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26
Steve Weber
well eventually can be assigned to 12 or more categories, the same
exposure as your book being shelved in a dozen different sections of a
brick-and-mortar bookstore. The big difference is, Amazon is the world’s
largest bookstore.
To see your book’s subcategory assignments on Amazon, find the
section on your book’s detail page headed 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, or removing the book
from inappropriate 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. You can send your message, along with
any other typographical corrections for Amazon, by using this form:
typographical-errors.html
Recommendation effectiveness
Online recommendations are more effective with certain categories
of books and price points, according to a 2006 study, The Dynamics of
Viral Marketing. Researchers at HP Labs and two universities reviewed
millions of book purchases resulting from online recommendations.
Recommendations for medical texts tended to be most effective—
nearly 5.7 percent of them resulted in a purchase, almost double the
average rate. The researchers attributed this to the higher median price
of medical books and technical books in general. A higher book price
increased the chance that recommendations would be consulted and
accepted.
Recommendations were moderately effective for certain religious
categories: 4.3 percent for Christian living and theology, and 4.8 percent
for Bibles. By contrast, books not connected with organized religions had
lower recommendation effectiveness, including New Age (2.5 percent)
and occult (2.2 percent).
Recommendations for fiction books were usually the least effective,
with only about 2 percent resulting in purchases. Recommendations for
nonfiction books dealing with personal and leisure pursuits were slightly
more effective, resulting in purchases about 3 percent of the time.
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