[My Dog's Servant]

Speaking as someone who just this afternoon ran into a million of these pieces of cr@p, any author who tries this is an automatic NO BUY for me. And, after having wasted some time looking at some of them on the assumption that it might just have been an ignorant newbie, I'm even more disgusted. It's shameful, stupid, unprofessional, corrupt behavior intended to game the system (they went way beyond just stuffing the title, believe me), and it really, really, REALLY p!ssed me off! It was so bad that books that could legitimately have used those search terms--Western historical romance--had fled to other categories entirely, leaving nothing but page after page of garbage for me to wade through.

TOS or not, don't be that stupid unwise.

Okay...now I've vented a little....do you REALLY want to make your potential readers as mad at you as I am at these scum right now? I've found this garbage before, but this stuff had taken over a whole category. A very useful, direct category of a specific type of book I wanted to read. An honest category where I deliberately went looking for new authors to try. Seriously, even extremely successful authors in the genre, authors with multiple Westerns on the top 100 historical romance list, had had to go elsewhere because the entire category is now useless. I went several pages deep and found almost nothing that wasn't trash. Mad doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about it or the so-called authors who perpetrated this fraud.

 

[amdonehere]

I haven't read through the whole thread. I see why people do it and I think there are some practical benefits to doing it, but I personally wouldn't. A title like that screams "Indie novel". IMHO, it looks unprofessional. But depending on the genre, that may not matter so much.

 

[lilywhite]

Mad doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about it or the so-called authors who perpetrated this fraud.

Allow me to join you. It's not a category I read, but my categories are similarly overrun. And, as an author, it makes me furious as well, because these scammers ARE taking more of the pie than they're supposed to be allowed.

Look at this, and tell me that cutting KENPC across the board stopped scammers:

I'm so mad I could spit.

(Edited because I'd included the author name.)

 

[Maggie Dana]

Speaking as someone who just this afternoon ran into a million of these pieces of cr@p, any author who tries this is an automatic NO BUY for me. And, after having wasted some time looking at some of them on the assumption that it might just have been an ignorant newbie, I'm even more disgusted. It's shameful, stupid, unprofessional, corrupt behavior intended to game the system (they went way beyond just stuffing the title, believe me), and it really, really, REALLY p!ssed me off! It was so bad that books that could legitimately have used those search terms--Western historical romance--had fled to other categories entirely, leaving nothing but page after page of garbage for me to wade through.

TOS or not, don't be that stupid unwise.

Okay...now I've vented a little....do you REALLY want to make your potential readers as mad at you as I am at these scum right now? I've found this garbage before, but this stuff had taken over a whole category. A very useful, direct category of a specific type of book I wanted to read. An honest category where I deliberately went looking for new authors to try. Seriously, even extremely successful authors in the genre, authors with multiple Westerns on the top 100 historical romance list, had had to go elsewhere because the entire category is now useless. I went several pages deep and found almost nothing that wasn't trash. Mad doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about it or the so-called authors who perpetrated this fraud.

Have you blasted Amazon for this? If not, I hope you do.Tell them what you just told us. What you just encountered is exactly what Amazon does NOT want its customers dealing with.

 

[Maggie Dana]

This keyword stuffed title is #1 in my category (children's horse books):

Books for Kids : The Fairy Princess and The Unicorn Book 2- Children's Books, Kids Books, Bedtime Stories For Kids, Kids Fantasy Book (Bonus Feature for Kids)(Unicorns: Kids Fantasy Books)

This author has similar books with equally stuffed titles in numerous children's categories -- and as an aside, I need to put on my pedantic hat and point out that a unicorn is not a horse. It's a goat, cloven hooves, horn(s) on head. I would fit nicely into chidren's goat books or farm animals books, and of course in fantasy, just not in horses.

I alerted Amazon weeks ago, but the books are still there.

 

[My Dog's Servant]

Hoo, LilyWhite! You sure we weren't in the same category?

I didn't read enough of any samples to see that link to the end, which Atunah mentioned before. What I did see a lot of was the same lead-in on the blurbs. Something like "Includes 50 more sizzling stories!" ....including on blurbs that ended with a "sweet, clean romance" line. A number of them also offered "extra books".....on a "book" that was listed as having 178 pages, or 82 pages, or something similar.

While I was wading through all those pages of garbage, I kept thinking of one of Atunah's recent posts when she said she'd pretty much given up on searches and instead relied on other readers, such as those on Goodreads and similar venues. (my apologies, Atunah, if I don't have your attributions quite right--it was the point of your post that stuck with me, not the details). That's not an approach I've generally favored in the past unless I know the person and their tastes well, but there may be no other good options until Amazon's search algos improve.

And now that I've read the whole thread, I have to say, Monique said it first and best: it stinks on ice.

Edited. PM me if you have any questions. --Betsy/KB Mod

 

[My Dog's Servant]

Have you blasted Amazon for this? If not, I hope you do.Tell them what you just told us. What you just encountered is exactly what Amazon does NOT want its customers dealing with.

I meant to ask--what's the best contact for this? Customer support? I've never complained before, but I will about this.

Your example is exactly the sort of thing I just ran into. There were even "titles with multiple parenthetical additions. I'd seen it before, but never to such extreme. I'm sorry to hear they're hitting your genre, too (and speaking as someone who read every horse story I could get my hands on when I was growing up, best wishes for your success! I adored writers like you!)

 

[lilywhite]

Hoo, LilyWhite! You sure we weren't in the same category?

I did indeed find that in the category you mentioned. I'd been seeing links to the back in a LOT of books, just never saw one that straight-up said "Click here so I get paid for all the pages," not till [redacted]. That little minx. Doesn't she have something to quilt or plant or something? let's not badmouthing quilters, please. -Betsy

"Includes 50 more sizzling stories!" ....including on blurbs that ended with a "sweet, clean romance" line.

Or "Victorian Western"! LOL

And now that I've read the whole thread, I have to say, Monique said it first and best: it stinks on ice.

Yup.

 

[My Dog's Servant]

I loved those "Victorian Westerns." 

 

[Charmaine]

I certainly can't speak for anyone else, but that kind of thing just doesn't bother me. It's not a whole lot different from "A Novel" or "A Pride & Prejudice Variation"--you're just helping the reader to orient themselves. Smart to put it on your cover and CYA, but honestly I don't think most folks mean that when they're talking about keyword spam. For me, what I'm talking about is titles like: Romance: Bear Naked: A BBW Bear Shifter Victorian Erotica Motorcycle Club Alpha Billionaire First-Time Taboo Erotic Romance with a Tattooed Hero and Sassy Heroine, Happy Ending, Standalone by Lady Angelica and The Amish. You know?

I agree with this.

As a reader, I don't mind a descriptive title like your Pride and Prejudice example. In fact, I prefer them. I think the key is to keep the subtitle to a 3-5 word maximum

But, that second example makes my eyes cross.

 

[My Dog's Servant]

Anarchist...appreciate the thoughtful post. The one thing that struck me, though, is it would seem that many of those--quite sensible!--rules would seem to make it even harder for new or struggling authors to get traction. Given your knowledge of the change search rules for Google, what would you think writers would have to do to get the algos' attention?

Also....how did you computer savvy types know what Google was focusing on at any given stage so you could figure out how to adjust (or game)?  Amazon to date hasn't been very forthcoming with specifics.

 

[Maggie Dana]

I meant to ask--what's the best contact for this? Customer support? I've never complained before, but I will about this.

Your example is exactly the sort of thing I just ran into. There were even "titles with multiple parenthetical additions. I'd seen it before, but never to such extreme. I'm sorry to hear they're hitting your genre, too (and speaking as someone who read every horse story I could get my hands on when I was growing up, best wishes for your success! I adored writers like you!)

At the very foot of a book's product page is this (just above the last Amazon bumf). It says

Feedback
If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
Would you like to report poor quality or formatting in this book? Click here
Would you like to report this content as inappropriate? Click here
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright? Click here

I usually click on items 2 or 3, find the most appropriate drop down window, then tell Amazon the problem. Lay it on thick, and do it for as many as you can stomach. Maybe get others to add their complaints, too, about the same books. Be even better if those who conplain are readers, not writers.

 

[Lady Vine]

Well, this is the Amazon that Amazon created.

Have you guys seen the latest? Google-translated versions of these short stories thrown into the bundles in order to bulk up the pages. So far I've seen Spanish and Dutch versions, and they're never mentioned, just tacked on randomly. It's all very strange. And I thought the "Before you start reading this book, click here, I have a very important message for you" nonsense was bad.

 

[Anarchist]

Anarchist...appreciate the thoughtful post. The one thing that struck me, though, is it would seem that many of those--quite sensible!--rules would seem to make it even harder for new or struggling authors to get traction. Given your knowledge of the change search rules for Google, what would you think writers would have to do to get the algos' attention?

With time, it will become increasingly difficult to manipulate Amazon's algo. Authors' efforts toward that end will have an ever-diminishing influence over it.

From Amazon's perspective, that's a good thing.

Put yourself in Amazon's shoes. Your algo must deliver search results that do the following:

1. Instill trust in users. In the same way people have been trained to expect useful results from Google for any given search query, customers must be trained to think of Amazon's search functionality as useful.

2. Optimize the user's experience. If a user visits a book's sales page and subsequently clicks his browser's back button, that signals his discontent. As Amazon, you want to minimize user discontent. So your algo would suppress listings for books that have a bounce rate that exceeds a given percentage.

3. Maximize long-term sales. This outcome stems from trust and user experience. As Amazon, you must maintain tight control over which books appear when a user conducts a search. Or you must minimize authors' influence. Keyword usage would be the first item to receive your attention because it's one of the easiest to game.

Also....how did you computer savvy types know what Google was focusing on at any given stage so you could figure out how to adjust (or game)?

We (search marketers) had mountains of data to examine. Additionally, Google wasn't doing rolling updates to its algo back then. It would do a major update once every couple years, and later once every few months. That made it much easier to test.

Imagine having 100,000 books in your backlist. Now imagine having software that pulled each book's ranking for a series of relevant queries. Now imagine having software that did the same for every other author's books. Now imagine that your software tracked changes in real-time and highlighted areas to adjust based on those changes.

As I mentioned, it was an arms race. I had so many software programs on my machines that I couldn't remember which programmers I had hired in which countries to design them.

Amazon to date hasn't been very forthcoming with specifics.

It's in Amazon's best interest to keep its ranking factors under wraps. The moment it discloses how to rank, its algo will be gamed.

You can already see it happening with keywords.

On a related note, I suspect a similar effect will happen with purchased ads. If you're Amazon, you do NOT want people juicing their ranks, visibility and sales with external tools - think BookBub. You do NOT want authors to manipulate your ranking algo (not just search algo). Again, you want to maintain control.

I see a day when traffic from known promo entities will count less toward rank, visibility and sales. Meanwhile, Amazon will get its act together with AMS. In other words, it will start reducing the influence of sites like ENT, Robin Reads and BookBub, thereby making its own advertising platform more attractive.

Again, just speculation. But if I ran Amazon, that's how I'd do it.

 

[Atunah]

Hoo, LilyWhite! You sure we weren't in the same category? Edited. PM me if you have any questions. --Betsy/KB Mod

I didn't read enough of any samples to see that link to the end, which Atunah mentioned before. What I did see a lot of was the same lead-in on the blurbs. Something like "Includes 50 more sizzling stories!" ....including on blurbs that ended with a "sweet, clean romance" line. A number of them also offered "extra books".....on a "book" that was listed as having 178 pages, or 82 pages, or something similar.

While I was wading through all those pages of garbage, I kept thinking of one of Atunah's recent posts when she said she'd pretty much given up on searches and instead relied on other readers, such as those on Goodreads and similar venues. (my apologies, Atunah, if I don't have your attributions quite right--it was the point of your post that stuck with me, not the details). That's not an approach I've generally favored in the past unless I know the person and their tastes well, but there may be no other good options until Amazon's search algos improve.

And now that I've read the whole thread, I have to say, Monique said it first and best: it stinks on ice.

You got it. That is exactly what I have had to do. I had to go elsewhere to find my books. And let me just say yes to your whole rant post earlier, its exactly how I feel also.

On Goodreads, I mostly follow people that read and like stuff I read and like. So when I look at a book page, I see all their reviews and rating first and often don't even go further down beyond that.

The problem though with all this scamming is that I have a KU subscription. I want to find KU books to read also. I want to find romance books to read, historical romance. Its pretty much impossible to find them browsing at this point. One thing I really love are back list titles, there are so many in historical romance. I used to love to browse by publication date in the sub categories to find those. Sometimes these authors would also put them in KU. I would look for both possibilities. Now I can't. I cannot find them anymore, I cannot stomach to browse 100's and 100's of pages of listings just to maybe find something. Its taken the joy out of it.

What have I done? I have a large KU wishlist and am reading more other genres under KU, mystery and the such. To read historical romance, I just stick with the known greats, with new ones published. And those are unfortunately mostly going to be big publisher. I read release blogs, forums. So at this point unless another reader recommends something to me, I won't go looking for it anymore. I have had it.
They ruined my beloved genre and nobody seems to care anymore.

I have reported books in the past. I can't sit for days reporting 1000's and 1000's of listings. I did write to the feedback email to amazon. I can't recall now exactly how it was spelled, something feedback at amazon or some such thing. I saw it posted here somewhere. I am just tired of it all. Bypassing the kindle store mostly and just reading what I already have or going to the wishlists and goodreads.

 

[stoney]

Weeellll, while it may make some people angry that authors do this, if the top book titles are showing the similar format for their titling, it must be working. Right? I mean, they are in the top slots.

 

[Crystal_]

Stuffed titles look tacky. Too many keywords make a title incomprehensible.

But I do see the merit in describing the niche or trope in the subtitle, especially if there is no appropriate subgenre ln Amazon. My rock star romances have "A Rock Star Romance" as the subtitle. At first, I was opposed to the idea, but I've come around a bit. A lot of readers don't look at blurbs so it can be good to be explicit about what you are offering with stuff like A Friends to Lovers Romance or An Alpha Billionaire Romance or whatnot.

 

[bang on the drum]

Have you guys seen the latest? Google-translated versions of these short stories thrown into the bundles in order to bulk up the pages. So far I've seen Spanish and Dutch versions, and they're never mentioned, just tacked on randomly. It's all very strange. And I thought the "Before you start reading this book, click here, I have a very important message for you" nonsense was bad.

Amazon saw this coming when they brought out KU2. I remember a rather incongruous line in their KU2 announcement that said something like "we appreciate your efforts to market your books to international audiences, but don't game the system."

 

[Shelley K]

Stuffed titles look tacky. Too many keywords make a title incomprehensible.

But I do see the merit in describing the niche or trope in the subtitle, especially if there is no appropriate subgenre ln Amazon. My rock star romances have "A Rock Star Romance" as the subtitle. At first, I was opposed to the idea, but I've come around a bit. A lot of readers don't look at blurbs so it can be good to be explicit about what you are offering with stuff like A Friends to Lovers Romance or An Alpha Billionaire Romance or whatnot.

I put a simple descriptor like that in the title for some of my books, too. Almost every top-selling book in one of my genres does it. Stand over here with us degenerates.

 

[lilywhite]

Stuffed titles look tacky. Too many keywords make a title incomprehensible.

But I do see the merit in describing the niche or trope in the subtitle, especially if there is no appropriate subgenre ln Amazon. My rock star romances have "A Rock Star Romance" as the subtitle. At first, I was opposed to the idea, but I've come around a bit. A lot of readers don't look at blurbs so it can be good to be explicit about what you are offering with stuff like A Friends to Lovers Romance or An Alpha Billionaire Romance or whatnot.

Definitely agree with this. I just wonder if, when Amazon finally brings the hammer down on the stuffers, do those of us (myself included) who do this to help readers identify books they would like get the hammer as well? I'm thinking probably.