These Amazon Category Hacks Can Boost Your Book Sales - David Gaughran's Blog

 Panzer was searching in his kitty toy box when he found a misplaced post. Flattening it, he discovered it was from David Gaughran's Blog site.

 

He knows what he's talking about.

According to David Gaughran's post, Amazon categories are an integral part of your book marketing plan. It's not only important that you pick the right categories initially, but that you go back periodically and make sure those categories are helping your book's sales. The beginning of the post includes a clickable Table of Contents (TOC) so you can move around in the blog post and read what's most relevant to your current needs.

 

Panzer says, "This should be required reading for every Amazon author."

 

Note: This is a huge post. Bring a thermos of lemonade, a sandwich, a muffin and two chocolate chip cookies (biscuits) for today's learning lesson.

 

To read the post tootle over to Amazon Kindle book categories

Cassandra Dee and Mosaic Book Stuffing - David Gaughran

Panzer was tootling around in the Catosphere when the Panzermobile was buffeted by shouting and gnashing of teeth. Following all the angry noises took our brave kitty pilot to David Gaughran's blog. There with no digging at all he discovered a post about book stuffing.

Why isn't Amazon looking at her books?

According to the post by site owner David Gaughran, book stuffing is alive and thriving on Kindle Unlimited (KU). Book stuffing in case you haven't seen or heard of it is when an author stuffs a bunch of material/books into another book to increase the page count to 2,000 or so pages. Then, the author includes an inducement to get the reader to flip to the last page of the ebook. Both of these are against Amazon's Terms of Service. This is because one of the ways authors in KU are paid is by the number of pages read in the book. These authors' books have so many other books stuffed into them that the authors are robbing Amazon's KU fund and the honest authors who don't book stuff. Apparently, Chance Carter, one of the book stuffers, got caught by Amazon and his account shut down, but there are a myriad of others still working in KU. The Cassandra Dee of the post title is one of them and Mr. Gaughran gives a breakdown of how she does the book stuffing. There are links at the beginning of the post to other information about book stuffing.

Panzer says, "Be sure to read the Comment section too. You'll read how to report these book stuffers."

Note: This is a h-u-m-o-n-g-o-u-s post. Bring a thermos of tea, a dozen chocolate chip cookies (biscuits), and two muffins.

To read the post tootle over to book stuffing

New Year, Old Problem: Innocent Author Rank-Stripped For Third Time - Let's Get Digital

Panzer had intended to make a quick trip today; but, when he hit the Catosphere, the Panzermobile was buffeted by yelling and screaming. Our brave kitty knew he needed to find out what all the hubbub was about. Following the noise took him to the Let's Get Digital site. With no digging required he found a post about Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

This is definitely not good news.

According to the post by site owner David Gaughran, Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) rank-stripping machine is at it again. The post documents the problems indie author Kristi Belcamino has had with KDP beginning in September 2017 when she listed one of her books to free status from paid. KDP immediately rank-stripped her book. This means the book lost its sales ranking, became "invisible" in reader searches and couldn't be linked to by affiliates. After emails back and forth the book was finally re-instated to its former sales position. She again listed the book free in December 2017 and the same rank-stripping occurred. More emails back and forth and the book was again re-instated. She listed the book free in January 2018 with the same result with the rank-stripping. According to the Let's Get Digital post, it appears KDP doesn't have a valid explanation for what's causing the problem. There is a link near the end of the post to get Kristi Belcamino's book for free, if you hurry. (It goes off free in a couple of days, so check the price before you buy it to make sure it's still free.)

Panzer says, "This is exactly why this little kitty has never listed any ebooks free on KDP. Free are on Smashwords and Barnes and Noble."

Note: This is a h-u-m-o-n-g-o-u-s post. Bring two thermoses of tea, a dozen muffins and six cookies (biscuits) and a sleeping bag for a nap in the middle of today's reading selection.

To read the post tootle over to Amazon author

Amazon's Hall of Spinning Knives - David Gaughran

Six days to Halloween.

Panzer's trip into the Catosphere today took him to David Gaughran's blog. With a little digging he discovered a post about Amazon's fraud detection system.

According to David Gaughran's post, Amazon's fraud detection system has been catching some innocent authors. The system is designed to identify authors who use clickfarms/bots to increase the sales numbers of their books. Most of the authors' books mentioned in the post were in free promotions, so the "sales" were free downloads. As a result of the fraud detection system, the authors' books were rank-stripped. The authors were also warned their accounts were eligible for shut down if another infraction was detected. The post describes two possible reasons for the authors' books being flagged.  One is there's a problem with Amazon's fraud detection system itself or the second is the authors may have been targeted by scammers.The authors targeted even included New York Times bestselling authors.

Panzer says, "Umm ... It appears Amazon uses bots to answer authors emails, so you can't even ask what's happening."

Note: This is a v-e-r-y l-o-n-g post. Bring a thermos of tea and a half dozen muffins and three chocolate chip cookies (biscuits) for today's reading selection.

To read the post, tootle over to Amazon

David Gaugham on Author Exploitation

Don't mess with me!

 Panzer found an important post at David Gaughran's Let's Get Digital blog he wants you all to read and re-blog.

Gaughran is posting about Author Solutions and the other scummy vanity presses. He paints a picture of their business and financial practices involving would-be writers. He tells how Author Solutions and their brethren are the users of hopeful naive new writers who are trying to make it into the publishing world. He has links to articles and lawsuits to illustrate his points.

Worst of all, these same vanity presses take advantage of writers and hide behind the screen of the traditional publishers that own them. Yes ... you read that right. Traditional publishers have been diving into the mucky end of the pool and snapping up the vanity presses.

Panzer says, if you want to know who owns who ... and who you need to avoid, tootle over to The Author Exploitation Business.

Selling Ebooks Direct to Your Readers

Panzer and I were out in the catosphere today looking for more marketing help. We stopped in at the Let's Get Digital blog to see if David Gaughran had any ideas.

Turns out David found a new site called Gumroad.  Gumroad allows you to set up your own store and sell direct to your readers. It is free and simple to set up your store there. They will handle all of your sales work for you. How great is that?

This means no Amazon or Smashwords taking a commission from your sales. Gumroad does charge a per sale fee, so it's not free to sell there. There is one disadvantage to using them for your store: they do not accept Paypal.

Panzer says tootle on over to David Gaughran's blog and read Selling Ebooks Direct. See what you think about Gumroad.