I’ll let you in on a little secret…

My book sales have been down for two months now. Why am I happier than ever? 

The good news is I’ve discovered that all the hard work I’ve spent promoting my work over the last few years did produce sales and increase my exposure. In particular, I uncovered that searching my keywords, finding my books, and then clicking on them every day for an extended period impacted where my book appeared in a search. With discipline and hard work, I watched my titles move from page fifteen or twenty to page one for many of my keyword strings. I know because I kept meticulous records for the last three years. Above is a snapshot of this spreadsheet of my ups and downs.

You may be asking why anyone would do this? Simple. As much as 40% of sales come from shoppers browsing titles after entering a keyword, which is not trivial. Few will see your book if you don’t appear within the first three pages. No one will see it if you show up beyond page ten. 

You then may ask, isn’t this cheating? No, at least no more than paying money to get your book to appear on page one. At least in my method, I put in hard work. For most competitive keywords, six of the twenty-two titles that show will be sponsored (usually the first and last two on the page, with two more in the middle). That means someone paid for 27.27% of the real estate for each page, and Amazon makes a lot of money selling this space. They keep that data quiet, but in 2020 it is estimated that Amazon advertising made $22.89 billion in the US alone. 

But after three years of doing this, was it worth the effort and, more importantly, the time? Every day, it took about two hours to review the keyword strings for the three books in my Absolution of the Mourning Star series. I would search under all departments, kindle store, and books. For each title, I had a list of 47 well-searched keywords (I used Publishing Rocket to obtain and track these). When I was selling well, it would take less time as I would need to go through fewer pages. If there was a lull, it was tedium. At first, I was filled with joy seeing my titles appear on the first page for very competitive keyword strings like epic, dark, or coming of age fantasy. When I would get sales, the thrill of seeing my title move up the page was addictive and kept me going for a long time. But it was a game of reducing returns. Amazon’s algorithm is very complicated. I learned a lot, such as when you make a sale, your title will shoot up in the ranking the first day and then crash the second as the algorithm tries to compensate. For example, you will go from page five to one and then back to ten- one step forward and two back. This is frustrating, but it keeps titles with a few quick sales from surpassing the steady sellers. 

But two hours a day, every day, clicking through pages to find my work, finally became too much. Three weeks ago, I stopped, and my books tumbled into no man’s land. It was hard at first to see all that work go down the drain, but my panic was quickly replaced with relief. I suddenly had two hours of my day back. During COVID, when I worked entirely from home, I no longer had my two-hour commute, so the time spent here was acceptable. But two hours a day was killing me since changing jobs and going into the office more. More importantly, it was eating away from my drive to write. So, three weeks ago, I said f*** it and stopped (sorry for the colorful language, but I literally said that and wrote it into my spreadsheet, that long ban of red above is the day). I’m now using that time to write, and my daily word count has doubled. I’m happier, less stressed, and more productive across the board.

I’m glad it wasn’t a complete waste of time, but I warn all that read this: ultimately, it was not worth it! This method was a lot of front-loaded work that will give you a boost, but eventually, it balances out, and it is hard to know when to stop. Within a few days of me finally pulling the plug, my books disappeared from some keywords, but I held firm in many others. These are likely the ones that bring me actual sales; that data is just as important. Am I on page one? No, but page three or four ain’t too bad for a struggling and largely unknown writer.

It is easy to get caught up in the game of selling. So much of our culture measures success in monetary gain, and we all want to be successful. But you know what? With my five books on Amazon, I’ve put down more than 750,000 words. In my lifetime, I’ve probably written more than two million. That is success too. My wife and I have long discussions about my worlds, and occasionally someone says they enjoyed my books. Hell, I even get a sale here and there, too—all successes.

But most importantly, I enter a vivid world of my creation every day, which brings me satisfaction and great joy. No matter how crappy work or life can be, I have a world where I can vent my frustrations and live out my fantasies. How many people can say that? That is a success that no amount of money can buy, and I’ll take that any day of the week over praying two hours a day to a false idol.  

Cheers!