[Crystal_]

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.

It doesn't sound like we're in violation of the TOS, but you never know with Amazon. Sometimes you really do need the clarification. I put out a novella sequel to a book and I needed the A Special Holiday Novella subtitle so people wouldn't think it was another novel.

There's a fine line. For my WIP, I could make the subtitle A New Adult Friends to Lovers My Brother's Best Friend Standalone Rock Star Romance ... That would obviously be to much.

 

[Marina Finlayson]

It doesn't sound like we're in violation of the TOS, but you never know with Amazon.

As long as the words of your subtitle are actually on the cover, you're not in violation of the TOS. You can't put anything in the title or subtitle that's not actually on the cover.

 

[Atunah]

Saying a rock star romance, or a regency romance, or a novella in the title, assuming its on the cover as many are, is not really what is being talked about there though. I see those tag lines on covers all the time so why not put it up. A hockey romance, space opera romance, I have seen those. I have seen some bigger publishers do that, some bigger authors and those are always also on the cover.

I think anyone going to any romance sub category right now, not just best seller, but category, sort by publication and get to todays date and before, you will see clearly what is going on. The genres are being flooded. I see some that have the same word in the title four times. "Historical romance, a romance of the victorian west-shifter cowboy romance-regency romance". Those are the kind of titles we are talking about here. I consider anyone doing that a scammer. If one knows what romance is, one does not use those kind of titles. Period.

Yes, I have seen victorian and regency and medieval even on the same darn title in romance. Anyone doing that needs to be slapped with a big bavarian sausage.

 

[Crystal_]

As long as the words of your subtitle are actually on the cover, you're not in violation of the TOS. You can't put anything in the title or subtitle that's not actually on the cover.

At the moment, the subtitle isn't on my cover but that's a pretty easy fix if Amazon gets serious about this.

 

[My Dog's Servant]

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.

Thanks! It's been a while since I've scrolled that far down on a page!

 

[PhilipColgate]

As a reader, I think it looks terrible and I never buy those books.  When I wrote erotica, I used the technique with great success because your title goes into the search algo along with your by line and keywords (blurb does not).  Currently, I refuse to cheapen my mainstream books this way.

 

[My Dog's Servant]

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.

But they're not in the top ranks in sales, just in search. That's the problem. Many of the ones at the top of the search have ranks in the millions, yet they're coming up top of the search heap, while books on the top 100 list for the genre aren't showing up unless you wade through pages and pages and PAGES of search dreck...if they're showing up at all. This REALLY hurts new serious writers because if they can't be found, well....

 

[My Dog's Servant]

Anarchist....thank you again for another thoughtful post. Lots to consider there....though I haven't the analytical smarts to do much with it even if I otherwise could. But it helps to have a better understanding of the thinking and operations behind all this.

 

[Atunah]

But they're not in the top ranks in sales, just in search. That's the problem. Many of the ones at the top of the search have ranks in the millions, yet they're coming up top of the search heap, while books on the top 100 list for the genre aren't showing up unless you wade through pages and pages and PAGES of search dreck...if they're showing up at all. This REALLY hurts new serious writers because if they can't be found, well....

Yes this. I don't even look at the best sellers anymore in romance. There has been so much miscategorized it doesn't work for me. I also don't really give a hoot about what a bestseller is. I care what I want to read and that it is actually the proper category I am looking for. This hot mess now makes it so I can't browse my publication date, I can't search for anything, I can't search by customer reviews as the scammers stuff those too. So yes, dreck is all I see now.

I feel sorry for any real writer of western historical romance right now that is not with a publisher. May the prairie dog have mercy on you.

 

[My Dog's Servant]

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.

Absolutely. I don't mind them as a reader, either. What I hit yesterday in Western historical romance was a cover that might have just had a name as the title, let's say "Susie". Not one other word beyond the "author's" name. The "title" that came up with the search would show something like: Western Victorian historical romance (wagon trains) (rancher) Susie (mail order bride) sexy.

I'd seen a couple of stupid "titles" like this before, but I had never, ever run into pages and pages and pages of them! I'd never seen all those parentheses, either! It took me a while to wrap my mind around the whole concept. Didn't help at all that closer looks at the "books" themselves revealed they were all scammers (those with the stuffed titles, I mean), and more playing with search terms got me no better results.

It had been a long time since I'd read an historical western, so I was really out of the loop on who was writing those kinds of books. But I suddenly had a hankerin' for a few and went looking....only to discover that it's now impossible to find them on Amazon using any reasonable keyword search. Hurts to think there might be a lot of wonderful authors out there I'll miss entirely unless I use other methods to find them.

It hurts Amazon, too. I was ready to buy a few books, but instead of spending money, I ended up wasting time wading through the dreck and the unusable searches.

 

[Shelley K]

Absolutely. I don't mind them as a reader, either. What I hit yesterday in Western historical romance was a cover that might have just had a name as the title, let's say "Susie". Not one other word beyond the "author's" name. The "title" that came up with the search would show something like: Western Victorian historical romance (wagon trains) (rancher) Susie (mail order bride) sexy.

There's a lot of that. But I'll just bet you that the people (writers, almost exclusively) who get a charge out of hitting that "report" link turn in books that say "A Bad Boy Navy Seal Romance" right along with the titles laced with 20 keywords. I know it. Because writers.

 

[sela]

But they're not in the top ranks in sales, just in search. That's the problem. Many of the ones at the top of the search have ranks in the millions, yet they're coming up top of the search heap, while books on the top 100 list for the genre aren't showing up unless you wade through pages and pages and PAGES of search dreck...if they're showing up at all. This REALLY hurts new serious writers because if they can't be found, well....

This exactly. I checked on a few of the scammer books and they come up first in search but they are not selling. So Amazon's search algo is broke.

 

[Charmaine]

This exactly. I checked on a few of the scammer books and they come up first in search but they are not selling. So Amazon's search algo is broke.

I've heard from many readers that they are going back to recommendations from other readers and are now disregarding searches.

I think the new reader behavior is from many things, but mostly due to various scam tactics from the scammers.

 

[stoney]

Oh! Okay. So we're calling people who are writing books but are doing sketchy things with their titles scammers. They're otherwise still writing books that are being read, regardless of how choked their titles are with keywords, scammers.

scammers. Got it.

It's clear that I'm not seeing this distinction between titles that y'all are nitpicking over.

 

[crebel]

Oh! Okay. So we're calling people who are writing books but are doing sketchy things with their titles scammers. They're otherwise still writing books that are being read, regardless of how choked their titles are with keywords, scammers.

scammers. Got it.

It's clear that I'm not seeing this distinction between titles that y'all are nitpicking over.

Yes, scammers. They are manipulating the Amazon search algorithms making them worthless. I don't hesitate to use the word scammer to apply. Probably much more polite than what I would rather call them.

 

[stoney]

Yes, scammers. They are manipulating the Amazon search algorithms making them worthless. I don't hesitate to use the word scammer to apply. Probably much more polite than what I would rather call them.

LOL Okay. I guess I just get upset about different things that mean something to me and this isn't one of them. From the tone of the thread so far, that makes me morally bankrupt or something for supporting this affront to God because I'm not going to condemn anyone that does it.

I do have to ask, though, would be titling a book Hill To Die On: A Bad Boy SciFi Military Romance be a bad thing, right? Because it's 'gaming' the system by putting bad boy, scifi, military, romance keywords in the title? Is that what has everyone so up in arms?

 

[Charmaine]

Oh! Okay. So we're calling people who are writing books but are doing sketchy things with their titles scammers. They're otherwise still writing books that are being read, regardless of how choked their titles are with keywords, scammers.

scammers. Got it.

It's clear that I'm not seeing this distinction between titles that y'all are nitpicking over.

Yes, I am.

The chances of getting one of those books and there actually being a real- as described in their blurb- book inside are somewhat rare.

Almost everyone who participates in these tactics are not using only one "sketchy" tactic or did you not read this thread through?

There are hoards of books with stuffed keyword titles that have 300 pages of fluff and a link that goes to page 301 so they get paid for those unread pages.

Probably from the same people who edited only the first 10% of their book, when borrows were paid if the reader got past 10%.

Quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

 

[stoney]

Almost everyone who participates in these tactics are not using only one "sketchy" tactic or did you not read this thread through?

I read it and I'm trying to really understand where that line is that has people going from 'that's okay to do it that way' to 'OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU POS SCAMMER' that I'm seeing.

Which...I'm seeing a lot of here right now. Because if there's one thing I've noticed on kboards is that when some people here get their feathers in a dither, they start painting with very wide brush strokes. I'm trying to understand the detailed nuances.

Apparently there aren't any or I'm just too stupid to understand it.

 

[lilywhite]

I read it and I'm trying to really understand where that line is that has people going from 'that's okay to do it that way' to 'OMG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU POS SCAMMER' that I'm seeing.

I can only answer for myself, but for me that line is somewhere between "[TITLE]: A Bad Boy Romance" and "ROMANCE: [TITLE] (Victorian Futuristic Police Procedural Regency Western Post-Apocalyptic)(Knocked up by the Bad Boy's Ghost at the Motorcycle Club) (Episode 1 of 600)" ... and, like pornography, you know it when you see it.

It's disingenuous to the extreme to pretend that we're being big babies for complaining about keyword stuffing in titles, in direct violation of the TOS, when it breaks actual customers' ability to effectively search for books they want to read.

 

[stoney]

It's disingenuous to the extreme to pretend that we're being big babies for complaining about keyword stuffing in titles, in direct violation of the TOS, when it breaks actual customers' ability to effectively search for books they want to read.

I've seen far worse over far less on this board. I think some of the reactions to this one thing, considering all the other things wrong and broken on Amazon, were way over the top, yes.

But that's okay. Carry on.