Episode 2: Keyword Mastery for Nonfiction and Fiction Authors

                                          

In this episode, we’re going to take a look at how Amazon shoppers use Amazon to find their books and how we authors can take advantage of this so that the right book buyers find our books.

Currently, when people go to Amazon to find their next book, they typically shop by doing one of two things:

1. They go to their favorite book category and look at the top 20 books in the market and shop that way.
   Or
2. They go type what they think they are looking for into Amazon’s search box.  

In the next episode, we’ll talk about #1 and how we can use this to our benefit, but for this episode, we’ll take a look at #2, which is also known as a Kindle keyword strategy.

Keywords are the word or words the shopper uses when they are looking for a book or product that they want to buy. More importantly, we need to understand that keywords are the “Shoppers pain point” or “the Shoppers description of the book they're looking for.”  

So, what makes a good keyword, and how can we find them:

1. It’s got to be a keyword that shoppers actually use
2. It’s got to be the keyword that they use when they buy
3. It’s not too competitive for YOU

Step 1: How to find keywords shoppers actually use

• Use Amazon Search Suggestions
• Use Google Keyword Planner
• Or just use KDP Rocket

Step 2: Do people actually buy books for this keyword?

• Use the keyword and make an Amazon Search
• Click on each book and record their Amazon Best Seller Rank
• Put that number into our free Kindle Calculator
• Multiply the number of books sold by Price (minus Amazon’s cut)

Step 3: Are the other books too competitive?

• Is the author famous
• Book Cover Quality
• Reviews – grade, verified, number, and recent or not.
• Book Description
• Is the keyword in the title or subtitle

Now, as some of you know, I’ve created a software called KDP Rocket, that will do everything we just discussed with a simple click of a button.  But, it goes beyond that.  Just type in your potential keyword idea into KDP Rocket, and the program will go through all of Amazon’s suggestions and Google and list out ideas.  Then, it will show you the number of competitors for that keyword, the average money made by the top books for that keyword, how many people per month type that exact phrase into Amazon and even, a competition score.  

So, unlike the manual method we talked about, you’ll get easy to understand numbers that will help you make decisions on what keywords you should use.  

So, be sure to check that out at KDPRocket.com.

Differences between Nonfiction and Fiction:

Nonfiction Keywords:

• Pain points
• Results
• Problems
• Emotions
• Demographics

Fiction Keywords:

• Setting
• Character types
• Character roles
• Plot themes
• Story tone
• Special situations

Notes and Examples Used in the Episode

(numbers from left to right)

Number of competitors, Avg earnings of the top books, Est. Searches per month, Competition Score

Parenting Examples and their numbers:
Parenting: 24,000 , $3,600 , 3000, 80
Parenting Teenage Girls: 502, $611, <100 , 65
How to parent girls: 152, $38, <100, 15
Parenting Teenage Boys: 268, $337, 240, 56
How to parent girls: 128, $38, <100, 15
Parenting toddlers: 3500, $750 , 600, 69
Parent ADHD: 313, $300, <100, 28

Bio of the Author in the Case Study:

TS Paul has over 40 books published in fiction genres such as horror, fantasy, and even teens. Had had some initial success when he first started but it wasn’t until he starts to understand Amazon search and the importance of keywords that his books started to take off.

Resources Referred to in this Episode:

• List of TS Paul’s Books
• More on Kindle Keywords
• More on Keywords for Fiction
• Find out more about KDP Rocket
• Free KDP Calculator used to find # of books sold