Lessons Learned: The Importance of Tags

Tags. Whew. Okay, unless you’re what I would call a super geek of the Internet, you probably don’t understand the full importance of these darned, pesky little things!

I published The Hands of Tarot on Aug 7. Technically, it was published the week before so I could get a buy link to send out with my promotions. Between July 30 and August 7, I had sold (1) copy. Now, part of me was going, “Great! The launch didn’t leak!” But there was another part of me going, “Wait! Can anybody find me?”

It wasn’t until a fellow author emailed me and said they couldn’t find me on Amazon that I started getting concerned. I mean, I can find me with ease! But I search for SM Blooding and/or The Hands of Tarot. If people don’t already know about me, how are they going to find me?

This fellow author, Caroline Clemmons, also said something about needing better tags. She said I needed my name, the book genre, and things about the book. I kinda knew what she was talking about, but the full impact of those pesky little buggers hadn’t hit home for me yet.

When you publish with Amazon on KDP Select, there’s a little box in Section #3: Target Your Book To Customers. I chose my genre and didn’t pay a lot of attention to the tags. What did I have in there? YA Steampunk, Tarot.

So then I was thinking. How do I find books I want to buy? I might type in a keyword, an author I like, and then I scroll around in the “similar works” area, or “people who bought this also bought that” area.

So what might people be searching for if they were stumbling onto my book?

Steampunk. Not YA steampunk because there aren’t many who actually type in YA Steampunk.

Tarot. Sure. Why not? It’s a fun element.

What about author names of some of the other hot steampunk authors out there right now? Would it be wrong? No. My book is similar to a few key authors.

Airships. I have airships. Will people type that in when searching for a book though? Hmm. Probably not.

Science Fiction. Huh. That’s a genre I could choose, so maybe that wouldn’t be the best tag. I only have 7.

So…Steampunk is a definite. Tarot is a maybe. Who is going to type in Tarot and be excited to find my book? When I’m looking for tarot, I usually want something specific to reading tarot, but it could work. Other author names and a few key book titles seemed the best route to go!

I’ve updated my tags, and my sales have improved! We’re not talking huge numbers, but they have improved! I’m being seen!  So apply some thought to those pesky tags!