Some authors–and even publishers–will dump their novels into any category at all if they think it will benefit them. It’s irrelevant to them how much this messes up that particular category, or the overall effect it has on that category's legitimate readers. If you’re doing that, here’s why you’re only hurting yourself in the long run:
Even if you don’t give a hoot about the ethics surrounding this approach–and it would be better if you did–all you are doing is reaching for some highly questionable, short-term benefits that you probably won't see anyway, at the price of some serious long-term problems.
The Objective
Artificial intelligence is not foolproof. But it tries. We all know about Amazon’s junk software that deletes “fake reviews,” also known as legitimate reviews from strangers, and leaves up, “legitimate reviews,” also known as fake reviews that unscrupulous authors pay people to submit.
When it comes to algorithms, the system is not quite as faulty. Amazon’s recommendation engine stems from relevance. They don't want customers spammed with nonsense recommendations. Even now, eggheads are gathered in a room somewhere, trying to figure out a better way to personalize the recommendations readers get, and gain their trust. It’s essentially like a bricks and mortar bookstore creating a display that always puts your favorite authors and genres right by the door when you walk in. That’s Amazon’s aim as well.
Feeding Bad Data to an Already-Irritable Engine
Long story short, if you put your novel or work of nonfiction in a category in which it does not belong, you are simply feeding the engine bad information. All it results in is your book being recommended to the wrong readers, and where it causes serious net loss to the author, is regarding the conversion rate:
If your book is recommended to the wrong reader, that reader is unlikely to buy it when he or she realizes it’s not relevant to the search. In a nutshell, that messes up your conversion rate. If the conversion rate is poor, the Amazon engine will be less likely to recommend your book again. So in other words, the more this happens, due to the book been mis-categorized, the less chance there will be for your book/s to show up in searches.
Think of it this way, if your cookbook mentions New England clam chowder, but you cram it into New England guidebooks because the cookbook category is so vast, do you really think someone who's looking for a New England travelog is going to buy a cookbook because it has the words New England in it? No. The person is going to ignore it, the Amazon engine will notice this, and the more it happens, the less you will show up in ANY search.( I only used cookbooks, because I don’t know any author or publisher who currently has any on Amazon. THAT way, there’s no chance of any people whose lives are filled with endless, petty nonsense accusing me of talking about them.)
Back to our regularly scheduled program. If you don’t care about the ethics of this, or how irritating it is to readers, you might care about this:
Amazon is probably going to begin policing this kind of thing in the near future.
I am no expert on KDP. I’ve been traditionally published three times, and went through services three other times. Never have I attempted KDP. To me, if you can do all that, you're a rockstar. However, in the interest of this topic, I did some research into the Kindle Publishing terms and conditions. Lo and behold, there are warning signs that there will eventually be heavy penalties regarding the miscategorization of books or other metadata. In other words, an impending crackdown is coming.
Let Common Sense Prevail
Find the categories that truly work for your books. Crossing out of a narrow category into something very similar is okay. I’ll work with what I know, which is historical fiction. If your historical fiction novel is set in 1600s England, (Stuart era) there’s a very good chance that people looking for those types of books may also be interested in novels in the Elizabethan or Tudor era.
However, just because your leading characters went riding in various scenes in your book, doesn’t mean you put it in the, “Horse Rearing,” or “How to Care for an English Saddle,” categories–if such categories existed.
You get the idea. There’s no way to get around paying for advertising. THAT is the only way to sell books. Don’t miscategorize. It’s annoying for the reader, it makes the author/publisher look desperate or incompetent, and worst of all, it irritates Amazon. Don’t poke the bear. It’s just not a good idea.
Happy Holidays!
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