Once you have your comps picked out, it’s time to study them for keywords and any other elements you would like to “borrow.”
The best way to do this is to type in the book descriptions of each of your comps. This loads up your brain with keywords and structures on a subconscious level so you don’t have to think too hard about them and so you learn the feel of what a book description should read like. Trying to consciously identify all of that gets confusing! As with all things about creating art, the more you load up your subconscious with the raw material it needs to make decisions, the more creative your decisions will eventually be and the better you’ll be able to understand when to follow the rules and when to break them.
Regardless of whether you type in the book descriptions or not, you will need to note down all the words or short phrases in the description that are related to genre.
Please note, from here on out, if I say “keyword,” that means “key phrases,” too.
For example, for a sci fi novel, the words “space ship,” “alien,” and “alternate reality” need to be written down. In a mystery, “murder,” “investigation,” “red herring,” and “clue” would be excellent choices.
Don’t just write down the bare minimum of keywords! Write down all possibilities. You may want to skim a couple of the reviews, too. Readers will often identify the cool parts of books that the book description didn’t mention and write their reviews accordingly.
If the book description seems bare of keywords related to genre, it’s probably a bad book description, both in the sense of using keywords to attract computer algorithms, and in the sense of making the right promises to the reader. (They might be in the top 100 for that category because they have a great cover, or are running a promotion, or the author has a solid fan base, etc.) You may want to find another comp to take its place.
When you have listed all the keywords in your comps, look through your keywords. What patterns emerge? Are there any keywords that were used across all or most of the books? Are there that are particularly apt for your story? Put a star on those.
Now that you have all your keywords, you will need to prioritize them.
The most important keyword is the name of your category! Sometimes Amazon will not allow you to assign your book to the category you really want. In that case, assign your book categories to the closest ones that Amazon allows when you are setting up your book, and type the actual category name as one of your keywords.
If it makes sense to add the category name to your book description, you can add it there, too. For example, if you’re trying to get into an epic fantasy, you can add the words “epic” and “fantasy” somewhere in your description (they don’t have to be right next to each other).
Your next most important keywords are the starred keywords from your list. Just make sure they match your genre and your book. If your sci-fi book doesn’t have spaceships, don’t use a spaceship term! But if your book does have spaceships, then use the term wherever it makes sense.
The rest of your keywords should be other keywords from your list. It’s my understanding that Amazon, at least, doesn’t need you to add variations of keywords to your list–their algorithms are more sophisticated than that.
Assemble your final list of good keywords and save them. You should have 7 or so keywords at a minimum, in priority order. When it comes time to publish your book, you can use this list to fill in your keyword terms, adding your top priority keywords first.
But for now, go through your draft description and see if there are any ways to add your keywords to the description. You don’t have to add them all, and you don’t have to add them multiple times. Wherever it makes sense to add keywords, add them.
If you already know a little about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), you may be tempted to follow a bunch of arcane rules with adding keywords to your description. I advise against this. How search engines handle language has changed a lot over the last few years.
The goal of a search engine is to identify what makes customers (that is, readers) happy, and the technology that powers language search had grown by leaps and bounds. What used to work is often now marked as someone trying to scam the system, and devalued.
So focus on writing a book description that makes readers happy. Keywords should help make it clear to the reader that you’re writing what they love. When a reader who loves amateur sleuth books sees a book description with “amateur sleuth” in the description, they gravitate toward that book naturally—aside from anything a search engine might or might not do.
Amazon in particular is one of the big companes involved in artificial intelligence and cloud computing; their algorithms for processing language are very sophisticated. Trust the reader—and trust the big companies to develop algorithms that mimic how a reader finds what they want to read.
Keyword tricks work temporarily. Making the reader happy lasts forever.
Notes:
- Amazon use to have lists of recommended keywords that would help you get into certain categories. It looks like this is no longer the case. You can find the lists by searching for Kindle Keyword + [the name of your genre], but I suspect that Amazon algorithms have improved to the point where they don’t need to see those specific keywords in order to put a book into a certain category.
- If, after you publish, your book isn’t assigned to the category you want, you can always contact a help desk and ask that a category be added. On Amazon, go through Amazon Author Central to do this.
- When filling in your Amazon keywords, you’re allowed to use all the space you can; don’t limit yourself to one keyword per slot. Again, Amazon’s algorithms seem to be handling how they process language better. As of this writing, Kindlepreneur put out an excellent article on the subject.
(Next time, we’re going to start pulling all these elements together into something that looks like a polished book description.)