# On stacking keywords in book titles on Amazon ... ??



## suzflt (Mar 19, 2013)

Hi all ... So I'm noticing a lot of genre fiction titles now seem to have titles that read like this:

Alien Romance: Love and Antennae (Alien Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance) (New Adult and College Women's Fiction Romantic) 

Anyone having success with this? Or bad experiences? I was under impression that Amazon has a policy that title must be printed on cover of book, which keywords like these are not ... Thoughts?

I'm intrigued but don't want to get booted off of Amazon ...

Suzanne


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

It is against policy and people that abuse it stink on ice.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

As a reader, I immediately disregard titles like that when browsing.  Ugh.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

crebel said:


> As a reader, I immediately disregard titles like that when browsing. Ugh.


Me too.


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## Catana (Mar 27, 2012)

That technique has become an epidemic. There's no better way to ensure I'll skip right over it. It's a sign of amateur desperation -- or just plain greed, whatever it takes to get sales.


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## MarilynVix (Jun 19, 2013)

Amazon has been crackin' down on people with those kind of titles. A title and subtitle should be it. Titles are still important, esp. linking your series title with your other books in the same series. I've been noticing if I'm off on any of it, the whole series won't link together. Amazon has been bundling books in a series and with searches. So, you definitely need to have things consistent in your titles, esp. in a series. These super long key word titles will most likely work against you in the end. Put them in keywords where they belong.


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

Where's Annie and her No Cat. LOL

Marilyn, I hope you are right about Amazon cracking down on it. The children’s books categories are rife with these titles. 

Rue


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Monique said:


> It is against policy and people that abuse it stink on ice.


/end thread


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## LadyG (Sep 3, 2015)

It almost seems like there's been an increase in the super-long titles lately. I've even noticed a few writers from KBoards starting to do it, so it must work for them on some level.

I just keep comparing it to a lesson I learned back in business school in the 1980's:  "Don't dress for the level you're at. Dress for the level you want to reach." Well, the level I want to reach has books by people like Nora Roberts and Debbie Macomber.  If they start "dressing" their books with mega-long titles and keyword stuffing, I'll do it. Otherwise, NO.  It just looks tacky and unprofessional.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

This:



Monique said:


> It is against policy and people that abuse it stink on ice.


and this:



crebel said:


> As a reader, I immediately disregard titles like that when browsing. Ugh.


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## archaeoroutes (Oct 12, 2014)

I ended up getting stuck with this. I wrote in the subtitle if my first two books and published. It was only after I'd gained traction, and thus too late to republish without losing ground, that I noticed how bad it looked on the search results. I've asked for it to be changed, but no luck (not even the typo!).


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## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

This behavior will definitely be eliminated sooner rather than later. Reminds me of Google/Yahoo circa the late 1990s where you could just slap any repeated keyword phrase into a mishmash of random text and rank on page 1. It made the search results rather miserable to wade through sometimes, but once it was fully addressed all those people's incomes were instantly reduced to zero and they had no actual skills to fall back on.  

I think Amazon's search is still rather rudimentary in comparison to Google's et al., but they're smart, and I'm sure they're working on updates to get customers what they want. I'd assume the conversion/bounce rates for these spammy keyword stuffed pages are awful, and that's definitely not what Amazon wants at all. It's way worse with the private label FBA stuff, and I think that's probably what they're more concerned about. It'll get sorted. You can see Amazon starting to build the infrastructure with their ad platforms and so forth. A couple years and this will be just an amusing footnote. 

In the meantime, grit your teeth and don't do it.

Nick


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## bang on the drum (Nov 2, 2015)

MarilynVix said:


> Amazon has been crackin' down on people with those kind of titles.


Any evidence?


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## A Dark Path (Aug 24, 2015)

Monique said:


> It is against policy and people that abuse it stink on ice.


Monique, I think you should climb down off that fence and say what you think.


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## mach 5 (Dec 5, 2015)

Source for it being against Amazon policy?

https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A294SHSUYLKTA6&ref_=kdp_EB_BD_mg

The above provides:



> Book Titles
> Titles are the most frequently used search attribute. The title field should contain only the actual title of your book as it appears on your book cover. Missing or erroneous title information may bury valid results among extraneous hits. Customers pay special attention to errors in titles and won't recognize the authenticity of your book if it has corrupted special characters, superfluous words, bad formatting, extra descriptive content, etc. Examples of items that are prohibited in the title field include but are not limited to:
> 
> • Unauthorized reference to other titles or authors
> ...


Amazon has had 3 years or more to insert another bullet along the lines of "*references to genre, tropes, and other metadata" - Amazon's concerns based on the prohibitions listed and context paragraph preceding the bullet list are (a) good search returns (b) avoiding false claims (c) copyright/trademark/rights of personality infringement. "Extra descriptive content" is as close as it gets to prohibited and I have heard Amazon is working to clean up the non-romance, non-erotica categories of material that is only slightly related to horror or sf but is getting in there (although not necessarily by keyword stuffing the title), rather by someone directly putting it in that category.


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## NoLongerPosting (Apr 5, 2014)

Removed due to site owner's change of TOS.


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## Lady TL Jennings (Dec 8, 2011)

bang on the drum said:


> Any evidence?


Last year when I did a five days free run for one of my short story collections I added "FREE" to the title (without really thinking about it).
Amazon sent me a very polite reminder of their title policy the following day and obviously I changed it back immediately (feeling a little bit miffed). 
So, yeah, they've turned a little bit more strickt that before, which I think is a good thing.


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## mach 5 (Dec 5, 2015)

Lady TL Jennings said:


> Last year when I did a five days free run for one of my short story collections I added "FREE" to the title (without really thinking about it).
> Amazon sent me a very polite reminder of their title policy the following day and obviously I changed it back immediately (feeling a little bit miffed).
> So, yeah, they've turned a little bit more strickt that before, which I think is a good thing.


My block quote showed that they explicitly prohibit terms like "Free" - the big thing people seem to be talking about in the thread where a title would be "Ever After (A Bad Boy Billionaire Biker Shifter Science Fiction Romance)" - particularly when the book is in the best seller charts. But the author could have titled it "Her Ever After _with the bad boy billionaire biker shifter_" and only lost one keyword.

As for what I think the majority of readers avoid, it's the keyword stuffing where one concept is represented five times or so via its synonyms, such as Title (An Arabesque, High Fantasy, Conflict, Strife, Battle, War Fantasy). I've seen them 30 words long and those are invariably by scammers. If the technique of moderate, search refining keywords did not work, we wouldn't be seeing those books in the best seller and hot new release lists. Personally, I don't care if my title screams "amateur" if my bank account screams "pro."

Have to add a LMBO - I might just write Ever After (A Bad Boy Billionaire Biker Shifter Science Fiction Romance)


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

mach 5 said:


> Source for it being against Amazon policy?
> 
> https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A294SHSUYLKTA6&ref_=kdp_EB_BD_mg


It's right there in the quote you provided:

_The title field should contain *only the actual title of your book as it appears on your book cover*._

Does your book cover also have a long-ass subtitle on it with an obnoxious list of keyword spam? Then you're all set!



> Amazon has had 3 years or more to insert another bullet


They don't have to:

_Examples of items that are prohibited in the title field *include but are not limited to*:_


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## JessieVerona (May 10, 2013)

It may not always be intended as keyword spam. I think it's like everything else -- it depends on how it's used. I've used it to guide readers as to what kind of book they're looking at when that particular book touches on multiple genres. There's nothing wrong with "Billy and Raven: A BBW Shifter Romance" if it tells the reader what the book is offering them.

And I do put it on the cover of the book -- it's a small unobtrusive line at the bottom. Seems to be working. Maybe that's why people do it.



Lady TL Jennings said:


> Last year when I did a five days free run for one of my short story collections I added "FREE" to the title (without really thinking about it).
> Amazon sent me a very polite reminder of their title policy the following day and obviously I changed it back immediately (feeling a little bit miffed).
> So, yeah, they've turned a little bit more strickt that before, which I think is a good thing.


Seems to me that's even more proof that they _don't care_ about "keyword stuffing" in titles. It's a clear example that if one includes something they actually care about, they _will_ contact you immediately and tell you to knock it off.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

JessieVerona said:


> It may not always be intended as keyword spam. I think it's like everything else -- it depends on how it's used. I've used it to guide readers as to what kind of book they're looking at when that particular book touches on multiple genres. There's nothing wrong with "Billy and Raven: A BBW Shifter Romance" if it tells the reader what the book is offering them.


I certainly can't speak for anyone else, but that kind of thing just doesn't bother me. It's not a whole lot different from "A Novel" or "A Pride & Prejudice Variation"--you're just helping the reader to orient themselves. Smart to put it on your cover and CYA, but honestly I don't think most folks mean that when they're talking about keyword spam. For me, what I'm talking about is titles like: _Romance: Bear Naked: A BBW Bear Shifter Victorian Erotica Motorcycle Club Alpha Billionaire First-Time Taboo Erotic Romance with a Tattooed Hero and Sassy Heroine, Happy Ending, Standalone_ by Lady Angelica and The Amish. You know?


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

I agree with lilywhite. It's not so much the odd bit of keyword/clarification stuff, but the latter example she gave. From what I've heard, it's becoming rampant, and we all know what Amazon does when they get tired of something.

PSA:  The ban hammer hurts all of us, not just the wrong-doers.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

You aren't supposed to do it, but it works or you wouldn't see so many titles like that. I've never done it with my erotica, but in that genre it works extremely well.


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## archaeoroutes (Oct 12, 2014)

Rickie Blair said:


> If you're talking about the subtitle that shows up on your Amazon page, you can delete that in KDP, in "edit details". Just delete it and then the subtitle will be whatever you put in the "series" slot. And you can change that too, if you want. Although make sure all the "series titles" are the same.


Thanks. I'll have another try. I think it was Createspace causing the problem, though.


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## DarkScribe (Aug 30, 2012)

suzflt said:


> Hi all ... So I'm noticing a lot of genre fiction titles now seem to have titles that read like this:
> 
> Alien Romance: Love and Antennae (Alien Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance) (New Adult and College Women's Fiction Romantic)
> 
> ...


Hey, that's pretty clever. She (I presume that it is a she...) has managed to combine six keywords, any one of which would ensure that I skipped right past the book without further interest. More people should do that - it would make life much simpler for people like me.


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## Clare W (Aug 13, 2015)

> Amazon has been crackin' down on people with those kind of titles.
> 
> Any evidence?


Not as far as I know. I complained about a book with blatant keyword stuffing in the title. Amazon wrote back and said that yes, it contravened their policies. Then did nothing about it. The book's still there, unchanged.

Clare


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## JessieVerona (May 10, 2013)

Clare W said:


> Not as far as I know. I complained about a book with blatant keyword stuffing in the title. Amazon wrote back and said that yes, it contravened their policies. Then did nothing about it. The book's still there, unchanged.
> 
> Clare


Regardless of what their rules seem to state, they obviously don't care about it.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

If readers -- i.e. customers -- complain about it, they're more likely to act. But I think most folks browsing for books just browse on past and don't take the time to send a note of complaint to Amazon.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

I saw a run of keywords at the bottom of a blurb, one after another without even the pretense of a sentence. Amazon hasn't done anything about it.


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## belindaf (Jan 27, 2011)

crebel said:


> As a reader, I immediately disregard titles like that when browsing. Ugh.


Me, too. Unless one of my books is part of a series, it's title only. I'll add the series name for those that aren't stand-alone.


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## Secret Pen Pal (Dec 27, 2013)

I read somewhere that readers tend not to register titles longer than 60 characters. I suspect the excessive keyword stuffing works against people because of the clutter and it screams amateur hour.

Using a couple of keywords in a subtitle or series title to signal to your audience is reasonable.


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2016)

I don't understand how these things get through. The title in the metadata is supposed to match the title on the cover. Period. Full stop. End of discussion. This is the most basic part of publishing. Someone at Amazon should look at the book cover. Look at the metadata. Are they a match? No? REJECT! Author resubmits. Person looks at cover. Looks at metadata? Do they match? No? REJECT and warning. Author resubmits. Person looks at cover. Looks at metadata. Do they match? No. BAN. 

It isn't just with books anymore, though. This keyword stuffing is all over the place on Amazon now. It is horrible and makes search a pain in the neck. Looking for anything on Amazon these days is getting more and more frustrating.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I am with some of the other readers. I see that and it is a auto no for me. I don't even care how good a story might be, its automatic exclusion from my vetting process. Although the chance those are good stories are slim anyway. Why else try to use such tactics. 

I saw one the other day that had the word Romance in the title 4 times. In addition to some other stuff. What that tells me that is will not in any way shape of form be a romance. Otherwise, one wouldn't have to keep pushing it like that. 

They annoy the heck out of me and clutter up all search and browsing. To the point that I don't even browse anymore and I stick with known authors and known books now. Names. Recommendations from readers friends and goodreads. 

I like to sometimes go through by day and week and see what was released in various sub genres of romance. Can't do that anymore. There are days when there are like 100's of these garbage titles clutter up that listing. Per day. I go by publication date for that. 

I have complained to Amazon a few times be sending feedback. Sometimes I reported "books" but I don't have that time to waste. So many of them. They multiply like rabbits too. There be the long long long stuffed title and book or part 1 all the way to like 30. 
Utter garbage most of it.


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## Scila (Apr 13, 2014)

An easy fix would be set a shorter character limit for titles and subtitles... And add a tag system instead of relying just on categories (that don't keep up with the speed of trends).


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Scila said:


> An easy fix would be set a shorter character limit for titles and subtitles... And add a tag system instead of relying just on categories (that don't keep up with the speed of trends).


They used to have tags and got rid of them. They were abused like nobody's business.


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## Scila (Apr 13, 2014)

Monique said:


> They used to have tags and got rid of them. They were abused like nobody's business.


Not surprising, but it allows more variety and specificity... It might also stop the store from being visually cluttered by huge titles and subtitles if the tags have higher value in the algorithm than titles.

Any search engine that is not improved and organically built will eventually be abused. Amazon doesn't seem to get that, or maybe they don't mind books being hard to find when they can sell ad space instead.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Scila said:


> Not surprising, but it allows more variety and specificity... It might also stop the store from being visually cluttered by huge titles and subtitles if the tags have higher value in the algorithm than titles.
> 
> Any search engine that is not improved and organically built will eventually be abused. Amazon doesn't seem to get that, or maybe they don't mind books being hard to find when they can sell ad space instead.


I don't see how adding tags would do anything but provide another option for abusers, sadly. The stuffers will still stuff the titles/subtitles and now be able to do bad things with tags. Keywords are, theoretically, what allows for specificity in searches.


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## Scila (Apr 13, 2014)

Monique said:


> I don't see how adding tags would do anything but provide another option for abusers, sadly. The stuffers will still stuff the titles/subtitles and now be able to do bad things with tags. Keywords are, theoretically, what allows for specificity in searches.


It's all about the priorities in the search engine. Titles and subtitles should not have the same weight as keywords. Keywords should not be as important as tags. When someone searches for "Romance with Cowboys" what should matter most is not the title of the book, but that's not the case today.

My problem with the keywords is that: 1. They can be all about fitting inside categories instead of the book itself (Which works for Amazon, but not for marketing). 2. You can stuff huge amounts of words there, but it's a shot in the dark because keywords _are invisible to the consumer. _

A tag system is visible so it will discourage title stuffing and make searching easier, faster (combined with proper weights for categories/title/keywords). It also allows for multiple combinations, instead of elimination (like the categories).

Any fanfiction site worth a salt has a tag system, and they work very well -- tags that appear more frequently are bundled together, so any long non-relevant combinations will disappear into obscurity (no more "Alien Invasion with Cowboys Romance Adventures", but search for "Alien Invasion" + "Cowboy" + "Romance" + "Adventures" and you'll get what you want).

If you make your search engine more intuitive and organic, yes there will be abuse, but you don't need to descend with a banning hammer every two years or race against the scammers all the time, the engine will more or less fix itself or need subtle adjustments. (Much like their rankings).


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Scila said:


> A tag system is visible so it will discourage title stuffing and make searching easier, faster (combined with proper weights for categories/title/keywords). It also allows for multiple combinations, instead of elimination (like the categories).


It simply did not do as you suggest. It was visible and it was abused so badly they removed it.

I have no idea how Amazon weights titles, subtitles, keywords, alsobot similiarities, likelihood to purchase and any number of other factors. I don't think anyone does.


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## Scila (Apr 13, 2014)

Monique said:


> It simply did not do as you suggest. It was visible and it was abused so badly they removed it.
> 
> I have no idea how Amazon weights titles, subtitles, keywords, alsobot similiarities, likelihood to purchase and any number of other factors. I don't think anyone does.


How was it abused, if you don't mind explaining to me?

Well, search for "Romance with Cowboys" vs "Western Romance" (a category where the top stuffed titles Romance With Cowboys are in), seems pretty possible to me that title is given priority.


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2016)

Scila said:


> How was it abused, if you don't mind explaining to me?


Tag exchanges, where authors would just tag each others books with any requested tag. Adding tags to the book that had nothing to do with the book. Dubious tags (like "bestseller" or "award winner").


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Tag exchanges, where authors would just tag each others books with any requested tag. Adding tags to the book that had nothing to do with the book. Dubious tags (like "bestseller" or "award winner").


And every possible abuse that people currently use for keywords.


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## Scila (Apr 13, 2014)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Tag exchanges, where authors would just tag each others books with any requested tag. Adding tags to the book that had nothing to do with the book. Dubious tags (like "bestseller" or "award winner").


I see, so it was popular vote? It was not added by the author, but by consumers and worked like the helpful/not helpful button? If that's the case, that seems very counter-productive to me. Perhaps it would work better if the tags were single-word and chosen by the author and then bundled by the _system_ per number of use on the whole store, not vote, combined by better visibility so the reader can use to search books without having to click on "advanced search".



Monique said:


> And every possible abuse that people currently use for keywords.


I agree that it's not possible to stop people from using the wrong tags to ride the waves of more popular tags or add thousands of irrelevant tags, but that's when categories, rankings, blurbs, etc. should come in to balance things out. The way it works right now, there's no balance.

Here's the thing: keyword/title abuse is an attempt at better visibility. Give better visibility possibilities to authors combined with a more intelligent/complex search algorithm and there's no need for title stuffing. At least, it won't be as blatant as this.

Look at Google, yes their search engine suffers from scams, but their base system is now very solid, and it requires a lot of technical knowledge to fool it, unlike stuffing titles.

Placing the blame solely on authors or the burden of reporting abuse on consumers is just a bad business for everyone. This will be always an arms race, but Amazon is out of the race completely right now, they're too slow. I wish they could be faster on their feet and work on their search engine already. The way this is going, no one will bother to use their search anymore and that will just kill a lot of opportunities for visibility and shrink the market, putting it back to the hands of a few again.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

There is no *need* for keyword stuffing now. There will always be those who want to cheat and will find ways to do so. 

I'm all for more ways to be discovered, but I'm not sure tags will really help, even if they were self-selected. They would just be another keyword then. *shrug*

The blame for keyword stuffing is SOLELY the fault of those who stuff. Cheating is not excused because you want Amazon to show your book more.


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## suzflt (Mar 19, 2013)

Wow ... I had no idea this would be such a hot topic -- and I completely appreciate all replies here. SO yeah ... I won't be using this. Was wondering, really, why Amazon appears to be allowing it for now. But apparently they are gathering steam on this. Seems to be rife in certain genres like Romance.

I am, however, changing my subtitle to be clearer -- from 'A Charley & Electra Story, #1' to a cover graphic line that says "Kinky, Transgender Spy Novels' ... My reviews indicate this is what folks like about the book, so why not be clearer about my niche?

Thanks again for being part of this chat!

Suzanne Falter


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2016)

Scila said:


> Here's the thing: keyword/title abuse is an attempt at better visibility. Give better visibility possibilities to authors...


And herein is the problem. Amazon's job is NOT to give you as a publisher visibility. Amazon's job is to help me as a consumer find what I am looking for. It is not Amazon's job to make sure people see your book. It is Amazon's job to make sure people can find the books they want. The entire reason why "visibility" is a problem is because too many people want to game the system for more visibility. So you have people stuffing "romance" into titles that are not romances, hoping to get visibility with romance readers. And you have people keyword stuffing a dozen genres into their titles because Amazon restricts you to two genres (which was not the case when they started, but because people abused THAT they restricted it to two). The problem is that too many people are too busy trying to push in front of everyone else to get theri book in front of as many people as possible INSTEAD of making the effort to get their books in front of people that are actually looking for it.

Too many authors are completely dependent on Amazon giving them visibility and can't sell books unless Amazon's algorithms sprinkle magic fairy dust on them. Instead of expecting Amazon to 'give' us visibility, we need to take the initiative and do the legwork of finding out customers.

Look, I've never been an "Amazon bestseller," so feel free to ignore everything I say. Amazon isn't even my primary sales outlet for ebooks. I publish spec fiction that leans on the literary side. I'm not publishing in hot genres. But I make consistent money every month. My authors get paid on time every month. My contractors get paid on time every month. I recover all of my expenses on every project within 90 days. And I'm able to do that because I go where my customers are, instead of crossing my fingers and praying Amazon's algorithms give me "visibility." Almost every problem with Amazon currently can be traced back to authors who feel entitled to "visibility" and manipulate the system for their own ends. And in the end, it just makes everyone's life more difficult.


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## Scila (Apr 13, 2014)

Monique said:


> There is no *need* for keyword stuffing now. There will always be those who want to cheat and will find ways to do so.


Clearly *there is* a need otherwise this wouldn't be happening. If that need is justifiable, that's up to each person to evaluate, I guess. Cheating isn't an isolated, mysterious occurrence, it doesn't happen in a vacuum and it will always have a reason and it needs a window of opportunity to happen. A good system will understand the reasons so it can close the right windows.



> I'm all for more ways to be discovered, but I'm not sure tags will really help, even if they were self-selected. They would just be another keyword then. *shrug*


A tag system similar to tag clouds in blogs or AO3 or fanfiction.net (or even stockphotos websites!) doesn't function like Amazon keywords at all. It really, really doesn't. First: is visible to consumers and clickable. This is a MAJOR difference. Currently, only titles get that kind of visibility--which is why they are getting stuffed. Category browsing is counter-intuitive and not as specific. Typing a keyword in the search bar is limited to the reader's imagination, showing a tag cloud opens possibilities for them. Maybe they don't even realize there are Cowboy Romances out there, but there's a tag for it, I might as well click it.

What else? It allows different ordering and re-ordering of search results by elimination or even more specification ON TOP of the regular search bar. Someone searches: "Historical Romance"... And then there's an option for the most popular tags... Let's say "1800s, 1900s" or whatever. You want 1800 (click on it), but you don't want 1900s (click on a X to excluded).

Oh, but can't someone just type "Historical Romance 1800s", sure, but what if they don't know this option exist? What if they are lazy? Faster, visually more appealing search engines work better.



> The blame for keyword stuffing is SOLELY the fault of those who stuff. Cheating is not excused because you want Amazon to show your book more.


Eh, I don't know, if the kids fight in a kindergarten and they disrupt the whole class do you blame the kids or the teacher? Sure the kids shouldn't be doing it, but it's on the teacher to control them. If the system supports easy cheating, the blame is on Amazon in my book. Their search engine is crap.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> And herein is the problem. Amazon's job is NOT to give you as a publisher visibility. Amazon's job is to help me as a consumer find what I am looking for.


I see this argument a lot, but really, improving the search engine to show relevant results doesn't just help "those entitled" authors. It helps the consumer too. Amazon doesn't owe authors visibility, of course not. I didn't say that. I don't think that. But the fact is: what's happening with titles _hurts consumers_ which in turn hurts Amazon. AND it hurts authors. They are all connected. And to fix it, you need to address what's happening with the authors, you need to understand why people are gaming the system and how it can be stopped. Reporting abuse or banning them is trying to punch a tsunami. It's not going to solve anything.

Am I saying that there's one solution that will stop this forever? Of course not, people will try to scam things, they are creative, and like I said it's arm's race, BUT, the fact that Amazon is so easily scammed right now just signals to me that their system is broken top to bottom. It's utter crap. This not acceptable for me as a consumer, who happens to be an author.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I don't know. I see a lot of rationalizing here. Somehow, it's okay to cheat because it helps me if I do. Of course it does. That's why people lie, cheat and steal in all areas. It's still wrong.

Also, obviously, authors who publish are not children. They're adults and should abide by the contracts they agree to. Anything else is madness.

If cheating is easy, it's okay? Seriously?

Anyway ... We clearly do not see eye to ethical eye here.

If some sort of tag/cloud system would help readers find what they're looking for, I'm all for it, and I'm sure Amazon would be, too. They are already making in-roads in these areas with browse and refining that. Allowing people to add their own tags for this could get out of control v quickly.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Letting those authors stuff tags is not going to help us readers. Those authors will still do the same. And again, we had tags. For me as a reader they became useless when authors started mass tagging any and all kinds of terms and words that really had nothing to do with their books. Tagging something romance that wasn't romance for example. So they took them away. Now there is the title stuffing. And again its us readers that get the short end of the stick. 

I just went to my favorite romance subgenre to see what came out in the last 30 days and guess what, full of those stuffed titles. So out of curiosity I checked a couple and they are suppose to be HR, at least some of the title says that, they are after all in the historical romance category. But when I get to the story, its actually mumbo jumbo written porn where cans of whipped cream are used. Historical romance. It was not a time travel. It was just garbage. Yet, they take up pages and pages up in any of the results. I don't even have to do any search. Its not even about the search. I rarely search. I use the categories. And those things are right there, everywhere. Sometimes they are in sci fi romance, historical romance, paranormal romance, new adult romance, they show up in all of them at the same time. 
There be viking firefighters time travelling BBW loving shape shifters, yet when one actually looks at the text, its just really badly stuffed together text and usually just a short that pretend to be porn. 

Some of those are also found outside of romance, in fantasy, in sci fi, really everywhere. 

Goodreads uses tags in a way. The shelves on there are tags. They are reader created which makes them useful. I am a romance reader, I know a romance when I see one. Most of the title stuffing things in romance are not romance. If you give them tags, they just fill in all the romance tags on their books. So in no way would that be any more helpful to me, the reader and consumer.


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## ToniD (May 3, 2011)

Atunah said:


> I just went to my favorite romance subgenre to see what came out in the last 30 days and guess what, full of those stuffed titles.


Oh yeah...I keep tabs on the top 100 women's adventure list (sometimes a promo bumps my books onto the list).

Literature and fiction > action and adventure > women's adventure

Right now, the #2 title is:
_Twin Wolf Trouble: BBW Werewolf Navy SEAL Forbidden Pregnancy Menage Romance (Shifter Squad Six)_

Lots more like that on the list.

Um, yeah. I suppose you say that is some sort of adventure


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

EF5 said:


> And to those who would say, 'Amazon would never cut off self-pubbers because of the size of the revenue they bring in', well, who's to say they wouldn't cut them off by defining the cut line as anyone who makes under 'x' $$$ per month? Thus establishing a big tent with a bouncer placed at the door.


Never mind the whole "The sky is falling" rhetoric, throwing out any author who didn't make X amount per month would likely hurt honest authors with small readerships a lot more than blatant keyword stuffers, who often also happen to be good at SEO and exploiting Amazon's algorithms.


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## JessieVerona (May 10, 2013)

Let's just get rid of all those danged books at Amazon -- that'll solve most of these problems...


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## Scottish Lass (Oct 10, 2013)

Scila said:


> Someone searches: "Historical Romance"... And then there's an option for the most popular tags... Let's say "1800s, 1900s" or whatever. You want 1800 (click on it), but you don't want 1900s (click on a X to excluded).


The problem is, those Warrior Forum guys will tag their books with 1800s *AND* 1900s. And if they can't do it themselves, they'll pay someone on Fiverr to do it for them.



ToniD said:


> Oh yeah...I keep tabs on the top 100 women's adventure list ... Right now, the #2 title is:
> _Twin Wolf Trouble: BBW Werewolf Navy SEAL Forbidden Pregnancy Menage Romance (Shifter Squad Six)_


This is a perfect example - I mean, what're the chances of a decent story where a Navy SEAL AND his pal are also a werewolves (?!) AND both want to get a BBW pregnant. With a HEA? (And probably all in 100 pages or so!)

And it's not just women's adventure.



Atunah said:


> I just went to my favorite romance subgenre to see what came out in the last 30 days and guess what, full of those stuffed titles. So out of curiosity I checked a couple and they are suppose to be HR, at least some of the title says that, they are after all in the historical romance category. But when I get to the story, its actually mumbo jumbo written porn where cans of whipped cream are used. Historical romance. It was not a time travel. It was just garbage. Yet, they take up pages and pages up in any of the results... Sometimes they are in sci fi romance, historical romance, paranormal romance, new adult romance, they show up in all of them at the same time.
> There be viking firefighters time travelling BBW loving shape shifters, yet when one actually looks at the text, its just really badly stuffed together text and usually just a short that pretend to be porn.
> 
> Some of those are also found outside of romance, in fantasy, in sci fi, really everywhere.


I check out the HR categories regularly too, and I see the same thing. It's getting really difficult to find any decent books to read because of all the keyword stuffing.

The problem is, those 'authors' (probably subcontracting to ghost writers) see Romance as a genre with voracious readers who will help them make their fortune. They don't care about the readers or other authors, just their bottom line.

The only solution I can see is for Amazon to be strict about the title = cover text rule, and to get tough on anyone who has obvious keyword stuffing in their title (even if also on the cover).

And this is only going to happen if *customers* complain, since Amazon are all about the customers.


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## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

I knew there'd be a thread here about this. I just searched Amazon Kindle Store today for "Regency romance" and the first dozen (or more) pages are all keyword-spam titles. I wrote Amazon KDP support immediately, but it seems like this has been going on for some time without much response from Ammy.

Time to fire up some more iBooks promos!


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## Guest (Feb 14, 2016)

The problem will go away when Amazon makes it easy for books to be found.
Amazon makes it hard by often changing the search algos.
So yes, keyword stuffing in titles becomes needed if you want your book to be seen.
Is this going around the TOS?
Absolutely. Authors want their books to be visible.
Here's some comparisons.
There is a federal regulation that bank deposits of $10,000 or more be reported to the feds.
So some folks deposit less than the reporting requirement.
But now banks are reporting to the feds that you deposit, say $8,000, because you are trying to circumvent the law with a smaller deposit.
I was once stopped by the Highway Patrol because I was going 5 mph slower than the speed limit. I was circumventing the speed law. 
Well, yes, because I did not want a speeding ticket. So I got a ticket for driving TOO SLOW
If someone keyword stuffs book titles, it is an effort to make the book visible to as many eyes as possible.
Now if a reader gets really annoyed at all those junk keywords, let him/her move on to another listing.
Just like he/she quickly moves through junk mail until he/she finds mail worth reading.
That's my 4 cents worth (used to be 2 cents before inflation)


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Odd. As a reader, I was able to find stuff in the proper categories. Before. Now with the stuffing, I can't find anything anymore. 
I don't have the time to sift through 100's of pages in a category to find the actual proper categorized stuff and actual books, among the stuffed junk.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

The only keyworded titles I've ever seen Amazon crack down on are those that say things like _limited time offer, free, get it before the price goes up, kindle unlimited_ and such. Descriptive keywords that identify genre, even though they are technically against Amazon's TOS, they don't seem to care about.

Will they? I suspect the day is coming where they enforce their own rules,or try. But it's pretty clear with any glance at a top 100 list that they couldn't care less right now.

Look at any category on Amazon, from lawn equipment to clothing. If they decide to crack down on exact titles in the title line and nothing else descriptive, they've got an impossible job ahead of them.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Shelley K said:


> Descriptive keywords that identify genre, even though they are technically against Amazon's TOS, they don't seem to care about.
> 
> Will they? I suspect the day is coming where they enforce their own rules,or try. But it's pretty clear with any glance at a top 100 list that they couldn't care less right now.
> 
> Look at any category on Amazon, from lawn equipment to clothing. If they decide to crack down on exact titles in the title line and nothing else descriptive, they've got an impossible job ahead of them.


Here's my prediction:

Amazon will eventually treat keywords in the same manner as Google treats keywords. Keywords, in and of themselves, will have minimal ranking value in the future.

Some of you may be familiar with Google's history. In the old days, you could rank ahead of your competitors if your page carried a higher keyword density than their pages.

Some of us gamed that very quickly. Ten percent densities were common, even though the pages' content was nearly unreadable.

Google tweaked its algo. Links became the currency of search visibility - specifically, links with our target keywords as anchor text.

We gamed that too. We hired people in the third-world countries to generate thousands of links on blogs, forums, etc. Those with the greatest number of links were awarded higher search listings.

Google made more tweaks. (It was an arms race.) Link authority became important. A single link from CNN.com would give a larger ranking boost than 100 links from sites with no incoming links (and thus, no authority).

We gamed that too. Back then, crafty search marketers could grab links from CNN, NYT, WSJ and an array of .edu, .gov and .mil sites. Instant authority. WooHoo!

Notice how Google reduced the importance of keywords as a ranking factor. So too will Amazon.

Today, Google uses more than 200 factors to determine where each page in its index should rank for any given query. Keywords are even less important now than they were when link authority became big.

That's how Amazon will eventually treat keywords. That's probably the reason it doesn't (seem to) care about titles with stuffed words. It's far more efficient and effective to deal with that stuff algorithmically than to police and enforce rules on hundreds of thousands of authors.

One day, when a customer searches Amazon for "hard-boiled mystery novel," the top listings will be for books that meet the following criteria:

- X number of reviews
- review rating greater than X.X
- X number of incoming links from non-amazon domains
- links from X number of unique domains / IPs 
- sales page with lower than X% bounce rate
- X purchases by customers who purchased authoritative books in the same genre
- and many more

The point is that Amazon is a search engine and it possesses a mountain of data related to commercial intent. I am 100% confident it will use that data to minimize the impact of keywords on how individual books rank for any given search query.

It'd be crazy not to. After all, keyword usage as a ranking factor is too easy to game.

The above is nothing more than speculation of course. None of us knows anything. That said, if authors are still able to rank on Amazon by keyword-stuffing their titles and descriptions in 2020, I'll eat my Starbucks coffee cup.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Anarchist said:


> That's how Amazon will eventually treat keywords. That's probably the reason it doesn't (seem to) care about titles with stuffed words. It's far more efficient and effective to deal with that stuff algorithmically than to police and enforce rules on hundreds of thousands of authors.
> 
> One day, when a customer searches Amazon for "hard-boiled mystery novel," the top listings will be for books that meet the following criteria:
> 
> ...


It seems like a good solution, but in practice wouldn't they be crippling their search engine and giving customers an unsatisfactory experience by serving up books not really relevant to their search, as well as not giving them exactly what they're looking for? I can't imagine Amazon ever doing that. Google's sandboxing works a little different, and isn't just based on one line of text, or google wouldn't be nearly as effective as it is now.

The internal 7 keywords play a role in searches, as far as I can tell. Nothing on the book's buy page does, however, including the description and the look inside. Nothing from the excerpt, nothing from the reviews, unless things have changed since I tested it. I have never been able to pull up a book based on some unique phrase in description, excerpt or review. The search criteria is mainly the title bars and the internal keywords. After the book is up and selling, other internal factors may and probably do come into play. But don't you agree that to keep the keyworded titles from being effective, Amazon would have to remove the entire title from searches?

I don't see how they can distinguish a book with the title Billionaire Alpha Baby and a book with a title bar that reads Crash Billionaire Alpha Baby, when the title is Crash and the rest is added for search purposes. Not without manual screening, and not and maintain the integrity of their search engine, which, let's face it, is part of the reason they drink every other retailer's milkshake.


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## SVD (Jan 15, 2013)

I think I might change mine. It does look a bit strange.


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

Speaking as someone who just this afternoon ran into a million of these pieces of [email protected], any author who tries this is an automatic NO BUY for me. And, after having wasted some time looking at some of them on the assumption that it might just have been an ignorant newbie, I'm even more disgusted. It's shameful, stupid, unprofessional, corrupt behavior intended to game the system (they went way beyond just stuffing the title, believe me), and it really, really, REALLY p!ssed me off! It was so bad that books that could legitimately have used those search terms--Western historical romance--had fled to other categories entirely, leaving nothing but page after page of garbage for me to wade through.

TOS or not, don't be that stupid unwise.

Okay...now I've vented a little....do you REALLY want to make your potential readers as mad at you as I am at these scum right now? I've found this garbage before, but this stuff had taken over a whole category. A very useful, direct category of a specific type of book I wanted to read. An honest category where I deliberately went looking for new authors to try. Seriously, even extremely successful authors in the genre, authors with multiple Westerns on the top 100 historical romance list, had had to go elsewhere because the entire category is now useless. I went several pages deep and found almost nothing that wasn't trash. Mad doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about it or the so-called authors who perpetrated this fraud.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

I haven't read through the whole thread. I see why people do it and I think there are some practical benefits to doing it, but I personally wouldn't. A title like that screams "Indie novel". IMHO, it looks unprofessional. But depending on the genre, that may not matter so much.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

My Dog's Servant said:


> Mad doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about it or the so-called authors who perpetrated this fraud.


Allow me to join you. It's not a category I read, but my categories are similarly overrun. And, as an author, it makes me furious as well, because these scammers ARE taking more of the pie than they're supposed to be allowed.

Look at this, and tell me that cutting KENPC across the board stopped scammers:










I'm so mad I could spit.

(Edited because I'd included the author name.)


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

My Dog's Servant said:


> Speaking as someone who just this afternoon ran into a million of these pieces of [email protected], any author who tries this is an automatic NO BUY for me. And, after having wasted some time looking at some of them on the assumption that it might just have been an ignorant newbie, I'm even more disgusted. It's shameful, stupid, unprofessional, corrupt behavior intended to game the system (they went way beyond just stuffing the title, believe me), and it really, really, REALLY p!ssed me off! It was so bad that books that could legitimately have used those search terms--Western historical romance--had fled to other categories entirely, leaving nothing but page after page of garbage for me to wade through.
> 
> TOS or not, don't be that stupid unwise.
> 
> Okay...now I've vented a little....do you REALLY want to make your potential readers as mad at you as I am at these scum right now? I've found this garbage before, but this stuff had taken over a whole category. A very useful, direct category of a specific type of book I wanted to read. An honest category where I deliberately went looking for new authors to try. Seriously, even extremely successful authors in the genre, authors with multiple Westerns on the top 100 historical romance list, had had to go elsewhere because the entire category is now useless. I went several pages deep and found almost nothing that wasn't trash. Mad doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about it or the so-called authors who perpetrated this fraud.


Have you blasted Amazon for this? If not, I hope you do.Tell them what you just told us. What you just encountered is exactly what Amazon does NOT want its customers dealing with.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

This keyword stuffed title is #1 in my category (children's horse books):

Books for Kids : The Fairy Princess and The Unicorn Book 2- Children's Books, Kids Books, Bedtime Stories For Kids, Kids Fantasy Book (Bonus Feature for Kids)(Unicorns: Kids Fantasy Books) 

This author has similar books with equally stuffed titles in numerous children's categories -- and as an aside, I need to put on my pedantic hat and point out that a unicorn is not a horse. It's a goat, cloven hooves, horn(s) on head. I would fit nicely into chidren's goat books or farm animals books, and of course in fantasy, just not in horses.

I alerted Amazon weeks ago, but the books are still there.


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

Hoo, LilyWhite! You sure we weren't in the same category?

I didn't read enough of any samples to see that link to the end, which Atunah mentioned before. What I did see a lot of was the same lead-in on the blurbs. Something like "Includes 50 more sizzling stories!" ....including on blurbs that ended with a "sweet, clean romance" line. A number of them also offered "extra books".....on a "book" that was listed as having 178 pages, or 82 pages, or something similar.

While I was wading through all those pages of garbage, I kept thinking of one of Atunah's recent posts when she said she'd pretty much given up on searches and instead relied on other readers, such as those on Goodreads and similar venues. (my apologies, Atunah, if I don't have your attributions quite right--it was the point of your post that stuck with me, not the details). That's not an approach I've generally favored in the past unless I know the person and their tastes well, but there may be no other good options until Amazon's search algos improve.

And now that I've read the whole thread, I have to say, Monique said it first and best: it stinks on ice.

_Edited. PM me if you have any questions. --Betsy/KB Mod_


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

Maggie Dana said:


> Have you blasted Amazon for this? If not, I hope you do.Tell them what you just told us. What you just encountered is exactly what Amazon does NOT want its customers dealing with.


I meant to ask--what's the best contact for this? Customer support? I've never complained before, but I will about this.

Your example is exactly the sort of thing I just ran into. There were even "titles with multiple parenthetical additions. I'd seen it before, but never to such extreme. I'm sorry to hear they're hitting your genre, too (and speaking as someone who read every horse story I could get my hands on when I was growing up, best wishes for your success! I adored writers like you!)


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

My Dog's Servant said:


> Hoo, LilyWhite! You sure we weren't in the same category?


I did indeed find that in the category you mentioned. I'd been seeing links to the back in a LOT of books, just never saw one that straight-up said "Click here so I get paid for all the pages," not till [redacted]. That little minx. Doesn't she have something to quilt or plant or something? _let's not badmouthing quilters, please. -Betsy_



> "Includes 50 more sizzling stories!" ....including on blurbs that ended with a "sweet, clean romance" line.


Or "Victorian Western"! LOL



> And now that I've read the whole thread, I have to say, Monique said it first and best: it stinks on ice.


Yup.


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

I loved those "Victorian Westerns."


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

lilywhite said:


> I certainly can't speak for anyone else, but that kind of thing just doesn't bother me. It's not a whole lot different from "A Novel" or "A Pride & Prejudice Variation"--you're just helping the reader to orient themselves. Smart to put it on your cover and CYA, but honestly I don't think most folks mean that when they're talking about keyword spam. For me, what I'm talking about is titles like: _Romance: Bear Naked: A BBW Bear Shifter Victorian Erotica Motorcycle Club Alpha Billionaire First-Time Taboo Erotic Romance with a Tattooed Hero and Sassy Heroine, Happy Ending, Standalone_ by Lady Angelica and The Amish. You know?


I agree with this.

As a reader, I don't mind a descriptive title like your Pride and Prejudice example. In fact, I prefer them. I think the key is to keep the subtitle to a 3-5 word maximum

But, that second example makes my eyes cross.


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

Anarchist...appreciate the thoughtful post. The one thing that struck me, though, is it would seem that many of those--quite sensible!--rules would seem to make it even harder for new or struggling authors to get traction. Given your knowledge of the change search rules for Google, what would you think writers would have to do to get the algos' attention? 

Also....how did you computer savvy types know what Google was focusing on at any given stage so you could figure out how to adjust (or game)?  Amazon to date hasn't been very forthcoming with specifics.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

My Dog's Servant said:


> I meant to ask--what's the best contact for this? Customer support? I've never complained before, but I will about this.
> 
> Your example is exactly the sort of thing I just ran into. There were even "titles with multiple parenthetical additions. I'd seen it before, but never to such extreme. I'm sorry to hear they're hitting your genre, too (and speaking as someone who read every horse story I could get my hands on when I was growing up, best wishes for your success! I adored writers like you!)


At the very foot of a book's product page is this (just above the last Amazon bumf). It says

Feedback 
If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
Would you like to report poor quality or formatting in this book? Click here
Would you like to report this content as inappropriate? Click here
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? Click here

I usually click on items 2 or 3, find the most appropriate drop down window, then tell Amazon the problem. Lay it on thick, and do it for as many as you can stomach. Maybe get others to add their complaints, too, about the same books. Be even better if those who conplain are readers, not writers.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Well, this is the Amazon that Amazon created.

Have you guys seen the latest? Google-translated versions of these short stories thrown into the bundles in order to bulk up the pages. So far I've seen Spanish and Dutch versions, and they're never mentioned, just tacked on randomly. It's all very strange. And I thought the "Before you start reading this book, click here, I have a very important message for you" nonsense was bad.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

My Dog's Servant said:


> Anarchist...appreciate the thoughtful post. The one thing that struck me, though, is it would seem that many of those--quite sensible!--rules would seem to make it even harder for new or struggling authors to get traction. Given your knowledge of the change search rules for Google, what would you think writers would have to do to get the algos' attention?


With time, it will become increasingly difficult to manipulate Amazon's algo. Authors' efforts toward that end will have an ever-diminishing influence over it.

From Amazon's perspective, that's a good thing.

Put yourself in Amazon's shoes. Your algo must deliver search results that do the following:

1. Instill trust in users. In the same way people have been trained to expect useful results from Google for any given search query, customers must be trained to think of Amazon's search functionality as useful.

2. Optimize the user's experience. If a user visits a book's sales page and subsequently clicks his browser's back button, that signals his discontent. As Amazon, you want to minimize user discontent. So your algo would suppress listings for books that have a bounce rate that exceeds a given percentage.

3. Maximize long-term sales. This outcome stems from trust and user experience. As Amazon, you must maintain tight control over which books appear when a user conducts a search. Or you must minimize authors' influence. Keyword usage would be the first item to receive your attention because it's one of the easiest to game.



My Dog's Servant said:


> Also....how did you computer savvy types know what Google was focusing on at any given stage so you could figure out how to adjust (or game)?


We (search marketers) had mountains of data to examine. Additionally, Google wasn't doing rolling updates to its algo back then. It would do a major update once every couple years, and later once every few months. That made it much easier to test.

Imagine having 100,000 books in your backlist. Now imagine having software that pulled each book's ranking for a series of relevant queries. Now imagine having software that did the same for every other author's books. Now imagine that your software tracked changes in real-time and highlighted areas to adjust based on those changes.

As I mentioned, it was an arms race. I had so many software programs on my machines that I couldn't remember which programmers I had hired in which countries to design them.



My Dog's Servant said:


> Amazon to date hasn't been very forthcoming with specifics.


It's in Amazon's best interest to keep its ranking factors under wraps. The moment it discloses how to rank, its algo will be gamed.

You can already see it happening with keywords.

On a related note, I suspect a similar effect will happen with purchased ads. If you're Amazon, you do NOT want people juicing their ranks, visibility and sales with external tools - think BookBub. You do NOT want authors to manipulate your ranking algo (not just search algo). Again, you want to maintain control.

I see a day when traffic from known promo entities will count less toward rank, visibility and sales. Meanwhile, Amazon will get its act together with AMS. In other words, it will start reducing the influence of sites like ENT, Robin Reads and BookBub, thereby making its own advertising platform more attractive.

Again, just speculation. But if I ran Amazon, that's how I'd do it.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

My Dog's Servant said:


> Hoo, LilyWhite! You sure we weren't in the same category? _Edited. PM me if you have any questions. --Betsy/KB Mod_
> 
> I didn't read enough of any samples to see that link to the end, which Atunah mentioned before. What I did see a lot of was the same lead-in on the blurbs. Something like "Includes 50 more sizzling stories!" ....including on blurbs that ended with a "sweet, clean romance" line. A number of them also offered "extra books".....on a "book" that was listed as having 178 pages, or 82 pages, or something similar.
> 
> ...


You got it. That is exactly what I have had to do. I had to go elsewhere to find my books. And let me just say yes to your whole rant post earlier, its exactly how I feel also.

On Goodreads, I mostly follow people that read and like stuff I read and like. So when I look at a book page, I see all their reviews and rating first and often don't even go further down beyond that.

The problem though with all this scamming is that I have a KU subscription. I want to find KU books to read also. I want to find romance books to read, historical romance. Its pretty much impossible to find them browsing at this point. One thing I really love are back list titles, there are so many in historical romance. I used to love to browse by publication date in the sub categories to find those. Sometimes these authors would also put them in KU. I would look for both possibilities. Now I can't. I cannot find them anymore, I cannot stomach to browse 100's and 100's of pages of listings just to maybe find something. Its taken the joy out of it.

What have I done? I have a large KU wishlist and am reading more other genres under KU, mystery and the such. To read historical romance, I just stick with the known greats, with new ones published. And those are unfortunately mostly going to be big publisher. I read release blogs, forums. So at this point unless another reader recommends something to me, I won't go looking for it anymore. I have had it. 
They ruined my beloved genre and nobody seems to care anymore. 

I have reported books in the past. I can't sit for days reporting 1000's and 1000's of listings. I did write to the feedback email to amazon. I can't recall now exactly how it was spelled, something feedback at amazon or some such thing. I saw it posted here somewhere. I am just tired of it all. Bypassing the kindle store mostly and just reading what I already have or going to the wishlists and goodreads.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Weeellll, while it may make some people angry that authors do this, if the top book titles are showing the similar format for their titling, it must be working. Right? I mean, they _are_ in the top slots.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Stuffed titles look tacky. Too many keywords make a title incomprehensible.

But I do see the merit in describing the niche or trope in the subtitle, especially if there is no appropriate subgenre ln Amazon. My rock star romances have "A Rock Star Romance" as the subtitle. At first, I was opposed to the idea, but I've come around a bit. A lot of readers don't look at blurbs so it can be good to be explicit about what you are offering with stuff like A Friends to Lovers Romance or An Alpha Billionaire Romance or whatnot.


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## bang on the drum (Nov 2, 2015)

Lady Vine said:


> Have you guys seen the latest? Google-translated versions of these short stories thrown into the bundles in order to bulk up the pages. So far I've seen Spanish and Dutch versions, and they're never mentioned, just tacked on randomly. It's all very strange. And I thought the "Before you start reading this book, click here, I have a very important message for you" nonsense was bad.


Amazon saw this coming when they brought out KU2. I remember a rather incongruous line in their KU2 announcement that said something like "we appreciate your efforts to market your books to international audiences, but don't game the system."


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Crystal_ said:


> Stuffed titles look tacky. Too many keywords make a title incomprehensible.
> 
> But I do see the merit in describing the niche or trope in the subtitle, especially if there is no appropriate subgenre ln Amazon. My rock star romances have "A Rock Star Romance" as the subtitle. At first, I was opposed to the idea, but I've come around a bit. A lot of readers don't look at blurbs so it can be good to be explicit about what you are offering with stuff like A Friends to Lovers Romance or An Alpha Billionaire Romance or whatnot.


I put a simple descriptor like that in the title for some of my books, too. Almost every top-selling book in one of my genres does it. Stand over here with us degenerates.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Crystal_ said:


> Stuffed titles look tacky. Too many keywords make a title incomprehensible.
> 
> But I do see the merit in describing the niche or trope in the subtitle, especially if there is no appropriate subgenre ln Amazon. My rock star romances have "A Rock Star Romance" as the subtitle. At first, I was opposed to the idea, but I've come around a bit. A lot of readers don't look at blurbs so it can be good to be explicit about what you are offering with stuff like A Friends to Lovers Romance or An Alpha Billionaire Romance or whatnot.


Definitely agree with this. I just wonder if, when Amazon finally brings the hammer down on the stuffers, do those of us (myself included) who do this to help readers identify books they would like get the hammer as well? I'm thinking probably.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

lilywhite said:


> Definitely agree with this. I just wonder if, when Amazon finally brings the hammer down on the stuffers, do those of us (myself included) who do this to help readers identify books they would like get the hammer as well? I'm thinking probably.


It doesn't sound like we're in violation of the TOS, but you never know with Amazon. Sometimes you really do need the clarification. I put out a novella sequel to a book and I needed the A Special Holiday Novella subtitle so people wouldn't think it was another novel.

There's a fine line. For my WIP, I could make the subtitle A New Adult Friends to Lovers My Brother's Best Friend Standalone Rock Star Romance ... That would obviously be to much.


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## Marina Finlayson (May 2, 2014)

Crystal_ said:


> It doesn't sound like we're in violation of the TOS, but you never know with Amazon.


As long as the words of your subtitle are actually on the cover, you're not in violation of the TOS. You can't put anything in the title or subtitle that's not actually on the cover.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Saying a rock star romance, or a regency romance, or a novella in the title, assuming its on the cover as many are, is not really what is being talked about there though. I see those tag lines on covers all the time so why not put it up. A hockey romance, space opera romance, I have seen those. I have seen some bigger publishers do that, some bigger authors and those are always also on the cover. 

I think anyone going to any romance sub category right now, not just best seller, but category, sort by publication and get to todays date and before, you will see clearly what is going on. The genres are being flooded. I see some that have the same word in the title four times. "Historical romance, a romance of the victorian west-shifter cowboy romance-regency romance". Those are the kind of titles we are talking about here. I consider anyone doing that a scammer. If one knows what romance is, one does not use those kind of titles. Period. 

Yes, I have seen victorian and regency and medieval even on the same darn title in romance. Anyone doing that needs to be slapped with a big bavarian sausage.


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## Crystal_ (Aug 13, 2014)

Marina Finlayson said:


> As long as the words of your subtitle are actually on the cover, you're not in violation of the TOS. You can't put anything in the title or subtitle that's not actually on the cover.


At the moment, the subtitle isn't on my cover but that's a pretty easy fix if Amazon gets serious about this.


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

Maggie Dana said:


> At the very foot of a book's product page is this (just above the last Amazon bumf). It says
> 
> Feedback
> If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
> ...


Thanks! It's been a while since I've scrolled that far down on a page!


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## PhilipColgate (Feb 11, 2016)

As a reader, I think it looks terrible and I never buy those books.  When I wrote erotica, I used the technique with great success because your title goes into the search algo along with your by line and keywords (blurb does not).  Currently, I refuse to cheapen my mainstream books this way.


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

stoney said:


> Weeellll, while it may make some people angry that authors do this, if the top book titles are showing the similar format for their titling, it must be working. Right? I mean, they _are_ in the top slots.


But they're not in the top ranks in sales, just in search. That's the problem. Many of the ones at the top of the search have ranks in the millions, yet they're coming up top of the search heap, while books on the top 100 list for the genre aren't showing up unless you wade through pages and pages and PAGES of search dreck...if they're showing up at all. This REALLY hurts new serious writers because if they can't be found, well....


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

Anarchist....thank you again for another thoughtful post. Lots to consider there....though I haven't the analytical smarts to do much with it even if I otherwise could. But it helps to have a better understanding of the thinking and operations behind all this.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

My Dog's Servant said:


> But they're not in the top ranks in sales, just in search. That's the problem. Many of the ones at the top of the search have ranks in the millions, yet they're coming up top of the search heap, while books on the top 100 list for the genre aren't showing up unless you wade through pages and pages and PAGES of search dreck...if they're showing up at all. This REALLY hurts new serious writers because if they can't be found, well....


Yes this. I don't even look at the best sellers anymore in romance. There has been so much miscategorized it doesn't work for me. I also don't really give a hoot about what a bestseller is. I care what I want to read and that it is actually the proper category I am looking for. This hot mess now makes it so I can't browse my publication date, I can't search for anything, I can't search by customer reviews as the scammers stuff those too. So yes, dreck is all I see now.

I feel sorry for any real writer of western historical romance right now that is not with a publisher. May the prairie dog have mercy on you.


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

Crystal_ said:


> But I do see the merit in describing the niche or trope in the subtitle, especially if there is no appropriate subgenre ln Amazon. My rock star romances have "A Rock Star Romance" as the subtitle.


Absolutely. I don't mind them as a reader, either. What I hit yesterday in Western historical romance was a cover that might have just had a name as the title, let's say "Susie". Not one other word beyond the "author's" name. The "title" that came up with the search would show something like: Western Victorian historical romance (wagon trains) (rancher) Susie (mail order bride) sexy.

I'd seen a couple of stupid "titles" like this before, but I had never, ever run into pages and pages and pages of them! I'd never seen all those parentheses, either! It took me a while to wrap my mind around the whole concept. Didn't help at all that closer looks at the "books" themselves revealed they were all scammers (those with the stuffed titles, I mean), and more playing with search terms got me no better results.

It had been a long time since I'd read an historical western, so I was really out of the loop on who was writing those kinds of books. But I suddenly had a hankerin' for a few and went looking....only to discover that it's now impossible to find them on Amazon using any reasonable keyword search. Hurts to think there might be a lot of wonderful authors out there I'll miss entirely unless I use other methods to find them.

It hurts Amazon, too. I was ready to buy a few books, but instead of spending money, I ended up wasting time wading through the dreck and the unusable searches.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

> Absolutely. I don't mind them as a reader, either. What I hit yesterday in Western historical romance was a cover that might have just had a name as the title, let's say "Susie". Not one other word beyond the "author's" name. The "title" that came up with the search would show something like: Western Victorian historical romance (wagon trains) (rancher) Susie (mail order bride) sexy.


There's a lot of that. But I'll just bet you that the people (writers, almost exclusively) who get a charge out of hitting that "report" link turn in books that say "A Bad Boy Navy Seal Romance" right along with the titles laced with 20 keywords. I know it. Because writers.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

My Dog's Servant said:


> But they're not in the top ranks in sales, just in search. That's the problem. Many of the ones at the top of the search have ranks in the millions, yet they're coming up top of the search heap, while books on the top 100 list for the genre aren't showing up unless you wade through pages and pages and PAGES of search dreck...if they're showing up at all. This REALLY hurts new serious writers because if they can't be found, well....


This exactly. I checked on a few of the scammer books and they come up first in search but they are not selling. So Amazon's search algo is broke.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Sela said:


> This exactly. I checked on a few of the scammer books and they come up first in search but they are not selling. So Amazon's search algo is broke.


I've heard from many readers that they are going back to recommendations from other readers and are now disregarding searches.

I think the new reader behavior is from many things, but mostly due to various scam tactics from the scammers.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Oh! Okay. So we're calling people who are writing books but are doing sketchy things with their titles scammers. They're otherwise still writing books that are being read, regardless of how choked their titles are with keywords, scammers.

_scammers_. Got it.

It's clear that I'm not seeing this distinction between titles that y'all are nitpicking over.


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## crebel (Jan 15, 2009)

stoney said:


> Oh! Okay. So we're calling people who are writing books but are doing sketchy things with their titles scammers. They're otherwise still writing books that are being read, regardless of how choked their titles are with keywords, scammers.
> 
> _scammers_. Got it.
> 
> It's clear that I'm not seeing this distinction between titles that y'all are nitpicking over.


Yes, scammers. They are manipulating the Amazon search algorithms making them worthless. I don't hesitate to use the word scammer to apply. Probably much more polite than what I would rather call them.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

crebel said:


> Yes, scammers. They are manipulating the Amazon search algorithms making them worthless. I don't hesitate to use the word scammer to apply. Probably much more polite than what I would rather call them.


LOL Okay. I guess I just get upset about different things that mean something to me and this isn't one of them. From the tone of the thread so far, that makes me morally bankrupt or something for supporting this affront to God because I'm not going to condemn anyone that does it.

I do have to ask, though, would be titling a book _Hill To Die On: A Bad Boy SciFi Military Romance_ be a bad thing, right? Because it's 'gaming' the system by putting bad boy, scifi, military, romance keywords in the title? Is that what has everyone so up in arms?


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

stoney said:


> Oh! Okay. So we're calling people who are writing books but are doing sketchy things with their titles scammers. They're otherwise still writing books that are being read, regardless of how choked their titles are with keywords, scammers.
> 
> _scammers_. Got it.
> 
> It's clear that I'm not seeing this distinction between titles that y'all are nitpicking over.


Yes, I am.

The chances of getting one of those books and there actually being a real- as described in their blurb- book inside are somewhat rare.

Almost everyone who participates in these tactics are not using only one "sketchy" tactic or did you not read this thread through?

There are hoards of books with stuffed keyword titles that have 300 pages of fluff and a link that goes to page 301 so they get paid for those unread pages.

Probably from the same people who edited only the first 10% of their book, when borrows were paid if the reader got past 10%.

Quacks like a duck, it's a duck.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Charmaine said:


> Almost everyone who participates in these tactics are not using only one "sketchy" tactic or did you not read this thread through?


I read it and I'm trying to really understand where that line is that has people going from 'that's okay to do it that way' to 'OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU POS SCAMMER' that I'm seeing.

Which...I'm seeing a lot of here right now. Because if there's one thing I've noticed on kboards is that when some people here get their feathers in a dither, they start painting with very wide brush strokes. I'm trying to understand the detailed nuances.

Apparently there aren't any or I'm just too stupid to understand it.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

stoney said:


> I read it and I'm trying to really understand where that line is that has people going from 'that's okay to do it that way' to 'OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU POS SCAMMER' that I'm seeing.


I can only answer for myself, but for me that line is somewhere between "[TITLE]: A Bad Boy Romance" and "ROMANCE: [TITLE] (Victorian Futuristic Police Procedural Regency Western Post-Apocalyptic)(Knocked up by the Bad Boy's Ghost at the Motorcycle Club) (Episode 1 of 600)" ... and, like pornography, you know it when you see it.

It's disingenuous to the extreme to pretend that we're being big babies for complaining about keyword stuffing in titles, in direct violation of the TOS, when it breaks actual customers' ability to effectively search for books they want to read.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

lilywhite said:


> It's disingenuous to the extreme to pretend that we're being big babies for complaining about keyword stuffing in titles, in direct violation of the TOS, when it breaks actual customers' ability to effectively search for books they want to read.


I've seen far worse over far less on this board. I think some of the reactions to this one thing, considering all the other things wrong and broken on Amazon, were way over the top, yes.

But that's okay. Carry on.


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

stoney said:


> Oh! Okay. So we're calling people who are writing books but are doing sketchy things with their titles scammers. They're otherwise still writing books that are being read, regardless of how choked their titles are with keywords, scammers.
> 
> _scammers_. Got it.
> 
> It's clear that I'm not seeing this distinction between titles that y'all are nitpicking over.


Yes, they're scammers. They're NOT writing books. Go look at some of them. Seriously. They're not an honest book written by an honest writer who is desperate to get attention. It's someone who wants to grab money and offer nothing legitimate in return. Don't mock us. Go look for yourself. Use the search I did, "Western historical romance," and tell me that all those books are legit. Some are. I'm not saying they're not. But a LOT are not. Even if you've never touched a romance in your life, you can tell they're not legit.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

lilywhite said:


> "ROMANCE: [TITLE] (Victorian Futuristic Police Procedural Regency Western Post-Apocalyptic)(Knocked up by the Bad Boy's Ghost at the Motorcycle Club) (Episode 1 of 600)"


Oh, those are annoying, the ones that state the genre in front. ROMANCE: would be a lot easier to crack down on than the keywords that come after the title, so I suspect that'll be their first crackdown, if they care at all.

Still, scammer's a strong word I wouldn't use for them, unless the book's stolen, they have a link in the front to click to the back, etc. They're just using the tools at their disposal, whether I agree with their use or not. If they're actual scammers, the book's still not going to sell no matter how much it comes up in a search.


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

stoney said:


> I do have to ask, though, would be titling a book _Hill To Die On: A Bad Boy SciFi Military Romance_ be a bad thing, right? Because it's 'gaming' the system by putting bad boy, scifi, military, romance keywords in the title? Is that what has everyone so up in arms?


It's not a great title, but that's not what we're talking about. And if you have a real BOOK behind that title--you know, a story with characters and a plot and writing and all that fancy stuff, even if it could stand improvement--then we're not talking about that, either. Like I said, go check it out, then come back and tell us if you'd like to have that sort of stuff wind up on the first twenty pages of a search in the category you DO write in. Especially if you're actually selling and they're not.

The sad thing is, I'm not writing in that particular category. I just wanted to find some new authors who were writing in it because I felt like reading a book of that type. But I was so overwhelmed by the garbage that I gave up. This harmed me as a reader, it harmed the writers who wrote books in that category, and it harmed Amazon because I didn't spend money that I'd fully intended to spend on new authors.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Sorry, but scammer is exactly what those are. I will call them what they are. I have had it up to here with those scammers. Lets call stuff what it is.


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## new_writer (Feb 2, 2016)

People do this all the time. I think Nick Stephenson or someone made it fashionable for non-romance writers to do it too. Now everyone's book titles has "A Investigator Series of Police Procedure Action Adventure Killer Book Bestseller Blah Blah Blah" in their title. Even though I write in the genre, I don't mind at all, mostly because I outsell all of them by a HUGE margin and I don't use this tactic. Never had to, never will even when I stop selling. It smells too much like desperation to me and given how poorly the books are doing, I don't know why they keep doing it because it really doesn't seem to work.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

My Dog's Servant said:


> It's not a great title, but that's not what we're talking about. And if you have a real BOOK behind that title--you know, a story with characters and a plot and writing and all that fancy stuff, even if it could stand improvement--then we're not talking about that, either. Like I said, go check it out, then come back and tell us if you'd like to have that sort of stuff wind up on the first twenty pages of a search in the category you DO write in.


There are a lot of titles like that in the categories I write in.



> Especially if you're actually selling and they're not.


That's the situation. I'm selling, they're mostly not. So I don't much worry about it. Why would that make me worry more? My time is much better spent focused on my business than theirs.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

stoney said:


> Oh! Okay. So we're calling people who are writing books but are doing sketchy things with their titles scammers. They're otherwise still writing books that are being read, regardless of how choked their titles are with keywords, scammers.
> 
> _scammers_. Got it.
> 
> It's clear that I'm not seeing this distinction between titles that y'all are nitpicking over.


I don't usually care about these scams. Frankly, I understand there will always be sociopaths who scam every system they find to make money illegally or unethically.

That's the human species for you. Always a few who F it up for the rest of us.

So, usually, I would just shrug and walk on by. However, the keyword stuffing alone means that the stuffed book goes to the front of the search list but clearly, people are not buying the book, if you consider the rank. Meanwhile, books that are actually bestsellers are not showing up at the top of the list -- books with legitimate titles.

Second, this keyword stuffing is often coupled with things like stuffing extra books in with the book in question, which in and of itself is not necessarily a _bad_ thing, I mean it's free right? But they are books by other authors /pen names and are not actually requested by the reader nor does the reader KNOW they are getting all these dozens and dozens of books -- one scammer included 71 extra books in with the titled book.

On top of that, there are in a few of the scammer books I've seen Spanish and Norwegian / Icelandic translations of the unexpected stuffed books -- clearly padding the page count.

Plus, there are links at the front that ask the reader to click them to get to some kind of special bonus, which takes the reader to the back of the book, thus triggering a massive page read in KU -- pages that are being paid for out of the KU pool, which were not and likely won't be read.

That may not seem like a scam to some, but it takes payout money from authors who actually have books with real titles and real content.

Amazon has created a system that is intended to sell products to customers -- products that customers are most likely going to want to buy. It has designed a system of algorithms and a search engine that -- usually -- does this very well and is responsible for many an indie author earning a living off their book sales.

KU has built in incentives for scammers and they have found all the cracks, as they always do. It has to be cleaned up. It's not fair or good business when scammers profit at the expense of authors.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

My Dog's Servant said:


> It's not a great title, but that's not what we're talking about. And if you have a real BOOK behind that title--you know, a story with characters and a plot and writing and all that fancy stuff, even if it could stand improvement--then we're not talking about that, either. Like I said, go check it out, then come back and tell us if you'd like to have that sort of stuff wind up on the first twenty pages of a search in the category you DO write in. Especially if you're actually selling and they're not.


Thank you for that. Because, see, I guess I'm not seeing them because I don't search. Search has been broken long before this issue ever came up which is why I'm so flummoxed by the aggressively hostile reactions.

Instead I go to the 'top' lists and skim.

I gave up on trying to search but not because of _this_ issue but because of how using keywords sometimes ends up with books in inappropriate categories which I'm not convinced is solely a writer trying to scam the readers (which has also been used on this forum and is the reason behind my looking askance at the shouts of scammer in this case).



My Dog's Servant said:


> The sad thing is, I'm not writing in that particular category. I just wanted to find some new authors who were writing in it because I felt like reading a book of that type. But I was so overwhelmed by the garbage that I gave up. This harmed me as a reader, it harmed the writers who wrote books in that category, and it harmed Amazon because I didn't spend money that I'd fully intended to spend on new authors.


I get that, I really do.

It's just that the broken Amazon system is nothing new so why people are acting like it is, and that this is the thing that is breaking Amazon's search, has me somewhat taken aback.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Shelley K said:


> Still, scammer's a strong word I wouldn't use for them,


Yeah, I just call those ones "keyword stuffers." But when I open up the book and it's got the link to go straight to the back.... well. I start name-calling. It's true.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

lilywhite said:


> Yeah, I just call those ones "keyword stuffers." But when I open up the book and it's got the link to go straight to the back.... well. I start name-calling. It's true.


Agreed.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

lilywhite said:


> Yeah, I just call those ones "keyword stuffers." But when I open up the book and it's got the link to go straight to the back.... well. I start name-calling. It's true.


See, and _now_ I'm starting to see a conflation of several issues here. It's not JUST the title keyword stuffers, it's the keyword stuffers WHO ALSO pack a boatload of books into one file, WHO ALSO put links that send you to the back first to get the page count, WHO ALSO....

But that's not how this whole conversation started and there were howls for blood long before the conversation devolved into this mixture of issues.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

lilywhite said:


> Yeah, I just call those ones "keyword stuffers." But when I open up the book and it's got the link to go straight to the back.... well. I start name-calling. It's true.


Keyword stuffers may be completely innocent -- they may have read advice that suggested they keyword stuff to get added visibility. They may not know it's against the TOS to stuff keywords in their titles. I understand the desire to find a way to get visible. However, if their book is not good, the stuffing won't do much. Readers will take a look at the content and then pass on by. So, really, while keywords are important, content and storytelling chops are the real key.

Those who can't, cheat.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

lilywhite said:


> Yeah, I just call those ones "keyword stuffers." But when I open up the book and it's got the link to go straight to the back.... well. I start name-calling. It's true.


I seem to remember reading a while back when KU 2 first came out that Amazon had some way of knowing if a reader skipped from the front of a book to the back without actually reading (i.e., staying on a page long enough to have read it). If they do have this capability, the scammers who put links to the end of a book at the start are wasting their time.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Maggie Dana said:


> I seem to remember reading a while back when KU 2 first came out that Amazon had some way of knowing if a reader skipped from the front of a book to the back without actually reading (i.e., staying on a page long enough to have read it). If they do have this capability, the scammers who put links to the end of a book at the start are wasting their time.


I believe that several authors have experimented with this on their books in KU that are not selling. Apparently, it does trigger a full read. Sadly.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Sela said:


> I believe that several authors have experimented with this on their books in KU that are not selling. Apparently, it does trigger a full read. Sadly.


You know, an awful lot of people also claim it doesn't. I've come to believe that this is as consistent as KENPC--sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

stoney said:


> But that's not how this whole conversation started and there were howls for blood long before the conversation devolved into this mixture of issues.


That's probably true -- aren't there always? -- but I can only speak for myself. My definition of scammer doesn't extend to the keyword-stuffers, even though I think what they do is detrimental. But other people's MMV.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

Shelley K said:


> You know, an awful lot of people also claim it doesn't. I've come to believe that this is as consistent as KENPC--sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.


Good point. I have absolutely seen ti work, consistently, on more than one book from more than one author, when my FB group tested this. But there's no reason at all to think that it's surefire. Why would it be? LOL


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

stoney said:


> See, and _now_ I'm starting to see a conflation of several issues here. It's not JUST the title keyword stuffers, it's the keyword stuffers WHO ALSO pack a boatload of books into one file, WHO ALSO put links that send you to the back first to get the page count, WHO ALSO....
> 
> But that's not how this whole conversation started and there were howls for blood long before the conversation devolved into this mixture of issues.


No one called for blood. There were no howls. Seems like you're more concerned with the tone than the actual issue. There's a word for that, but I'm not allowed to write it.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Sela said:


> No one called for blood. There were no howls. Seems like you're more concerned with the tone than the actual issue. There's a word for that, but I'm not allowed to write it.


No, no outright calls. I did see subtle calls for reporting and for overtly hostile disdain for something that seemed quite innocent to me on the surface, _before_ the shift of the conversation. So, yeah, you're right. I guess I came across as a [deleted] when I worry that people who may be doing _misguided_ things getting swept up in the witch hunt to scream scammers at anyone who does something someone else doesn't like. I mean, it's not like this was the first time it's happened here.

I have no idea why I had hoped this community wouldn't devolve into that sort of name calling and this aggressive venting of their venom. I should have known better by now.

I wish you and the others luck.


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

stoney said:


> I gave up on trying to search but not because of _this_ issue but because of how using keywords sometimes ends up with books in inappropriate categories which I'm not convinced is solely a writer trying to scam the readers (which has also been used on this forum and is the reason behind my looking askance at the shouts of scammer in this case).


I understand. I've run into a lot of books that are mis-categorized or use inappropriate keywords. Some categories are more prone to abuse than others. But I could still find _something_, and what I didn't want were at least real books even if the authors botched (deliberately or otherwise) the categories. Regardless, there were still a lot of properly categorized books that came up on every single page. So...the search results were annoying, but not impossible. This latest assault on some of the romance categories is blatant, unrepentant scamming, and this garbage has almost totally consumed most of any search. I went something like 12 pages deep in that first innocent search and found almost no honest books among them all.

Out of curiosity, last night I ran some quick searches on a random list of "categories" (big categories like "science fiction" and narrow categories like "historical horror"). Some I read in, some I don't. It was enlightening to see the differences among them--in a couple of the obvious categories, authors had actually titled their books with the category name!--and there were quite a number of legitimate books (whether they were well written or not didn't concern me) with blatantly stuffed titles. Some categories were more prone than others to be hit by books that didn't really fit. But whatever the category, I could still find a preponderance of real books with normal titles in their proper categories.....except for the romance ones I tried. OMG! What an impossible mess!

It is at this point that Amazon's search system has gone from creakily misused to totally unusable, which hurts us all. (Honest writers and readers, that is.)


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

stoney said:


> No, no outright calls. I did see subtle calls for reporting and for overtly hostile disdain for something that seemed quite innocent to me on the surface, _before_ the shift of the conversation. So, yeah, you're right. I guess I came across as a [deleted] when I worry that people who may be doing _misguided_ things getting swept up in the witch hunt to scream scammers at anyone who does something someone else doesn't like. I mean, it's not like this was the first time it's happened here.
> 
> I have no idea why I had hoped this community wouldn't devolve into that sort of name calling and this aggressive venting of their venom. I should have known better by now.
> 
> I wish you and the others luck.


This is our business.

This is our bread and butter.

Those of us who do this for a living -- aka write actual legitimate books rather than scam books -- can see that there are fair and unfair means of competing with each other for visibility. I have nothing against fair competition and ethical business practices.

In my view, keyword stuffing aka ROMANCE: BBW WEREBEAR SHIFTER STEPBROTHER ALPHA BILLIONAIRE Bear With Me (EROTIC ROMANCE SHORT STORY COLLECTION SPY BEACHES FRIENDS TO LOVERS TABOO), and the other scams that violate TOS and ethics, compete using unethical tactics and take money away from legitimate authors with legitimate books in the program.

If I get angry about violations of TOS and ethics, it's because I care about authors being able to make a decent living selling their books. I hate when scammers with crap make a killing and authors with legitimate books don't because of it.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

stoney said:


> I worry that people who may be doing _misguided_ things getting swept up in the witch hunt


What? That kind of thing _never_ happens.



> I have no idea why I had hoped this community wouldn't devolve into that sort of name calling and this aggressive venting of their venom. I should have known better by now.


This thread's actually been pretty mild, comparatively. Did you see the ones where erotica writers were scammers? Those were a lot worse than this one. And I do think most people in this thread are talking about legitimate keyword stuffing, not just simple descriptors, which makes me feel a lot better about it.

Though, in general, I feel you. Lately, if I had my choice between a night in a room full of writers and a prison yard, I'd pick the lock-up. At least there you _expect_ the shiv in your kidney when you turn your back.


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## Mxz (Jan 17, 2015)

The scammers not only clog up the search but new release section as well.  When I released one of my books, the same day a "publisher" with the exaggerated keyword stuffing released about 15 books in the same sub genre category on the same day.  There is no author just the publisher's name on most, some have an author's name by the same publisher.  Maybe few will buy it but it gets in everyone's way.  I know I get tired of trying to search for something after clicking through a few pages that the scammers are occupying.  Amazon should start hiring people to clean up the problem.  I don't think it's that hard to find them.


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

I should step forward to admit that I'm the one who started the rant and conflated keyword-stuffed titles with ipso facto scamming. I'm sure the OP was NOT intending to scam, so I apologize if my rant suggested that was their intent.

That first innocent search in "Western historical fiction" was so recent and such a horrific eye-opener, far beyond anything I'd seen in any previous search (evidently I'm the last reader standing who actually uses searches in an effort to find new authors that have yet to reach the top 100!), that I was definitely on a rampage. Still am, for that matter, but I'm willing to back down on the point that stuffed titles are automatically scams. They aren't. They _are _stupid, annoying, and an instant giveaway of either a totally clueless new writer or someone desperate for visibility and gaming the system, but they aren't automatically, in and of themselves, indications of scams. I apologize for having suggested they are. I _won't _apologize for saying stuffed titles are abusive and just plain wrong. Writers who use them are still gaming the system, even if they're not perpetrating the outright fraud of the scammer. And since stuffed titles are one of the most popular ingredients in the scammers' bag of tricks, any serious author would be well advised NOT to resort to using them!

Now I'll get back to writing books that only use real, unstuffed titles, and, when I post them, will no longer waste much time picking out those keywords for the metadata. I'm not sure what I'll do to find new authors to read in the future, though, because I'm not a Goodreads user and the closest new book store is an hour's airline flight away. Ah, well.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Go to the top 100 historical fiction novels, pick some in your chosen sub-genre, and look through their also-boughts. I never have trouble finding exactly what I'm looking for without much consternation over books that don't belong.


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

Shelley K said:


> Go to the top 100 historical fiction novels, pick some in your chosen sub-genre, and look through their also-boughts. I never have trouble finding exactly what I'm looking for without much consternation over books that don't belong.


I've done that quite frequently in any category I read in, and have found some very good books that way. But also-boughts are still limiting (and still occasionally subject to odd and inappropriate connections).

I guess that means nothing's perfect. Well, humpf!


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

I miss the days when Amazon's search actually worked. I was doing some non-book-related shopping on Amazon yesterday and was getting frustrated at the keyword stuffed titles there, too. As an example, one of the items I was looking for was a pair of wireless headphones and I think it was page three before an actual set of wireless headphones came up! The rest were all wired but obviously had wireless in the keywords. :/

I think Amazon should really start enforcing their rules. Right on the page setup on the KDP dashboard it says that titles and subtitles you input have to be on the cover of the book. So if these gamers or scammers want to keyword stuff their titles/subtitles, then they need to keyword stuff their book covers, too! And it could apply to other items, too. The item title needs to be on the tag or box or whatever. It's just ridiculously time-consuming and frustrating wading through search results that are not relevant to try to find what you want. 

For the headphones, once I got access to some also-boughts, I started shopping that way. Goes to show how important those also-boughts are now the search no longer works. 

Rue


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Shelley K said:


> Go to the top 100 historical fiction novels, pick some in your chosen sub-genre, and look through their also-boughts. I never have trouble finding exactly what I'm looking for without much consternation over books that don't belong.


Hate to belabour this discussion, but it's not so simple to find legitimate books using the search function for the Kindle Store, where most of the scamming can be found. You really have to go to the bestseller's lists to find legitimate bestsellers.

For example, I went to the Kindle Store and typed in "romance historical" the way some unsuspecting KU subscriber might.

Number one book? Scam. Number two book? Scam.

This is what is inside the first few pages of the first book that comes up in that search:



That is clearly intended to trick the customer into clicking on the link, which takes you to the end of the book, thus triggering a full KU read and payout.

That's unfair and unethical. When a scammer gets paid using this kind of scam, it takes money out of the pot and means that every legitimate author makes that much less.

If you search Romance New Adult, this is book two's title:

Romance: Billionaire Romance: Passion, Seduction and Pregnancy! (Secret Baby Romance, Pregnancy Romance) (New Adult Contemporary Romance Short Stories, Billionaire Romance, Alpha Male Romance)

The number three book has this in the first few pages:



Clearly designed to trick the reader into clicking on the link which takes them to the last page, thus triggering the full KU page read and payout.

I searched Science Fiction Romance and got this in the first book:



What is happening is that books with few reads or sales are keyword stuffing their way to the top of the search engine. Maybe they are good stories and will find their audience this way. I suspect not. Books with reviews and sales -- obviously which have serious content -- are way down in the lists and guess what? They don't have stuffed keywords.

Amazing...

It's not consternation over nothing. The search function in the Kindle Store for Romance, at least, is broken.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Sela said:


> Hate to belabour this discussion, but it's not so simple to find legitimate books using the search function for the Kindle Store, where most of the scamming can be found. You really have to go to the bestseller's lists to find legitimate bestsellers.....


That's exactly what I said in the post you quoted.



> Go to the top 100 historical fiction novels, pick some in your chosen sub-genre, and look through their also-boughts. I never have trouble finding exactly what I'm looking for without much consternation over books that don't belong.





> It's not consternation over nothing.


I never said it was. The context, using the top 100 lists, is right there.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

That author is a classic scammer. I wish Amazon would kick them off for good. They won't, but I can hope.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Monique said:


> That author is a classic scammer. I wish Amazon would kick them off for good. They won't, but I can hope.


They least they could do is keep a KDP account found doing that from enrolling anything else in Select. They do have the means to ban an account from Select already in place--we've seen them do it when someone violates the terms.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

I'll voice my frustrations about Amazon's search engine as well. It's gotten really, really bad. Looking for fantasy books to read is a nightmare these days. When what I want is EPIC fantasy, the first couple of pages are billionaire shifter werewolf romance books. Sorry and no offense to anyone here who writes those, but they're not fantasy genre, they're erotica. 

It would be nice if Amazon could do something about this...even if it was giving these particular stories a box to click specifically for shifter romance when they publish. Honestly, it looks unprofessional for Amazon, disorganized. Don't get me wrong, I love the 'Zon but yeah, the search engine these days is like Templeton at the county fair.


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## lilywhite (Sep 25, 2010)

lilywhite said:


> I did indeed find that in the category you mentioned. I'd been seeing links to the back in a LOT of books, just never saw one that straight-up said "Click here so I get paid for all the pages," not till [redacted]. That little minx. Doesn't she have something to quilt or plant or something? _let's not badmouthing quilters, please. -Betsy_
> 
> Or "Victorian Western"! LOL
> 
> Yup.


Haha, Betsy, I love quilters, I'm sorry! I was just cracking wise about her phony author bio.

My Dog's Servant: The book got pulled, and it looks like some others by her as well ... and they're all back up again with new ASINs.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

suzflt said:


> Hi all ... So I'm noticing a lot of genre fiction titles now seem to have titles that read like this:
> 
> Alien Romance: Love and Antennae (Alien Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance) (New Adult and College Women's Fiction Romantic)
> 
> ...


I think it worked brilliantly at one time, and now is just doesn't work as well, seeing as I now stumble across books like that are still languishing with low rankings despite hitting all those trope keywords in the title.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

lilywhite said:


> Definitely agree with this. I just wonder if, when Amazon finally brings the hammer down on the stuffers, do those of us (myself included) who do this to help readers identify books they would like get the hammer as well? I'm thinking probably.


I'm thinking definitely.

I do it. All my key words are engineered to help people looking for books like mine to find my first in series. It is a bit of a genre mash up: humorous sci fi fantasy action adventure (with a dash of clean romance in subsequent books). The idea is that anyone searching for books like mine will find it on the first page of the results. BUT I stick to keywords that are relevant I want the people who are likely to be interested in my book to find it. The point is to find the kind of readers who will love your book, so if you optimise it for any old [crap]e, you'll get the wrong readers. So for me it's about categorising it as accurately as possible so I can reach my future fans (I hope).

My optimised free book is often the lone sff book in search results like 'science fiction comedy' the rest being the dodgy romance books you guys are talking about. The number 1 book in the list for 'teen fantasy action' was an erotica book called 'fisted'. Personally I call that inappropriate. I think less readers are using the search function, I was getting 30 organic downloads a day this time last year, that was £200 in onward sales for the rest of the series. I'm getting 11 on a good day now. I don't use the Amazon search function, myself because I like fantasy books, so I may as well give up looking before I start.

So yes, I'd call myself honest and white hat about this. Originally, last year, you could use words like kindle or free as key words. I heard about kindle and removed it. The first I knew of free was an email telling me to remove the word 'free' from all my book listings in five days or my books would be removed.

It looks, to me, as if Amazon DO care if you do anything to your listing which will allow it to compete on a level playing field with results for ku books in a search and if you do that they will hammer you. If you optimise dodgy content generated 'romance' books so that they are all that appears when someone searches for 'sci fi action' Amazon don't appear to give too much of a stuff - except they clearly are doing something because some days I do get actual fantasy books when I do fantasy related searches, and on other days I get porn.


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## M T McGuire (Dec 6, 2010)

Vintage Mari said:


> I'll voice my frustrations about Amazon's search engine as well. It's gotten really, really bad. Looking for fantasy books to read is a nightmare these days. When what I want is EPIC fantasy, the first couple of pages are billionaire shifter werewolf romance books. Sorry and no offense to anyone here who writes those, but they're not fantasy genre, they're erotica.
> 
> It would be nice if Amazon could do something about this...even if it was giving these particular stories a box to click specifically for shifter romance when they publish. Honestly, it looks unprofessional for Amazon, disorganized. Don't get me wrong, I love the 'Zon but yeah, the search engine these days is like Templeton at the county fair.


This is my exact problem, too, both for optimising my own book and finding stuff to read.


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