criminal. They're not putting their books in children's literature because there's a baby in them. They put it in mystery, thriller, suspense/crime/heist. Or they ended up there because of putting something like "baby thief" in the keywords.


No one is reporting AUTHORS. They are telling Amazon that a book is in the wrong place. And if enough people tell Amazon that books are in the wrong place, maybe they'll fix the keyword situation. No one is trying to get authors into trouble, they just want to find the books they'd like to read without having to go to a completely different website to find them.

And you say that all the miscategorized books in heist are there because someone put 'baby thief' in the keywords. Except most of them don't have babies to steal, because the babies haven't been born yet. And there's no thievery of any sort mentioned in the blurb at all. It's all just hot women and hot sex and guys making the hot women theirs. Right now, the #1 book in the heist category is subtitled 'An Alpha Billionaire Romance'. #2 is subtitled 'A Dark Bad Boy Baby Romance'. #3 is about a woman who wants to get pregnant so she can give her mother a grandkid before she dies, so she has a one-night stand with the male MC, but then he just can't walk away. The rest continue on in a similar vein. None of the stories mention babies in any context other than making them, and there's also not a single mention of theft in any of the blurbs that I looked at. And I'm guessing that after all the hot sex that's getting had, there's probably not enough time to be making theft any kind of a plot point anyway. So, all of those books that are in the heist category seem to have sex and romance as common plot points, but no theft anywhere. What should I assume from that? That they keyworded into Heist accidentally, when their stories have nothing to do with theft? Or that they deliberately used a keyword that doesn't apply to their stories in order to get into a less competitive category?


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> I don't read romance, but I don't think something has to have a HEA or HFN to be a romance. There are tragic romances out there. And Nicholas Sparks novels are definitely romances: they're focused on a couple falling in love.


They are tragic love stories.


----------



## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Folks, let's not do this:



> porn erotica


It's hard to read the above as anything other than a way of demeaning those who write erotica -- and those who create porn. Something along the lines of _*wink wink nudge nudge* "We all know 'erotica' is just a euphemism for that shameful PORNOGRAPHY stuff, right?? Ha, ha, those pornographers, trying to hide the truth of what they're up to!" *eye roll*_

Well, no, we don't all know that. First, pornography and erotica are considered to be different things by many of those who produce them, and writers/filmmakers/whoever should get to make those distinctions for themselves. Also, the whole idea that erotica is just porn under a more acceptable label suggests there's something shifty and dishonest about presenting oneself as a writer of erotica. Third, it also implies there's something _really gross_ about porn, that unmentionable thing that must be crossed out. We don't make these kinds of judgments, here. All writers are welcome and must be treated respectfully, and that means not impugning their genres.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Jena H said:


> Uh-oh. You uttered the Opinion That Must Not Be Voiced. Heresy!!
> 
> (Don't worry, though, even some who do read romance think the same. A small minority, maybe, but still.)


I knew that was going to be problematic but that didn't stop me.  I mean, if I'm reading a book and it's all about the romance between two people, but then one of them dies or they break up, it's still a romance in my opinion. It was the main plot.



Jena H said:


> After all the various topics and examples brought up in this thread, I don't recall which category was mentioned for the bad boy baby book. If it's heist, then yes, it is terribly miscategorized. Unless the bad boy carefully plans a clever and sophisticated heist and carries the baby in a front pack.....


It's hard to tell without reading it. It's probably not a main point of the book if it's there. But if it's an element? I don't see the huge deal. I've watched some pretty dumb and unsophisticated heist movies. Is being smart and sophisticated a requirement for a heist?


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> I'm sure there are _some _authors/publishers who intentionally miscategorize, though it's hard to see why grossly miscategorizing a book would appeal to anyone. If you're trying to sell erotica, why would putting it in children's literature seem like a good marketing move?


This is actually a really good example of accidental miscategorization. It happens if an author uses keywords like babysitter or daddy, apparently.

But as to why some authors intentionally miscategorize, IIRC, books that rank at the top of any sub-cat get an orange bestseller flag, and some people want to be able to say that they're an Amazon bestseller.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> It's hard to tell without reading it. It's probably not a main point of the book if it's there. But if it's an element? I don't see the huge deal. I've watched some pretty dumb and unsophisticated heist movies. Is being smart and sophisticated a requirement for a heist?


If it's an element that wasn't necessary to mention anywhere in the blurb, then it's really not an element that's necessary to mention in the keywords. Especially when it gets you in the wrong category, along with a hundred other people who are all doing the same thing to the detriment of people who actually write proper heist stories. Also, this goes back to the whole 'spirit of the rules' issue. We are supposed to have seven keywords or phrases to use that best describe our book. If a theft occurs in the book, but it doesn't get so much as hinted at in the blurb, I'm going to assume that the theft plays a very small part of the story and that there are probably much better keywords to use to describe that book than 'heist'. If people stopped all the keyword stuffing, and had to choose only the seven most appropriate keywords or phrases, I'm betting that all of those bad boy/impregnation/alpha billionaire romances would disappear from the heist category forthwith.

Being smart and sophisticated isn't a necessary requirement for a heist, but the planning and execution of a heist certainly is.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Rosie A. said:


> Nicholas Sparks writes love stories, not romance.





ShayneRutherford said:


> They are tragic love stories.


Is there a category on Amazon for these tragic love stories?

In my opinion, love stories are romances. Just like there are romantic dramas and romantic comedies in movies. A sad ending doesn't erase a whole romance. By that definition, there's no romance in the real world. Someone always dies in the end.


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Actually, the main category is *Mystery, Thriller & Suspense* and then it narrows down to crime, heist, etc. There doesn't have to be a mystery to solve for a book to be in that category.


I think we're splitting hairs.

Genre tends to have specific expectations. They usually have an A story and a B story -- usually. The A story is genre-appropriate. The B story may vary depending on sub-category.

For example, M/T/S readers want a mystery, thrills, and/or suspense as the main or A story. A murder takes place and must be solved. A terrible catastrophe may happen in x-time if the hero doesn't stop it. Those are A stories. If there's a romance, it's usually a B story. There is no expectation of an HEA for a couple as the A story, but there is an expectation that a crime will be solved, that the threat will be high stakes, and/or the reader will be worried about the protagonist's safety, life, etc.

Romance readers expect an HEA as the A story. The A story is about the couple and their emotional journey. There are internal and external stakes and obstacles, so there may be a mystery element, or thrills, or suspense, but it is the B story and not the A story of the couple getting together.

So, an erotic romance about a bad boy MC leader who abducts and impregnates a rival MC leader's old woman so he can claim her as his own and the two of them falling in love despite the violent nature of their initial coming together is a romance. The relationship is the A story. The fact she is from a rival MC is the compilation / obstacle. The fact he is a bank robber on the side and gives it all up for her is the B story. It's not a heist story. It shouldn't be the top book in "heist", knocking out of the top 20 books that are actually "heist" books...

At least, IMO.


----------



## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

NeedWant said:


> I do have a problem with grossly miscategorized books. I just don't see the book in question (that bad boy baby book) as being grossly miscategorized. Just like I don't see Dresden Files being in Mystery/PI as being grossly miscategorized. He's a PI and he's solving a mystery, it's just of the supernatural variety.


Sure. And if Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators was further subcatted into ...
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators > With Fantasy Elements and 
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators > Without Fantasy Elements
... then the Dresden books would probably have the best of all worlds. They could be based in _With Fantasy Elements_, where people who want paranormal content could find them easily, yet still rank in _Private Investigators_, and maybe even in _Mystery_, since they're big sellers. On the other hand, readers who definitely *don't* want paranormal stuff in their PI reads could drill down to _Without Fantasy Elements_ and see an extra four or five "real world" PI books instead of Dresden. Win-win-win, IMO.


----------



## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

NeedWant said:


> I don't read romance, but I don't think something has to have a HEA or HFN to be a romance. There are tragic romances out there. And Nicholas Sparks novels are definitely romances: they're focused on a couple falling in love.
> 
> I think the HEA/HFN disclaimers are for readers who want a certain kind of romance.


Believe that at your peril


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> If it's an element that wasn't necessary to mention anywhere in the blurb, then it's really not an element that's necessary to mention in the keywords. Especially when it gets you in the wrong category, along with a hundred other people who are all doing the same thing to the detriment of people who actually write proper heist stories.
> 
> Being smart and sophisticated isn't a necessary requirement for a heist, but the planning and execution of a heist certainly is.


The whole blurb for that one book talks about a crime the heroine witnesses. Is it some kind of robbery? Might be. Boom, you're in the heist category!

The main draw of these romances is the hot criminal committing some crime. The element of danger. I don't see a problem with these kinds of books being in romance _and_ crime categories.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Becca Mills said:


> Sure. And if Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators was further subcatted into ...
> Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators > With Fantasy Elements and
> Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators > Without Fantasy Elements
> ... then the Dresden books would probably have the best of all worlds. They could be based in _With Fantasy Elements_, where people who want paranormal content could find them easily, yet still rank in _Private Investigators_, and maybe even in _Mystery_, since they're big sellers. On the other hand, readers who definitely *don't* want paranormal stuff in their PI reads could drill down to _Without Fantasy Elements_ and see an extra four or five "real world" PI books instead of Dresden. Win-win-win, IMO.


But at least the Dresden Files is about a P.I. Some readers might not want to read those books, but it's a legit category for those books to be in.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> The whole blurb for that one book talks about a crime the heroine witnesses. Is it some kind of robbery? Might be. Boom, you're in the heist category!


No, you're not in the heist category because not all robberies are heists. Also, if you read down a littler further, you'll see that the crime she witnessed was a murder. So, by that argument, it should go in murder and not heist.



NeedWant said:


> The main draw of these romances is the hot criminal committing some crime. The element of danger. I don't see a problem with these kinds of books being in romance _and_ crime categories.


The main draw of these romances is the hot criminal bad boy giving the female MC the sex of her life, and choosing to end their womanizing ways just for her. And the problem is, being in the crime category as well as the romance category is fine for the romance readers -- they can find what they want in two places -- but it's not so fine for the crime readers who can't find the stuff they want unless they go to Goodreads. Bad boy romance readers wouldn't like it if crime writers came along and stuffed up their categories with crime stories that didn't have HEAs. Why should crime readers be okay with romance writers doing it to them?


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Is there a category on Amazon for these tragic love stories?


Literature & Fiction



NeedWant said:


> In my opinion, love stories are romances.


But you're not a romance reader.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

sela said:


> The fact he is a bank robber on the side and gives it all up for her is the B story. It's not a heist story. It shouldn't be the top book in "heist", knocking out of the top 20 books that are actually "heist" books...


I think that's Amazon's fault, though. They give us two categories and some categories don't have the subcats that let readers know what they're getting. So if a romance reader is looking for a book about a criminal bad boy, it makes sense for the author to include the book in that category as well as romance.



Becca Mills said:


> Sure. And if Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators was further subcatted into ...
> Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators > With Fantasy Elements and
> Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators > Without Fantasy Elements
> ... then the Dresden books would probably have the best of all worlds. They could be based in _With Fantasy Elements_, where people who want paranormal content could find them easily, yet still rank in _Private Investigators_, and maybe even in _Mystery_, since they're big sellers. On the other hand, readers who definitely *don't* want paranormal stuff in their PI reads could drill down to _Without Fantasy Elements_ and see an extra four or five "real world" PI books instead of Dresden. Win-win-win, IMO.


I would love it if Amazon implemented something like that. It would be great for both readers and authors.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

NeedWant said:


> The whole blurb for that one book talks about a crime the heroine witnesses. Is it some kind of robbery? Might be. Boom, you're in the heist category!
> 
> The main draw of these romances is the hot criminal committing some crime. The element of danger. I don't see a problem with these kinds of books being in romance _and_ crime categories.


I have attractive characters in my heist books. They each notice the other's good looks. I guess it belongs in Romance, then? And I recently read a non-fiction book about WWII and it involved airplanes. So that means I can put it in the Travel category. If real, historical people were introduced, then it could be in the Biography section too?


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> No, you're not in the heist category because not all robberies are heists. Also, if you read down a littler further, you'll see that the crime she witnessed was a murder. So, by that argument, it should go in murder and not heist.


It's all about context. From the blurb, we don't know if it's a bank robbery gone wrong or just plain old murder.



ShayneRutherford said:


> Literature & Fiction


The most general category. We're all in Literature & Fiction last time I checked.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> I think that's Amazon's fault, though. They give us two categories and some categories don't have the subcats that let readers know what they're getting. So if a romance reader is looking for a book about a criminal bad boy, it makes sense for the author to include the book in that category as well as romance.


No it doesn't make sense, because people who want books about actual crime, and not just bad boy romance heroes, can no longer use that category for the books they want to read. By deliberately putting books in categories that they can be keyword-stuffed into but don't rightfully belong to, it's basically saying that the actual readers of that category don't matter, as long as the people who want to abuse the system get to make more money.


----------



## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

When it starts costing Amazon money, they'll fix it.

For now, it apparently isn't causing customers concern enough for Amazon to care.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

LilyBLily said:


> I don't read high fantasy, but I think anything with a dragon is high fantasy.
> I don't read murder mysteries, but I think as long as there's a dead body, it's a murder mystery.
> I don't read...
> 
> If you don't read something, your judgment of it is merely that of one who is ignorant about it, and best not aired. Why on earth are you trying to stand on the third rail of genre?


Romance is a broad genre. There's room for more than one kind of story in there.

So, if a book has a dragon in it, it is a fantasy! Might not be high fantasy, but it's a fantasy.



> If you don't want to accept the opinions of people who actually read or write romance, go to a bookstore. See where Nicholas Sparks is shelved. He is NOT in romance. Maybe you'll be willing to accept the opinion of a multi-million dollar corporation instead.


Take it up with Amazon. He's in romance in the Kindle store! His Author Rank is #88 in Contemporary Romance. He's stealing a spot from real romance authors!


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Jena H said:


> I have attractive characters in my heist books. They each notice the other's good looks. I guess it belongs in Romance, then? And I recently read a non-fiction book about WWII and it involved airplanes. So that means I can put it in the Travel category. If real, historical people were introduced, then it could be in the Biography section too?


None of those examples make sense. Sorry. If you have a romance subplot, yes, you can put the book in a romance category. Having attractive characters doesn't make something a romance...


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> It's all about context. From the blurb, we don't know if it's a bank robbery gone wrong or just plain old murder.
> 
> The most general category. We're all in Literature & Fiction last time I checked.


It says 'murders', and the series title on the book cover is 'A Dark Mafia Romance'. So it could have been a bank robbery gone wrong, or it could have been a hit - which I think is more likely - but it really doesn't matter, because the murders aren't the main plot of the story. The murders are the catalyst for the guy and the girl to get together. The romance is the main plot, and the crime is the secondary. But just because a crime exists in the story does not necessarily make the book a crime book. If I go looking for a crime book, it's because I want to read about the crime, not a chick having hot sex with a bad boy who just happens to be a criminal.

And no, we're not all in Literature & Fiction. There's also Mystery, Thriller & Suspense; there's Romance; and there's Science Fiction & Fantasy. Those are all main cats in the Kindle Store.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Romance is a broad genre. There's room for more than one kind of story in there.
> 
> So, if a book has a dragon in it, it is a fantasy! Might not be high fantasy, but it's a fantasy.


It could be post-apocalyptic. Or it could be science fiction. Or it could even be horror.


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

ShayneRutherford said:


> a great number of romance readers are very vehement about the fact that a romance needs an HEA or at last a HFN in order to be considered a true romance. All you have to do is look at the romance blurbs out there that end with some disclaimer about how the book is 'a guaranteed HEA' to know that it matters to a lot of readers.


Romance readers expect a HEA ending. I have the scars to prove it. Early on I chose romance for a women's lit/fic book about a long marriage that doesn't have a HEA. I was unaware that it was a requirement, and readers let me know fast. I won't make that mistake again! Categories hold promises for readers, and when the promises don't deliver what readers expect, they can either get angry or turned off.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2017)

ShayneRutherford said:


> It could be post-apocalyptic. Or it could be science fiction. Or it could even be horror.


Or at least half of us could argue the same thing over and over and fail to realize it just p*ss es those of us off who are looking for books in a particular catagory. I've given specific examples of romance in the children's ebooks as well as other inappropriate books and while you argue if there's any sort of xxxxxx it can in catagory a and b.

If it's all good this way then why is Amazon the only site I see such bad with categories. Ok so there's a romance and a robbery so it fits fine in heist and romance by wtf is it doing in children's? Ok some middle graders might read the same gore and blood and love fest I do in sword and sorcery but why is it available for my nine year old as a kids ebook? Why is it that when I had scribd I could look through the categories and not have this problem? Yeah I canceled the same month they put a limit to how many books I could read and which ones but before that I could find what I was looking for. I don't see this problem in overdrive.

While I'm sorry so many of you are obviously bankrolling on using the wrong categories all it does is put you on the list of authors I won't download from even if you make it free.

I'm not reporting authors. I'm acceptant of there are some legit mistakes. I don't believe that all of these are by any means and it's clear from the arguments that some of you do it on purpose. It's easier for me to take my money to someone else than it is to convince you to put your books in the right damned catagory.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> The romance is the main plot, and the crime is the secondary. But just because a crime exists in the story does not necessarily make the book a crime book.


Exactly. Just because something ends up in a particular subcat, it doesn't mean that's what the whole book is about. It is a subcat after all. If romance had a crime/heist subcat, I might see your point.



> And no, we're not all in Literature & Fiction. There's also Mystery, Thriller & Suspense; there's Romance; and there's Science Fiction & Fantasy. Those are all main cats in the Kindle Store.


You're right. But it's all fiction at the end of the day.



ShayneRutherford said:


> It could be post-apocalyptic. Or it could be science fiction. Or it could even be horror.


It could also be a romance. A thriller. A mystery. Even non-fiction.


----------



## Lydiajoyce (Sep 7, 2016)

Atunah said:


> you can exclude some stuff in search. Until I stopped browsing on Amazon, I did try that. Say I want to find a actual historical romance, I would put that in the search bar and follow it by -biker, -alpha, -daddy, -mc, -shifter and so on. Anything you kind of see on the covers of some of the books. So I guess you'd search for thrillers mystery heist -daddy, -alpha and so on. At one point I had a string of like -30 words. I just gave up browsing that way and went to goodreads.
> 
> But you can give it a shot.


I didn't know you could do this. Thanks for the tip!

That said, I have often thought there should be an easy way to exclude keywords from your search, maybe by being able to check off boxes of categories you don't want to see when choosing ones you do. Like check fantasy in the want column, and check romance and/or erotica in the don't want column, (to include all books using one of those keywords so you don't have to check each and every possible subcategory a romance book (for example) could include), right at the beginning of your search. It would be easier than having to type in all those other keywords. And also be able to save your search for the next time you are looking for similar books.

This kind of thing drives me crazy. I started noticing it when amazon changed the rules for erotica. I saw advice on erotica writer sites saying to add any and all keywords to make books more visible. Anything that could remotely describe it to avoid the total obscurity erotica had been consigned to. It's gone way too far, IMO.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2017)

Lydiajoyce said:


> This kind of thing drives me crazy. I started noticing it when amazon changed the rules for erotica. I saw advice on erotica writer sites saying to add any and all keywords to make books more visible. Anything that could remotely describe it to avoid the total obscurity erotica had been consigned to. It's gone way too far, IMO.


I've also seen people complain on here that they were only able to get into 18 categories. I should have said it then but wasn't agrivated at the time like I am now. How the hell do you get off saying your book falls fully into all eighteen categories and want more ! Ok I can see five six maybe related catagories such as fantasy that has sword and sorcery elements and coming of age (don't even get me started on how amazon authors have hanged this catagory from its real meaning) and maybe you threw in a vampire or something goofy and honk you deserve paranormal as well. Tons of these stories have a romance in them and in fact it's an element I hope to find in reading g fantasy but I don't expect to find these books in romance just because two of the main characters on some wild adventure also fall in love while they try to steal back the power from the evil king or whatever


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> Ok so there's a romance and a robbery so it fits fine in heist and romance by wtf is it doing in children's?


I don't think anyone is arguing against reporting those books? Having a bad boy romance in children's fiction is indefensible.

Reporting a romance book for daring to be in a non-romance subcat like heist/crime/etc just because the heist/crime/etc. isn't the main plot, is problematic.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2017)

NeedWant said:


> I don't think anyone is arguing against reporting those books? Having a bad boy romance in children's fiction is indefensible.
> 
> Reporting a romance book for daring to be in a non-romance subcat like heist/crime/etc just because the heist/crime/etc. isn't the main plot, is problematic.


That's the problem. It's not just this catagory it's most if not all of them but your argument is it's ok in some but. Well the but is the ridiculous part.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> That's the problem. It's not just this catagory it's most if not all of them but your argument is it's ok in some but. Well the but is the ridiculous part.


Yeah, some people want romance to be segregated from all other genres, even if those romance novels have subplots involving those other genres. I think that's wrong, but to each their own and all that.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Exactly. Just because something ends up in a particular subcat, it doesn't mean that's what the whole book is about. It is a subcat after all. If romance had a crime/heist subcat, I might see your point.


You're missing my point. Just because there's a crime in a book, doesn't mean it should be in the crime category. There was a lot of grave robbing going on in Frankenstein, but no one could reasonably argue that it should be in the crime category.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

NeedWant said:


> Ever heard of Nicholas Sparks?
> 
> And not sure I get your point. Are you saying every book in the thriller genre is a mystery?


Nicholas Sparks does not write romance books. He has talked about it several times. He writes love stories. Love stories can have tragic endings, couples who don't end up together like


Spoiler



Dear John


.

The examples that have been highlighted on this thread are obvious miscatergorizing. Look at the end of the blurbs 'Heist books with hot sex'. A few of the blurbs are the same too. This group of authors know what they are doing.

*
Again most of these particular books have nothing to do baby stealing or kidnapping. Sometimes the main heroine is kidnapped or threatened. Most of these books contain no carefully planned robberies or stealing gold/money/jewels/bonds etc....*


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Reporting a romance book for daring to be in a non-romance subcat like heist/crime/etc just because the heist/crime/etc. isn't the main plot, is problematic.


Why is it problematic that the people who want to use the heist category to find actual heist books to read should stand up for themselves and say 'hey Amazon, this book here is in the wrong category'?


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Yeah, some people want romance to be segregated from all other genres, even if those romance novels have subplots involving those other genres. I think that's wrong, but to each their own and all that.


No, they want romance to be categorized so the romance readers can find it, and not making every other top 100 list absolutely useless by crowding out the books that actually belong there.

ETA: I would honestly be thrilled if every top-level category was segregated from every other. So stuff where the main plot is mystery and the secondary plot is romance would be in Mystery > Romance, and stuff where the main plot is romance and the secondary plot is mystery would be Romance > Mystery. But since that is not the case, I would just be thrilled if I could use a Top 100 list to find the books that I'm actually looking for, and not everything else that people just felt like shoehorning in because it's the b-plot or the c-plot, and obviously the author knows better than me, the reader, that I'm not really looking for a crime novel and instead would be much better off with a romance that has a crime c-plot. Because when I go to the Crime category, I can assure you, I am looking for a crime main plot, not a romance main plot with a dash of crime for flavor.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Lydiajoyce said:


> This kind of thing drives me crazy. I started noticing it when amazon changed the rules for erotica. I saw advice on erotica writer sites saying to add any and all keywords to make books more visible. Anything that could remotely describe it to avoid the total obscurity erotica had been consigned to. It's gone way too far, IMO.


That's exactly what I've been seeing too. Some authors admitting to putting their erotica in romance and using keywords to get their books in any small sub-genres to be a top 100 bestseller and gain more visibility.

I also hate this advice to extend an erotic short story into a romance. This is part of the reason why there are so many erotic stories with HEA's tacked on the end. They are not romances.


----------



## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Rosie A. said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> Let me start with no first. Women's Fiction is a specific type of story (like a heist story) where the main plot is about a woman's emotional journey to self-discovery. The main plot is not a romance or mystery or thriller.
> 
> ...


I've read plenty of romances that would quality as having strong enough women's fiction subplots to be in that category. I would happily stand behind the vast majority of my books and say "yes, I do think this belongs in women's fiction. The heroine's emotional journey/coming of age is a huge element of the book, even if there's also lots of hot sex with an alpha hero." Even the billionaire Cinderella story ones. But we can agree to disagree that books can belong in both categories.

At a certain point, categories are as categories do. If category X is full of Y and Y readers are starting to look there, it makes sense to put Y in that category. And authors will keep doing it. The only way this will change is if Amazon changes the system. Authors are not good at policing themselves. (Erotica is another issue. As long as Amazon punishes authors for publishing in erotica, they'll publish their erotica books in romance. It's not right or fair and it annoys me to no end, but it is the way it is).


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> You're missing my point.


I get your point, I just disagree with it.



ShayneRutherford said:


> Why is it problematic that the people who want to use the heist category to find actual heist books to read should stand up for themselves and say 'hey Amazon, this book here is in the wrong category'?


Look below for my response to that.



BellaJames said:


> *
> Again most of these particular books have nothing to do baby stealing or kidnapping. Sometimes the main heroine is kidnapped or threatened. Most of these books contain no carefully planned robberies or stealing gold/money/jewels/bonds etc....*


I don't doubt many miscategorize their books on purpose. My point is that we have no way of knowing if those books have an actual heist/robbery in them by looking at the cover and blurb. So reporting them on an assumption seems a bit overzealous to me. If you've read one of the books, and know it doesn't contain such a thing, report it.

Also, some people have made it clear that even if a romance has a subplot involving a heist, it doesn't belong in that category. It should stay in romance...which doesn't have a heist category as far as I know.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> I've read plenty of romances that would quality as having strong enough women's fiction subplots to be in that category. I would happily stand behind the vast majority of my books and say "yes, I do think this belongs in women's fiction. The heroine's emotional journey/coming of age is a huge element of the book, even if there's also lots of hot sex with an alpha hero." Even the billionaire Cinderella story ones. But we can agree to disagree that books can belong in both categories.


Unless I've been doin' it wrong this whole time, I'm pretty sure that when people go looking for a book to read, they search in the category that fits the main plot of what they want to read. Like, when I want a mystery, I don't go looking for it in Romance > Mystery & Suspense, because I want the main plot to be mystery. By putting stuff in categories that only fit the subplot, you're doing a disservice to a lot of browsers who want to use that category for searching books that have that subject as the main plot.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> No, they want romance to be categorized so the romance readers can find it, and not making every other top 100 list absolutely useless by crowding out the books that actually belong there.
> 
> ETA: I would honestly be thrilled if every top-level category was segregated from every other. So stuff where the main plot is mystery and the secondary plot is romance would be in Mystery > Romance, and stuff where the main plot is romance and the secondary plot is mystery would be Romance > Mystery. But since that is not the case, I would just be thrilled if I could use a Top 100 list to find the books that I'm actually looking for, and not everything else that people just felt like shoehorning in because it's the b-plot or the c-plot, and obviously the author knows better than me, the reader, that I'm not really looking for a crime novel and instead would be much better off with a romance that has a crime c-plot. Because when I go to the Crime category, I can assure you, I am looking for a crime main plot, not a romance main plot with a dash of crime for flavor.


Romance authors putting their books in other categories like crime aren't interested in getting a crime reader to read them. They're showing romance readers that their books have a criminal subplot/bent/element that those readers might be looking for.

If Amazon had a better category/subcategory system, this wouldn't be a problem.


----------



## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Unless I've been doin' it wrong this whole time, I'm pretty sure that when people go looking for a book to read, they search in the category that fits the main plot of what they want to read. Like, when I want a mystery, I don't go looking for it in Romance > Mystery & Suspense, because I want the main plot to be mystery. By putting stuff in categories that only fit the subplot, you're doing a disservice to a lot of browsers who want to use that category for searching books that have that subject as the main plot.


YES. The main plot of a woman's fiction book should center around a woman's emotional journey. I've seen books stuffed in 20th century romance that have no freaking romance either. How do I know? Because I've read them and was pissed. You see? It's a disservice to everyone.

@Crystal, I have not read your books so I can't say for sure either way. But if you go on Goodreads and study what Women's Fiction is...how can you say that a Billionaire romance falls under a category that is specifically opposite in values and plot of what a Woman's Fic book is? It doesn't add up in my head...sorry. For example, if you look under that keyword in Amazon, what comes up are a bunch of daddy bad boy romances. Those are not Women's Fiction. Noo! Women's Fiction tends to have strong historical elements and settings, and the main plot is how a woman moves through her experiences in those historical times and achieves self discovery. Hot sex has nothing to do with self discovery in those books. Life experiences is what moves the character arc, not sex or romance.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I don't understand why Amazon does categories the way it does.  The author gets to choose two main categories-- fine.  (Well, mostly fine; there could probably stand to be more precise ones added.)

So the book is definitely in those two categories.

Then Amazon tells us to come up with seven keywords (or 50 characters' worth of each of the seven keywords).  Why do it that way?  Yes, I'm aware that it allows us to point up the very unique aspects of our work that readers might search for (and that's a good thing), but it also makes for some very random sub- and sub-sub-subcategories.  Not to mention that it opens things up to the exact issue we're experiencing now:  deliberate miscategorization.  Add to that the fact that all you have to do is contact Amazon and request to be put in X, Y, and Z subcats and voila!, a single book can be in everything from Western Romance to Legal Thriller to Ghost Horror to YA Sci-Fi.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

NeedWant said:


> I get your point, I just disagree with it.
> 
> Look below for my response to that.
> 
> ...


I have read some of these types of books as I mentioned upthread. Most of these books contain *no heists*, sometimes there is no criminal activity on the page and if it is, it is a physical fight between two men or the woman is threatened or in danger. Why not download one and read it, you will find out what types of books these are.

I disagree with what you are saying and what Crystal is now saying.

This is why romance and erotica books are all over Amazon. If I want a heist book like Oceans Eleven I don't want to see bare chests and baby making stories. If I want women's fiction, I don't want billionaire eroms with light BDSM. If I want them types of stories, I would look in one of the sub romance categories.

This is women's fiction:

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/womens-fiction
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/womens-fiction


----------



## Annette_g (Nov 27, 2012)

I've given up trying to find fantasy books on Amazon. The lists are filled with paranormal romance, shifters, vampire romances etc. That isn't what I was looking for in the epic/high fantasy or sword and sorcery category.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

BellaJames said:


> I have read some of these types of books as I mentioned upthread. Most of these books contain *no heists*, sometimes there is no criminal activity on the page and if it is, it is a physical fight between two men or the woman is threatened or in danger. Why not download one and read it, you will find out what types of books these are.


My point is that the people who are reporting those books in this thread *haven't* read them.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Annette_g said:


> I've given up trying to find fantasy books on Amazon. The lists are filled with paranormal romance, shifters, vampire romances etc. That isn't what I was looking for in the epic/high fantasy or sword and sorcery category.


Yeah, I don't browse for books on Amazon. It's pointless. If enough customers looking for books clicked off Amazon without buying anything, maybe the 'zon would take notice. (Nah, not likely to happen.)


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

NeedWant said:


> My point is that the people who are reporting those books in this thread *haven't* read them.


If I see someone in a liquor store pointing a gun at the cashier, I don't walk in and ask if he's holding up the place. I call 9-1-1 and let the authorities work out the details. (Luckily the police are more responsive than Amazon. Not to mention more motivated.)


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Jena H said:


> If I see someone in a liquor store pointing a gun at the cashier, I don't walk in and ask if he's holding up the place. I call 9-1-1 and let the authorities work out the details. (Luckily the police are more responsive than Amazon. Not to mention more motivated.)


That's...not a good analogy.


----------



## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

NeedWant said:


> I don't read romance, but I don't think something has to have a HEA or HFN to be a romance. There are tragic romances out there. And Nicholas Sparks novels are definitely romances: they're focused on a couple falling in love.
> 
> I think the HEA/HFN disclaimers are for readers who want a certain kind of romance.





NeedWant said:


> Check his Kindle cats. He's in romance. Should we report his books to Amazon? Should we call his publishers scammers?





NeedWant said:


> None of those examples make sense. Sorry. If you have a romance subplot, yes, you can put the book in a romance category. Having attractive characters doesn't make something a romance...





NeedWant said:


> My point is that the people who are reporting those books in this thread *haven't* read them.


Sort of like the way you continue to spew your opinions about romance even though you _*haven't *_read them.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

NeedWant said:


> That's...not a good analogy.


Yes...it is.

Nothing wrong with reporting something that seems to be wrong or against rules.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

LadyG said:


> Sort of like the way you continue to spew your opinions about romance even though you _*haven't *_read them.


I have _written_ romance. And it had a HFN ending for good measure!

I think posting my opinion on a message board is not comparable to *reporting a book to Amazon*. But that's just me.



Jena H said:


> Yes...it is.
> 
> Nothing wrong with reporting something that seems to be wrong or against rules.


_Seems_ being the operative word. A book about a criminal bad boy probably has a crime element. A person holding another person at gunpoint, is most likely meaning to do harm.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Romance authors putting their books in other categories like crime aren't interested in getting a crime reader to read them. They're showing romance readers that their books have a criminal subplot/bent/element that those readers might be looking for.


But it's crime readers who will be browsing the crime category. Not romance readers. I don't go looking in romance when I want a mystery. I look in mystery. And I'm pretty sure that people who want romance don't go looking in mystery for it - they look in romance. Because they want a story where the main plot is a romance.

The reason wrongly categorized romance books can climb so high in the crime category is because AMS ads directly targeted at romance readers will get sales, and then those books will climb up the store ranks, which will also push them up the ranks of whichever sub-cat they've been put in by the author, regardless of whether the category is suitable or not.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> My point is that the people who are reporting those books in this thread *haven't* read them.


I don't need to read a book that's billed as '...over 50,000 words of hot sex...', that has a blurb which talks all about making a woman submit and getting her pregnant, to know that it's not a heist book. People can say a book is a heist book until they are blue in the face, but if there isn't a heist as a main plot, then it's not a heist book. And if authors want to continue to stuff crime categories with romance books so that they can show 'romance readers that their books have a criminal subplot/bent/element' then I'm guessing that a lot of those books are going to get reported by actual crime readers as being in the wrong place. It's the author's choice to use that keyword if they want to, but it's also the reader's prerogative to report books they feel have been woefully miscategorized.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> But it's crime readers who will be browsing the crime category. Not romance readers. I don't go looking in romance when I want a mystery. I look in mystery. And I'm pretty sure that people who want romance don't go looking in mystery for it - they look in romance. Because they want a story where the main plot is a romance.


I've been using Amazon for years, and I admit I might be weird, but I've never browsed bestselling categories to find something to read. I guess it's because I don't put much stock in how well something is selling, but whether it sounds interesting to me. When I look for a book to read, I use the search function. And then I narrow my search with the options provided by Amazon (publication date, subgenre, reviews, etc.).



ShayneRutherford said:


> The reason wrongly categorized romance books can climb so high in the crime category is because AMS ads directly targeted at romance readers will get sales, and then those books will climb up the store ranks, which will also push them up the ranks of whichever sub-cat they've been put in by the author, regardless of whether the category is suitable or not.


The subcat ranking is based on a book's overall rank. That's by Amazon's design. We can disagree whether authors are allowed to put their books in certain subcats, but it is what it is.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> I don't need to read a book that's billed as '...over 50,000 words of hot sex...', that has a blurb which talks all about making a woman submit and getting her pregnant, to know that it's not a heist book. People can say a book is a heist book until they are blue in the face, but if there isn't a heist as a main plot, then it's not a heist book. And if authors want to continue to stuff crime categories with romance books so that they can show 'romance readers that their books have a criminal subplot/bent/element' then I'm guessing that a lot of those books are going to get reported by actual crime readers as being in the wrong place. It's the author's choice to use that keyword if they want to, but it's also the reader's prerogative to report books they feel have been woefully miscategorized.


And yet most of the blurb for that book is about the criminal element.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> The subcat ranking is based on a book's overall rank. That's by Amazon's design. We can disagree whether authors are allowed to put their books in certain subcats, but it is what is.


I'm well aware that the subcat ranking is based on the book's overall rank. But my point was, the books at the top of the cat didn't wind up there because of romance readers browsing in the crime cats. They got there because of ads. So the people who actually do browse the top 100 of the crime sub-cats FOR CRIME BOOKS are getting totally screwed out of their ability to find top 100 books they want, because romance authors want to show romance readers that their books have a crime sub-plot. Instead of leaving the crime categories for readers who want to read crime books.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> And yet most of the blurb for that book is about the criminal element.


No. It really, really isn't. The words may talk about the crime, but the spirit of that blurb is about the sex. That last paragraph of the blurb makes it very clear what the story is about. I'd post it here, but I'd be afraid of winding up on the wrong end of the cattle prod. If this was truly a crime blurb, I wouldn't have to worry about posting it up for people to see.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> No. It really, really isn't. The words may talk about the crime, but the spirit of that blurb is about the sex. That last paragraph of the blurb makes it very clear what the story is about. I'd post it here, but I'd be afraid of winding up on the wrong end of the cattle prod. If this was truly a crime blurb, I wouldn't have to worry about posting it up for people to see.


Oh, so the words say one thing but they mean another. Plus, hot sex is not something you personally want to read about, heist or no heist, so you report the book...

What about Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton, which is currently #1 in the heist category? Does that book sound like it has an Ocean's Eleven, sophisticated, well-planned heist in there as the main plot?


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> The reason wrongly categorized romance books can climb so high in the crime category is because AMS ads directly targeted at romance readers will get sales, and then those books will climb up the store ranks, which will also push them up the ranks of whichever sub-cat they've been put in by the author, regardless of whether the category is suitable or not.


Just wanted to add that AMS ads will not get you a #500 or better ranking in the whole store. If they could, I'd like to know the secret please!


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Oh, so the words say one thing but they mean another. Plus, hot sex is not something you personally want to read about, heist or no heist, so you report the book...
> 
> What about Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton, which is currently #1 in the heist category? Does that book sound like it has an Ocean's Eleven, sophisticated, well-planned heist in there as the main plot?


The crime is what happened to get the story going. The sex is what is going to be happening. It's going to be the main plot, not some mythical heist that may be mentioned at some point but hasn't been included in the blurb at all. And yes, it's not a heist book, and if I could be chuffed to bother reporting it, I would. Because it's not a heist book. And I can tell that because everything about the cover and the blurb fairly screams HOT SEX and not so much as whispers heist.

That goes for Dragon's Teeth, too. If I thought it would do one bit of good - which it won't, because the book is trad - I would also report it.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Just wanted to add that AMS ads will not get you a #500 or better ranking in the whole store. If they could, I'd like to know the secret please!


Maybe not all by themselves. You might need a good mailing list and some promos. But the point was, those books definitely didn't get driven to the top of that category by romance readers browsing in the crime category.


----------



## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

Jena H said:


> If I see someone in a liquor store pointing a gun at the cashier, I don't walk in and ask if he's holding up the place. I call 9-1-1 and let the authorities work out the details. (Luckily the police are more responsive than Amazon. Not to mention more motivated.)


And hope a stray bullet doesn't get you while you're calling. 

I wish Amazon would just get rid of the keywords as a way of getting into categories, because that almost never works the way it's supposed to. They should just let us pick whatever categories we want and add a bunch of new categories and subcategories. Knowing Amazon, they'll listen to complaints and conclude we should have only one category, and then there'll be more confusion. There are plenty of books that straddle genres. I'm used to not being able to find anything to read on bestseller lists, though. I'm usually looking for romances that are about two characters getting together, falling in love, and getting their happy ending, but I want plenty of action, mystery, or other stuff happening, and all without too much drama or too much emotion (but I still want some emotion). My perfect books are usually the ones that can balance genres well.

Yeah, there are people who miscategorize their books on purpose, but many times it's just the keywords' fault, or the authors are just copying bestsellers, or people define genres differently, and so on. I blame it all on Amazon. We need more categories, and heat levels, and maybe even some kind of tags that people can include or exclude when searching for books. I'd love if I could find romances with a strong mystery/crime/etc. plot, and not have to wonder if the books are too romancey for me, but I don't want that plot to completely overwhelm romance either. Maybe the bestseller list could have a "not interested" button, so when you click it, the book disappears off the list and the next one in the line takes its place until you hopefully find what you want (or you can just click until your books finally appear and you can claim you're a bestseller ). But seriously, I'd rather try to come up with good suggestions on how Amazon can improve the categories and send that to them instead of just wasting my time reporting other people's books.

(Heist romance sounds really cool, though. Where can I find some of that? Real thing, with plenty of action, some hot sex, strong heroine, and nice romance, but not with babies or TSTL men or pukeworthy romance. If anyone knows any, let me know.)


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

katherinef said:


> (Heist romance sounds really cool, though. Where can I find some of that? Real thing, with plenty of action, some hot sex, strong heroine, and nice romance, but not with babies or TSTL men or pukeworthy romance. If anyone knows any, let me know.)


It's not a book, but have you seen The Thomas Crown Affair?


----------



## kenbritz (Oct 24, 2016)

The Heist category was stolen. Your job? Figure out how to steal it back.


----------



## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

ShayneRutherford said:


> The crime is what happened to get the story going. The sex is what is going to be happening. It's going to be the main plot, not some mythical heist that may be mentioned at some point but hasn't been included in the blurb at all. And yes, it's not a heist book, and if I could be chuffed to bother reporting it, I would. Because it's not a heist book. And I can tell that because everything about the cover and the blurb fairly screams HOT SEX and not so much as whispers heist.
> 
> That goes for Dragon's Teeth, too. If I thought it would do one bit of good - which it won't, because the book is trad - I would also report it.


I have a lot of friends who write romances with hitmen, mafia, robbery, gang, etc themes. The books are about crimes and about romance. Personally, I don't get it. I get bored after three point five seconds of plot. I don't mind a Jess Mariano kind of bad boy, but a mafasio? No thanks. But those books are popular and you can't really argue that those authors are being unreasonable putting their books in the crime category.


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

katherinef said:


> And hope a stray bullet doesn't get you while you're calling.
> 
> *I wish Amazon would just get rid of the keywords as a way of getting into categories, because that almost never works the way it's supposed to. They should just let us pick whatever categories we want and add a bunch of new categories and subcategories. *Knowing Amazon, they'll listen to complaints and conclude we should have only one category, and then there'll be more confusion. There are plenty of books that straddle genres. I'm used to not being able to find anything to read on bestseller lists, though. I'm usually looking for romances that are about two characters getting together, falling in love, and getting their happy ending, but I want plenty of action, mystery, or other stuff happening, and all without too much drama or too much emotion (but I still want some emotion). My perfect books are usually the ones that can balance genres well.
> 
> ...


Yes, I said the same thing. 



katherinef said:


> (Heist romance sounds really cool, though. Where can I find some of that? Real thing, with plenty of action, some hot sex, strong heroine, and nice romance, but not with babies or TSTL men or pukeworthy romance. If anyone knows any, let me know.)


I have heist, but sorry, no actual romance involved.


----------



## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

ShayneRutherford said:


> It's not a book, but have you seen The Thomas Crown Affair?


Nope. I'm going to check it out. Thanks.


----------



## Laran Mithras (Nov 22, 2016)

It's not the ads that are getting top ranking, it's the abs!


----------



## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

I'll worry about indies when I stop finding Dean Koontz's latest suspense novel in the fantasy category between Harry Potters. Can't really ask indies not to use the "one drop" rule when trad pub has been doing it for decades.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> But those books are popular and you can't really argue that those authors are being unreasonable putting their books in the crime category.


Yes, I can, because it's not the main plot. And just because they're popular doesn't mean they should destroy the category for all the readers who actually want to read that category as the main plot.

Look, my entire reason for saying that it shouldn't be done is that it's unfair to the readers who want to be able to browse the Top 100 lists for the books that belong in that category. And you can say that romance belongs in that category if the secondary plot is crime - and technically that is true - BUT, the books that have a crime as their main plot belong more in the crime category than books that only have crime as a b-plot. If there was room for all the books, I wouldn't care. But there is a limited amount of space - only 100 slots - and romance typically ranks higher than a lot of other genres, so those romance books are going to rise to the top, at the expense of all the books that have more of a right to be in that category, by virtue of the fact that their main plot is crime.

Do you really think it's right to monopolize all of the Top 100 lists with romance books, just because a b- or a c-plot fits those categories, when there are plenty of readers who want to be able to use those lists to find books with that genre as the main plot?


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> That goes for Dragon's Teeth, too. If I thought it would do one bit of good - which it won't, because the book is trad - I would also report it.


That's kind of my point. Nobody's raging about the number one book in heist not even being a heist book (hint: it's not because it's trad, it's because it's not a romance with man chest on the cover). The same goes for Nicholas Sparks. I don't see the romance writers here raging about him being in their category. Yes, they're both trad books, but if enough people complain, something might change.



Dragovian said:


> I'll worry about indies when I stop finding Dean Koontz's latest suspense novel in the fantasy category between Harry Potters. Can't really ask indies not to use the "one drop" rule when trad pub has been doing it for decades.


Oh, and to take it further, why is a children's fantasy series in these categories:

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Fantasy
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban

When it's already in the children's equivalent of these:

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Action & Adventure > Fantasy & Magic
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Science Fiction, Fantasy & Scary Stories > Fantasy & Magic

I don't want to have to wade through children's books when I look for books in Fantasy! There's already a Fantasy category under children's category, so why the double dipping?? And when I look for contemporary fiction, a children's fantasy series is *not* what I had in mind!

And why is a fantasy in the humorous category?

Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Humorous
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > Action & Adventure > Humorous

Doesn't children's fantasy have a humorous category? If it doesn't, it should. Besides, when I'm looking for humorous kids books, does Harry Potter fit the bill? It doesn't sound like a funny series. Should I report this to Amazon and let them sort it out?

*Yes, I realize how crazy this sounds. That's the point!*


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Yes, I can, because it's not the main plot. And just because they're popular doesn't mean they should destroy the category for all the readers who actually want to read that category as the main plot.


Look at my post above. Harry Potter is destroying a lot of categories! Where's the outrage?! Are you reporting these books?


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> That's kind of my point. Nobody's raging about the number one book in heist not even being a heist book (hint: it's not because it's trad, it's because it's not a romance with man chest on the cover). The same goes for Nicholas Sparks. I don't see the romance writers here raging about him being in their category. Yes, they're both trad books, but if enough people complain, something might change.


I'm not worrying about the trad books because I know there isn't a single thing I can do about where those books go. Trad books get privileges that indies don't get, and no amount of complaining is going to change that, so I won't waste my energy on it. But complaining about the non-trad books might eventually get some action, so I will make an effort with those.

Also, that Crighton book is only one book out of a hundred. If the romance books only took up a couple of slots in the wrong category, I wouldn't worry about it. But when 74 of the top 100 slots in heist books are romances, and at least one of the others is a murder book, yeah, I take issue with that, and I'm going to complain, because as a reader I want the issue fixed.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> I'm not worrying about the trad books because I know there isn't a single thing I can do about where those books go. Trad books get privileges that indies don't get, and no amount of complaining is going to change that, so I won't waste my energy on it. But complaining about the non-trad books might eventually get some action, so I will make an effort with those.
> 
> Also, that Crighton book is only one book out of a hundred. If the romance books only took up a couple of slots in the wrong category, I wouldn't worry about it. But when 74 of the top 100 slots in heist books are romances, and at least one of the others is a murder book, yeah, I take issue with that, and I'm going to complain, because as a reader I want the issue fixed.


Crichton might be one out of a hundred, but it's taking up the #1 spot. That's nothing to sneeze at.

And this "we can't touch trad books so I'll just report indie books" is not a good excuse. If enough people complain about any book, something might be done. Focusing your outrage on indie romances that aren't even in the wrong category (we'll agree to disagree on that ) is hypocritical at best if you're aware others (trad or not) are doing the same thing you're reporting them for.


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> That's kind of my point. Nobody's raging about the number one book in heist not even being a heist book (hint: it's not because it's trad, it's because it's not a romance with man chest on the cover). The same goes for Nicholas Sparks. I don't see the romance writers here raging about him being in their category. Yes, they're both trad books, but if enough people complain, something might change.
> 
> *Yes, I realize how crazy this sounds. That's the point!*


Seven books in one series can't come close to the effect that a whole flood of wrongly categorized books will have. There's seven books in the Harry Potter series, and that's all there's ever going to be. But people are going to continue writing lots of romance, and if they insist on stuffing it into the wrong categories, the problem is only going to get worse.

And it sounds ridiculous because you're deliberately trying to make it sound ridiculous, but that doesn't invalidate the point I'm making - that loads of readers are being inconvenienced, and are being forced to go to a completely different site to search for the books they want, because a bunch of miscategorized books have flooded out the books that belong in that category.

A bunch of people in this thread have said that authors shouldn't report other authors, because it's wrong to do so. But, when books are deliberately put in the wrong categories, it screws over other authors, too, by pushing their books out of the top 100 in their own main category and denying them the visibility they would have got from being in that list. So it's not right to report books for being in the wrong category, but it's okay to screw authors out of visibility and any potential profits they would have made from that visibility?


----------



## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

NeedWant said:


> Crichton might be one out of a hundred, but it's taking up the #1 spot. That's nothing to sneeze at.
> 
> And this "we can't touch trad books so I'll just report indie books" is not a good excuse. If enough people complain about any book, something might be done. Focusing your outrage on indie romances that aren't even in the wrong category (we'll agree to disagree on that ) is hypocritical at best if you're aware others (trad or not) are doing the same thing you're reporting them for.


But it's still only one spot out of a hundred. As opposed to 74 spots out of 100.

Who said I was making an excuse? It's not an excuse, it's a choice. It's my time, and I'll spend it how I like, where I think it will be the most useful. If I feel my time will be wasted reporting Crighton's book, I won't bother.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

ShayneRutherford said:


> Seven books in one series can't come close to the effect that a whole flood of wrongly categorized books will have. There's seven books in the Harry Potter series, and that's all there's ever going to be. But people are going to continue writing lots of romance, and if they insist on stuffing it into the wrong categories, the problem is only going to get worse.


You think Crichton, Koontz, Sparks, and Harry Potter are the only ones doing this? That's just the tip of the iceberg.



> And it sounds ridiculous because you're deliberately trying to make it sound ridiculous, but that doesn't invalidate the point I'm making - that loads of readers are being inconvenienced, and are being forced to go to a completely different site to search for the books they want, because a bunch of miscategorized books have flooded out the books that belong in that category.


It sounds ridiculous because it is. Do you know why? Because a book can fit into more than one category. It isn't just purely one thing. Hence why Amazon allows authors to be in different categories/subcategories.

If someone is bothered by the impurity of the top 100 categories, they can do what the rest of us do: use the search function instead!



> A bunch of people in this thread have said that authors shouldn't report other authors, because it's wrong to do so. But, when books are deliberately put in the wrong categories, it screws over other authors, too, by pushing their books out of the top 100 in their own main category and denying them the visibility they would have got from being in that list. So it's not right to report books for being in the wrong category, but it's okay to screw authors out of visibility and any potential profits they would have made from that visibility?


Deliberate miscategorization I have no problem with being reported. The things you're complaining about aren't miscategorized, they just fit in more than one category.


----------



## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Marian said:


> Romance readers expect a HEA ending. I have the scars to prove it. Early on I chose romance for a women's lit/fic book about a long marriage that doesn't have a HEA. I was unaware that it was a requirement, and readers let me know fast. I won't make that mistake again! Categories hold promises for readers, and when the promises don't deliver what readers expect, they can either get angry or turned off.


I'm with NeedWant there, and I write romance. Not only does even the RWA accept bittersweet endings as romances, the RWA is also not the end-all of who gets to define a genre. It is just the US American definition, and it is just the recent-most.

"Romance" as a broad genre used to contain so much more than just RWA-defined modern genre romance, that some people ought to notice that their narrow perception doesn't define the whole planet's definition. Amazon sells everywhere, not just in the USA.

In light of this, I have long believed that the romance category is broken. It should be "romantic fiction > genre romance>..." to allow for subcategories like "romantic fiction > courtship" or "romantic fiction > tragedy...", which would put genre romance into perspective again.


----------



## Guest (Jul 4, 2017)

I am going to dump my wip and write something else:
Title-He stole my virginity 
Blurb: 75,000 words of hot sex. Hea guaranteed. He stole my heart took all including my virginity. 
A crime novel.

Or better yet maybe I'll just write that on my sword and sorcery and throw it up. Will likely do better anyways.

Funny thing is the Harry Potter books didn't even show up in the children's books when I was looking two day ago. Sure every freaking fantasy catagory but not the kids. Idc  if it's indies or trad pubs wrong is wrong is wrong. Murder is murder no matter what your name or escuse is. Yeah they get better deals and terms because they make Amazon more money than you ever will but that doesn't mean I think it's many right that they should  get away with it.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

NeedWant said:


> None of those examples make sense. Sorry. If you have a romance subplot, yes, you can put the book in a romance category. Having attractive characters doesn't make something a romance...


Those comparisons are more sensible, in my opinions than the ones you presented. And they absolutely have a great point. How is someone who says they don't read romance going to teach us about what a romance is?

"I don't study medicine but I have the internet, therefore I'm a doctor" is not convincing.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Herefortheride said:


> Those comparisons are more sensible, in my opinions than the ones you presented. And they absolutely have a great point. How is someone who says they don't read romance going to teach us about what a romance is?
> 
> "I don't study medicine but I have the internet, therefore I'm a doctor" is not convincing.


It's comments like these that make me wish this forum had a laughing/crying emoji.

Thank you for making my day brighter. I hope yours is going well, too!


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

NeedWant said:


> It's comments like these that make me wish this forum had a laughing/crying emoji.
> 
> Thank you for making my day brighter. I hope yours is going well, too!


More people would be sympathetic to your consistent defense of anything romance/erotica if you tried to view it objectively. There ARE MANY indie and trad authors/publishers using blackhat methods. It's not an attack on romance in general but a call to stop those who are muddying the waters and hurting the business that we all love so dearly.


----------



## NeilMosspark (Sep 30, 2016)

I know I'm wishing for a unicorn, but wouldn't it be easy to put a 'this book is in the wrong category' button/link on the books page? Amazon does it for the price matching.


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Nic said:


> I'm with NeedWant there, and I write romance. Not only does even the RWA accept bittersweet endings as romances, the RWA is also not the end-all of who gets to define a genre. It is just the US American definition, and it is just the recent-most.
> 
> "Romance" as a broad genre used to contain so much more than just RWA-defined modern genre romance, that some people ought to notice that their narrow perception doesn't define the whole planet's definition. Amazon sells everywhere, not just in the USA.
> 
> In light of this, I have long believed that the romance category is broken. It should be "romantic fiction > genre romance>..." to allow for subcategories like "romantic fiction > courtship" or "romantic fiction > tragedy...", which would put genre romance into perspective again.


Buying and enjoying books is about readers' expectations. It isn't all about RWA accepted definitions. If readers who purchase romances expect a HEA and they don't get one, they'll be disappointed or even angry (as I discovered) no matter where they live. Yet there are four and five star reviews of the same book that call it a love story. Every reader brings something different to a story.

Your idea of breaking romances into subcategories could help solve the problem.


----------



## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Marian said:


> Romance readers expect a HEA ending. I have the scars to prove it. Early on I chose romance for a women's lit/fic book about a long marriage that doesn't have a HEA. I was unaware that it was a requirement, and readers let me know fast. I won't make that mistake again! Categories hold promises for readers, and when the promises don't deliver what readers expect, they can either get angry or turned off.


If by scars you mean reviews, I can fully agree. Although my book most definitely *has* an HEA, the story has more than just a romance. But romance readers seem to want the main story to be about the romance and you get dinged if you stray from that. One reviewer (obviously not an avid romance reader) commented that she wasn't sure how to categorise the story, so decided to call it a contemporary romance. So expectations differ and if you ignore those of romance readers you do it at you peril


----------



## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

I think we're derailing the thread with this talk of romances and expectations, but I just want to add that one thing I haven't seen mentioned is whether the _characters_ consider the outcome an HEA/HFN. We know what the reader considers an HEA/HFN: nothing short of "Will you...?" or at least "we're together and happy." But there are circumstances (including some that do NOT include death or terminal illness) when characters would be satisfied with a different type of resolution of their romance/relationship. So yeah, I'll vote for other categories of romance also.

OK, I'm done with my part of the thread derail... back to the original topic.


----------



## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Herefortheride said:


> More people would be sympathetic to your consistent defense of anything romance/erotica if you tried to view it objectively. There ARE MANY indie and trad authors/publishers using blackhat methods. It's not an attack on romance in general but a call to stop those who are muddying the waters and hurting the business that we all love so dearly.


Yes. If there's a scam to be had, it will work the best in romance. It's one of the biggest and hungriest markets and hence a target for the blackhat scammers.

The reason there are indie and trad publishers using black-hat methods is because romance readers are so voracious and they devour books. If you can get a book in front of them, you can make $$$ if they like it your book. There is a huge incentive to find shortcuts and use tactics that push if not break the TOS and general ethics to get in front of romance readers. So, the reason the Romance and Erotica genres are often the target of vitriol is because that is where the ripe low-hanging fruit is to be found and that's where scammers and fraudsters go first, because, easy pickings. Or at least, easier.

I call out the scammers and fraudsters when I see them. I write romance for a living, successfully, and they make it hard for the rest of us who follow ethical tactics to sell our books. If scammers are pushing out honest authors from positions on the lists and in front of readers, they should be called out. Just like you'd call the cops if you saw someone stealing your neighbour's car.


----------



## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Lynn is a pseud--uh said:


> Also, I bet it would make it easier for authors who just don't understand the difference between "romance" and the genre of romance. There are so many it boggles my mind sometimes, but if you don't read genre romance or haven't studied it at the least, it's easy to get confused and then wonder what the heck people are going on about because your book _has_ romance in it--the hero just dies at the end.


This is so, because the majority of genre romance readers either forget, or don't know, that "genre romance" - which is something else than "the romantic genre" or "the genre of romance" - is a relatively young genre (not even a full century old, more like 50-60 years) and it is a genre with a specific geographic distribution and socio-cultural origin. It evolved in the USA from the much more encompassing "romantic fiction", and romantic fiction itself was part of the even larger romantic movement in the Arts, which began in the High Middle Ages and reached a second important peak during the late 18th century and early 19th century. Chaucer for instance was an author of romantic fiction.

This history is reflected in that not all cultures and countries, especially among those speaking languages other than English, the term and concept of "romance" is very much different from the one represented by the RWA. In particular tragic love stories and bittersweet romances very naturally belong to "romance" in a lot of countries, but also stories of courtly love or heroism. So, of course, people from a different cultural background will be taken aback by seeing their romantic novels rejected by readers adhering to the very narrow US concept of romance. And of course, readers who do not specialise on RWA genre romance, yet have been in contact with romantic fiction or the romantic movement, will also be irritated by the narrow RWA concept.

Nicholas Sparks' novels may not belong into RWA genre romance, but they absolutely belong into romantic fiction. They aren't literary fiction by any measure of the term. We need that overarching genre back in anglo-saxon categories.


----------



## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

sela said:


> I call out the scammers and fraudsters when I see them. I write romance for a living, successfully, and they make it hard for the rest of us who follow ethical tactics to sell our books. If scammers are pushing out honest authors from positions on the lists and in front of readers, they should be called out. Just like you'd call the cops if you saw someone stealing your neighbour's car.


I'd love to see a breakdown of how many readers actually pick books from bestseller lists on Amazon. I know I don't do it, and every reader I interact with also doesn't do it. There is Goodreads and like platforms, there are the review blogs and the mail lists like BookBub instead and they all work.


----------



## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Nic said:


> I'd love to see a breakdown of how many readers actually pick books from bestseller lists on Amazon. I know I don't do it, and every reader I interact with also doesn't do it. There is Goodreads and like platforms, there are the review blogs and the mail lists like BookBub instead and they all work.


I know a couple people who rely on the top 100 lists. I told my work colleague that she should try looking around, maybe on Goodreads. Or try one of the promo sites like bookbub (although I don't use them anymore) or try a book blog.

 I have discovered a lot of books by just seeing what romance authors recommend on twitter or their blogs. For example I discovered romance author Nicole London through Whitney G. 
I have discovered a lot of new authors through book blogs and Goodreads lists. Sometimes I get good recommendations on Goodreads by avid readers.

I think readers are missing out on some good books if they just look at the top 100 all the time.


----------



## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

BellaJames said:


> I think readers are missing out on some good books if they just look at the top 100 all the time.


My experience has been that my satisfaction tends to be inversely related to the rank on bestseller lists and the review rating. By this I mean that the higher on a list, or the higher the average rating of a book, the less likely it is that I will enjoy it. Anything above 4.0* I by now discard. I'm not alone in this, there are quite a few readers who see it similarly. Bestseller lists are by no means the sole method of meeting readers.


----------



## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Lauriejoyeltahs said:


> I am going to dump my wip and write something else:
> Title-He stole my virginity
> Blurb: 75,000 words of hot sex. Hea guaranteed. He stole my heart took all including my virginity.
> A crime novel.
> ...


The Harry Potter books are consistently in the top 100 (usually the top 50). If they're not showing in any categories top 100, it's because the publisher (which is Pottermore now?) choose a different category.

"He Stole My Virginity" would probably do really well right now TBH. Virgins and daddies are still trending.


----------



## H.C. (Jul 28, 2016)

Crystal_ said:


> The Harry Potter books are consistently in the top 100 (usually the top 50). If they're not showing in any categories top 100, it's because the publisher (which is Pottermore now?) choose a different category.
> 
> "He Stole My Virginity" would probably do really well right now TBH. Virgins and daddies are still trending.


What about billionaire dragonshifter babyheist?


----------



## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Herefortheride said:


> What about billionaire dragonshifter babyheist?


I know this keyword stuffed romance is a meme on Kboards, but those kinds of books almost never do well. They'll come up in searches, but they almost always have a poor ranking.


----------



## ......~...... (Jul 4, 2015)

Herefortheride said:


> More people would be sympathetic to your consistent defense of anything romance/erotica if you tried to view it objectively. There ARE MANY indie and trad authors/publishers using blackhat methods. It's not an attack on romance in general but a call to stop those who are muddying the waters and hurting the business that we all love so dearly.


If that's what you think I'm doing, you're missing the point. My eyes are fully open. I'd say people like you who report books to Amazon as scams when they're not are more blind than anything.

BTW, will you be reporting Crichton, Koontz, Sparks, and Harry Potter to Amazon as well?


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> If by scars you mean reviews, I can fully agree. So expectations differ and if you ignore those of romance readers you do it at you peril


Yup.


----------

