Increasing your book sales using Amazon's book publicity network

The more your book sells on Amazon, the more frequently it's shown and recommended to more customers. Books that sell well on Amazon appear higher in search results and category lists.

Let's imagine your book How to Grow Organic Strawberries outsells a competing title, Idiot's Guide to Growing Organic Strawberries. When Amazon customers search for the keyword "strawberries," your book will appear on top -- customers will see it first, and notice it before competing books.

More benefits result from your Amazon sales: Your book will move up in category lists, providing another way for potential readers to discover it. For example, your title on organic strawberries would appear in this Amazon subcategory:

Home & Garden > Gardening & Horticulture >
Techniques > Organic

Because your book is on top, readers browsing this subcategory list will find your book faster. It's a bestseller list for your niche. Thirty-five top-level categories (like Arts & Photography; Business & Investing) are each divided into dozens more subcategories on Amazon. Unlike general bestseller lists like USA Today's bestseller list, Amazon's category lists show what people are interested in at the niche level, where passions run deepest.

Amazon's subcategories are discrete enough that, with modest sales, your title can be at or near the top, providing more exposure. In our example, the subcategory of Home & Garden > … Organic, your book could claim one of the top three spots with only two or three sales per week on Amazon.

Once you've bubbled up to the top of your subcategory, it becomes a positive feedback loop. Amazon acts as a huge filter, funneling thousands of readers toward your book.
If your book continues selling for six months or so, Amazon can assign it to more categories, making it even more likely browsers will find you. Books that sell moderately well eventually can be assigned to 10 or 12 categories, the same as if your book were shelved in a dozen sections of a brick-and-mortar bookstore simultaneously.

To see your book’s current subcategories assignments on Amazon, find the section on your book’s product page called "Look for similar items by category." Clicking on those links takes you to a list of the subcategory’s bestsellers.

Sometimes persistent publishers can talk the folks at Amazon into assigning their books to additional categories. Research other books in your niche, and see which categories they’re displayed in. Narrow a list down to 10 categories and send your list, ISBN, and contact information to Amazon. First you’ll need to complete publisher contact information which is for use only by the publisher and author. Find the form here.