Naughty books that keep switching subgenres...

[Melodie Campbell]

Hi Everyone!  News to share - my publisher has just told me that 'Rowena Through the Wall' has made the Amazon Top 100 list for Time Travel Romance!

This is both thrilling and baffling, as I have been promoting the book as comic suspense??

Guess I should re-examine my promotion asap.  Anyone else find the subgenre game difficult to crack?

Melodie (feeling somewhat bewildered)

 

 

[Pepper Smith]

You might check to see how the book is tagged, and how it's 'shelved' by Amazon itself.  Sometimes the way they have it categorized has absolutely nothing to do with what your book is.  Case in point, they have the Kindle version of one of my mystery/suspense novels categorized as gay/lesbian fiction, which it definitely is not.  I've also had people tagging them as romance, which they really aren't.

 

Sometimes it's not what you're doing, it's how other people chose to see it.  Or the weird mistakes they make...

[Melodie Campbell]

Yes, Pepper, I think that is what happened.  I can't pretend to be unhappy about it, because it produced a result,  but it does worry me a bit because the novel is not strictly time travel...it is travel to an alternate world where histories mingle.  I hope readers don't become disappointed when the tag isn't exactly correct.

 

I am smiling about your runaway tags, though!  Wonder if you have garnered additional readership because of it?  Melodie

[Pepper Smith]

I suspect there were some sales due to the miscategorization, but I can't help but think the buyers were probably disappointed, because it wasn't what they thought they were getting.

[Mary McFarland]

Melodie, Rowena sounds like a paranormal to me.  You tagged it as comic suspense.  Gack!  Now, I'm really confused. 

[Mark Young]

Melodie: Sometimes, others can give us a perspective about our work that we might have missed. It is interesting that others classified your novel in a category that  you never envisioned. 

 

Pepper: Your category predicament had me laughing.  Wow! That must have made you wonder what they were thinking. Or were they mess'n with you. After reading your reply, I quickly went back to my novel on Amazon to make sure no one had slipped in a category that was off track. So far ... no surprises.

[Melodie Campbell]

So true, Mark!  And it tells me that I really should be rethinking my marketing strategy.  So...moving forward to find out more about a market I really don't know much about. 

Just call me Intrepid <smile>  ....but still baffled.  Melodie

[I. J. Parker]

How do you check category?  Do you mean the tags?  Doesn't the publisher provide the tages, or if self-published, the author?

[Mark Young]

As I understand it, I.J,, customers may add their own tags on Amazon based on their perception of your novel's plot. At least, this is what I was writing about in my comments.

[Mary McFarland]

That explains a lot, Mark.  Wouldn't it be great to do a sort of dry run?  Put the ms up and get some readers tags before the novel is published?  This is a bit frustrating to think about. 

[Pepper Smith]

It's pretty far down the page.  There's a section, way below where they usually have reviews, where there are a series of square boxes you can check to help refine the search by telling it which things to concentrate on.  It's separate from the tags. (It's in the Look for similar items by Category, Look for similar items by Subject section.)

 

The books are listed correctly in Ingram's catalog, which is where Amazon gets their listing.  I don't know why Amazon listed that one the way it did.  I notified my publisher, who is supposed to be trying to get them to fix it.

[I. J. Parker]

Ah, I see.  Amazon makes mistakes.  I've had problems with their listing of national reviews. It is nearly impossible to get them to fix it. (Which is probably another reason why it's better for me to go with my agency).

[Mary McFarland]

Yep, really, really a tough nut to crack, Melodie.  Congrats, by the way on Rowena through the Wall's crossover.  It will be interesting to see what happens.  Heading to Amazon to check out Rowena right now.