Keyword and category planner
Seven keyword slots checked against the character limit, against your own title, and against the terms retailers ignore or reject.
What the listing already says
Anything already in the title, subtitle or author name is indexed. Spending a keyword slot
on it buys nothing, which is the single most common way the seven boxes get wasted.
The seven slots
Categories
Pick the narrowest true category, not the biggest. A hundredth place in a category of
forty thousand books sells nothing. Third place in a category of two hundred puts an orange badge on
the listing, and that badge is what readers click.
Coverage
0
Useful terms
0
Wasted words
A useful term is a word a reader might type that is not already
in your title, subtitle or author name, and is not one of the words the store ignores.
Problems
What actually works
Phrases, not single words. A slot is up to fifty characters, so "snowbound mining town
mystery" uses one slot and catches three searches.
Write how a reader searches, not how a librarian catalogues.
People type "books like Lonesome Dove" and "clean romance small town", and neither is a subject heading.
Do not name other authors or their books. It is against the terms,
and listings have been pulled for it.
Also for publishing it
All tools →
Title & Blurb Workshop
Rewriting a description that is doing none of the selling.
Author Bio Builder
Never writing your own bio from scratch again.
Query Letter Builder
A one page letter that does not read like the last two hundred.
Royalty Calculator
Deciding a list price before you commit to a wholesale discount.
Tools will only take you so far
Send what you have. Even a half-written manuscript is enough for a reader to tell you what it needs.