Just a small update. I decided to change 6 out of the 7 keywords that Amazon allow authors to use for their books. It is normally suggested that one should change one keyword at a time in order to better gauge its merits, however, after running the initial keywords through KDP Rocket as well as Kindle Samurai, it appeared that some of them were almost useless. As for the categories, in order to drill further down into sub-genres, a longer category string is required.
What I am going to do, is change only the keywords for 'The 'Dear Roz' Romantic Comedy" as a test. This book was promoted the most and made it into the top 100 paid in the Best Seller Rankings for a brief spell before sliding gracefully out of said rankings. It has sold more books than all the others combined, but none of the other books have had the benefit of the promotion that this book has. so it's a little unfair to judge the others against it.
Also, I am tempted to run an assault on the short story front. At first, I had considered producing ebooks that could go into each "length of time to read" as in the 15 minute read, the 30, 60, 90 minute, and the 2 hours and over reading categories. You cannot request Amazon to put your story into these 'time slots', Amazon will do that if they feel your book merits it. I did purchase the K-lytics report about short stories which was a bit of an eye-opener. Quite a few of the time slots don't appear (on the surface) to merit much attention as sales seem to be meager at best for some of the time slots. On the bright side, the length of books I have written should (according to the report) stand a better chance with the time slots they favor.
Truth be told, some book topics favor a shorter wordcount. I never try to manipulate the wordcount by adding fluff and filler. I consider such as a waste of my time, but more importantly, a waste of my reader's time. I turn my characters loose in my stories and let them decide exactly when the story has reached its climax. There have been story ideas that enthralled me, only to have my characters let me know in no uncertain terms, that the story has concluded much earlier than anticipated. My job is to listen to them. Perhaps I can sneak a sequel past them when they least expect it.
It's also my intention to send 'Nathan Thinks He Knows Best' (the prequel to the Dear Roz serial) to Draft2Digital to be distributed elsewhere other than Amazon for free (which is why I didn't enroll it in the KDP Select program) and then to add it to the beginning of 'The Dear Roz Romantic Comedy Serial' and republish the book, making it available in print as well as in ebook form. 'Nathan Thinks He Knows Best' will then do double duty as it will continue to be permafree and (hopefully) a lead magnet for not only The Dear Roz serial, but also all of my other books. Stay tuned.
Alex B.
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