Discoverability…

So Many Things…

Now, I admit, I suck at Amazon book searches unless I know the author’s name. I didn’t realize just how bad until tonight when, on a lark, I searched for “science fiction” and nothing else.

Found a few and a ton of “sponsored” books.

I searched for a while, following rat holes of so much trash I could hardly believe it.

I clicked on one “sponsored” book that said clearly it was science fiction, had a fantasy cover, and an author name so tiny that even on my large mac screen I could not read it. This poor guy had spent money to get me to see his book about four pages deep. Oh, sad…

His sales copy was dull and passive and told almost all of the plot, his cover as I said looked fantasy, and I searched his name and it was his second book. He had no web site. And he had paid for a review from Kirkus. This guy clearly believed that old myth that ancient 1990’s promotion was going to sell his book. It was clearly not working since he had one review, three stars. Oh, sad… Even his family didn’t like it.

So I gave up just searching for a genre and put in some author’s I knew who wrote science fiction. All big name writers, some even had decent sales copy. Below their books, and mixed in with their books, were “sponsored” Kindle Unlimited books. So I looked up Kris’s books. First one was a Retrieval Artist novel with over 500 reviews and under just one page of her books there were some “sponsored” really horrid covers, tiny author’s names, from Kindle Unlimited, all free crap. All “sponsored.”

So almost without exception, the books I found without knowing the author name, had names so small they could not be read, a lot had horrid covers, all, without exception, had plot-heavy and dull sales copy. And a large number were paying me to see their horrid covers, tiny names, and bad sales copy. I have no idea what they thought I would be buying.

And when I searched under my name, the first two were “sponsored” by small-name writers, and the first three pages were some of my media books that are still in print. My fault on that, have not put up on Amazon new books in a while. But what a way to organize a store.

So I would just be a regular Amazon customer, knowing no tricks to get around. In over an hour, I did not find one book that interested me except a couple I had missed by my big name friends when I searched their names.

There are so many ways to sell books now other than that mess Amazon calls a bookstore.

And if you can’t get past your own issues and stop killing your own books with small author name, bad covers, and horrid sales copy, you sure can’t expect to see income from Amazon. Even when you give Amazon money to “sponsor” your book.

And after tonight, I understand why Amazon is so low these days in WMG income sources. It hasn’t gone down, but considering the numbers of books we have, it sure isn’t worth much of our time, and how many ways we earn a lot more from our copyright and brands and trademarks.