Make Your Book Standout by Optimizing Your Amazon Page

It’s not enough to just tell people a bit about yourself. It’s not enough to be interesting. The aim here is to try to be nothing less than fascinatingly compelling. While still being you. - J. Bezos

Some writers like to use a pen-name as a marketing tool on Amazon, putting a keyword related to their books into their name.

Does having more ‘Likes’ affect the Amazon algorithm? Some say yes.

Even if it doesn’t, when customers see a book with a lot of likes, it warms them a little more. So it doesn’t hurt to ask those who have liked your book to go to your page next time they are on Amazon and say so by clicking the ‘like’ button. It only takes a second.

Narrow your audience by choosing the smallest sub- or sub-sub-category that is relevant, so your book has a chance of making its mark

Use your Author Central page to provide more information for your readers: upcoming events, a full listing of your books, pictures and videos, and even excerpts from your blog. - C. Rambo

First and foremost, set up your Amazon Author Central account and claim your book! Claiming your book allows you to update info on your book’s page – —including your book description, author bio, and the editorial reviews section. It will allow you to link all your titles together on your author page (assuming that you have published multiple books), which Amazon might not otherwise intuit. - M. Meehan

By now, every author on the planet knows the importance of having their name everywhere they can put it. Exposure is publicity is “Limelight”. - S. Reichert

Pictures are most important. In our world today, people want to see the writer they are reading, by seeing your picture they can relate visually when they are reading your book and because of that picture when they are finished they just might buy another one of your books, that is, if the first one was good.

If your book has been in a magazine, then mention it. If you were interviewed on the radio and/or TV go ahead mention that.

This free opportunity provides you with even more visibility and credibility, as readers will be able to view your Twitter stream and read excerpts of posts from your blog. Consequently, visitors to your author page will learn more about you and your work, and they may even visit your blog or follow you on Twitter. - D. Lansky

You must have at least 500 words in your book description. Why? Because too little content won’t register well (if at all) with Amazon and Google won’t pick it up, either.

Another note about your primary keyword: it should appear 2 to 5 times for every 100 words in your book description. So, no keyword stuffing, certainly, but using the keywords in a way that will help ping Amazon’s algorithm and also get you some attention in Google, as well. - P. Sansevieri

The best categories are the ones that are slightly obscure if not totally so.

Keep adding to the page, enhancing it. Change up the description and keywords every now and again, fiddle with pricing and swap out categories. As long as you’re doing the right things for your book, the more you play, the more it pays.

Another way to increase pageviews? Stick a “buy it now” button on the page(s) of your website. To play fair, also include links to your favorite indie store and B&N. You can find “Buy Now from Amazon” graphical buttons here. - C. Dore

Include the title of your book in your author bio page. The more pages that could pop up as search results, the higher your stats in the Amazon algorithm.

One of the easiest ways to make your book description more enticing is to use power words. No, not hype. I’m talking about words with a little oomph: words that paint vivid mental pictures. - K. Thackston

I can’t emphasize how important – and often under looked – a good product description is. It’s essentially sales copy, so it should focus on benefits to the customer (not the features), and should be as compelling as possible. - L.P. Wu

Don’t be pushy: Market your books or products as an affiliate on your blogs, groups, fan pages and newsletters in a subtle, pleasant and smart way. You should never write phrases like “buy my book,” rather, you should write “My book ‘ABC’ received 5 stars from a reader. Check out his opinion by clicking on this link.” - J.A. Guerrero Cañongo

As a self-publisher, you have just two categories to play with. It can be a good approach to pick one competitive category that you occasionally qualify for, and one that is a little less competitive and enables you to always hit the Best Seller list. - D. Gaughran

One of the biggest advantages as an Amazon Kindle published Author is your own web page, complete with a URL, on a powerful Amazon website just for you!

You need a separate account, both for the UK and US versions of Amazon; you have to do everything twice, and be aware that the two versions vary slightly. - D. Heilmann

Look at it from the standpoint of a reader; which book would you buy: The one that shows just a boring cover, name of the author, and a very short introduction to the book – or the one which has: a beautiful, appealing cover, an all-embracing editorial review, an interesting authors bio with a portrait, lots of customer reviews, a book trailer or interview video.

Another way you can do it if you’re using WordPress – just create a new post to type out your book description as you want it. Then look for the gray tabs on the far right that say “Visual” and “Text.” If you switch to “Text” – it will show you the HTML version. You can copy+paste that code and use it for your book listing on KDP. - D. Murphy

Don’t include links. Be sure to say as much as possible in only a few sentences.

The “Sales” info tab provides information about how and where your books are selling. You can view BookScan sales data and graphs of your books, but only if you have added them to your Bibliography. - A. von Ness

If you present yourself as an expert in your field, the customer will be more confident that the book they are about to purchase meets their criteria and specific needs.

Creating an author page on international sites gives us a leg up over authors who only bother to update their Amazon.com page. - M. Kennedy

If you or someone you know can write in fluent German, French or Japanese, get your author bio translated and create Author Central accounts in those languages too. Remember, your book will stay in English. You just want your bio showing on other international sites to improve...

Before you cringe at the idea of giving your books away, remember that Amazon counts each download as a new sale – even though you don’t earn any royalties on those free downloads. - L. Masterson

Overall, having a good Amazon Author page is a good selling point for you, something that builds authority, and gives you a bit more outreach. All the successful authors have them, why shouldn’t you? - G. Strandberg