Audible Captions, Copyright Lawsuits, and Other News from the World of Writing

indie author newsThings move so quickly in the world of writing and publishing, it’s often hard to keep up, and the month of July was really hopping. I’ve rounded up some of the top stories to share with you.

First up, Audible has caused quite a stir with its plan to announce a new “Captions” program in September. What is Captions? Well, the details are unknown at this point, and that’s part of the problem. Continue reading “Audible Captions, Copyright Lawsuits, and Other News from the World of Writing”

The Importance of Categories and Keywords for Your Books on KDP

dealing with book keywords on amazon headache-1557865_960_720I hate keywords. “Use keywords,” they say, for your blog post, your KDP book, your website, your AMS ads. Figuring out which keywords to use is harder for me than writing the actual post/book/ad. But I’m learning.

An example:  the other day while checking the Amazon rank of one of my books after a sale, I noticed something odd. The rank in three different categories was showing. The first one was: Continue reading “The Importance of Categories and Keywords for Your Books on KDP”

Hey! What happened to my tags?

A Guest Post
by Aron Joice

I ‘m not sure about anyone else out there, but I find it challenging to keep up with Amazon and all its policy changes. Isn’t Amazon a store? Do brick and mortar retail outlets change their policies as often as Amazon? If so, I think their vendors would consider alternative outlets. We as Indie authors don’t have many options. Of course we can upload our books to Smashwords, B&N, Kobo (you can do this independently of Smashwords btw) and ilovebooks, however Amazon is still the meat and potatoes of the eBook distribution world.

Since Amazon changed my category to non-fiction (hello sorceresses are fictional), and didn’t say a thing, I often check my sales page. A few days back as I scrolled down the page to check the current details, I noticed the absence of my little bubbles. Oh where did they go? Not a one in sight. My tags are gone, how could they do this to me? I liked those tags, mini maps to roads linking to my genre. Poof, up in smoke and not even a mention from the big A. Okay, I suppose as a little Indie I should be keeping up with all of this somewhere, but where? I don’t mean IU, heck if it wasn’t for IU we’d all be out in the cold (bows and kudos EM). So I decided to write KDP and hear what they had to say and was surprised to receive a rapid-fire response. Continue reading “Hey! What happened to my tags?”