If you look up Sensation – the first Kid Sensation novel – on Amazon, you’ll see the title listed as Sensation: A Superhero Novel (Kid Sensation, Book 1). Originally, however, that wasn’t the title; it was simply Sensation: A Superhero Novel.
Amazon apparently added the parenthetical at some point after I began publishing other books in the series – presumably because those other books included the series number. (For example, Revelation: A Kid Sensation Novel (Kid Sensation #8).)
Flash forward to May of this year, when I published Isolation. I went through the normal process of loading all the components of the book: cover, interior, etc. However, when I hit publish, I got a surprise. A message appeared telling me that the full title had to appear on the cover and the spine of the book.
Huh?
Yes, the full title. On the cover and the spine.
I was a little befuddled. Amazon had never expressed this requirement before. Moreover, my cover was already done, and didn’t comport with what was being requested. Thankfully, I was able to get published without having to jump through those particular hoops, but I think I understand what Amazon was trying to do: bring a halt to keyword stuffing.
For those who may not know, a keyword – in terms of marketing – is basically a search term. For instance, when you’re looking for a product on Amazon and enter a term/phrase in the “Search” field, you’re essentially entering a keyword. These terms are especially useful for finding books. So, if you were to go to the Kindle Store and enter “superhero” in the search box, a list of superhero books will come up. Much to my dismay (and – in my estimation – to Amazon’s great and everlasting shame), Sensation pops up on the second page of this particular search. (The second, Amazon??? How dare you…)
Amazon uses the words in a book’s title and description as keywords. In addition, during the set-up process, authors are allowed to select additional terms to serve as keywords. Final, the genre/category chosen for a book also do double-duty as keywords. In short, there are a number of ways that the keywords for a book are established. The end result is that, in a perfect world, someone entering the appropriate keyword(s) in a search would cause your book to appear in the results.
Most authors are aware of keywords and how they work. However, in order to get a leg up (i.e., make their book appear in numerous searches), some will resort to keyword stuffing – a practice of stuffing excessive keywords into the relevant portions of a book, such as the title. Thus, you’ll see titles like “Spaceman Bo-Peep (A SciFi Space Opera Shifter Reverse Harem Superhero LitRPG Romance Action Adventure).”
As one can imagine, Amazon frowns on these kinds of tactics because it can make for a poor customer experience. Imagine if you think you’re getting a space opera (with maybe mild elements of the other stuff) and it turns out to be more of a shifter romance. With things like that happening, it’s not surprising that Amazon is trying to reign in what they view as bad behavior. Requiring the entire title to be on the cover and spine is clearly one way to do that, although the Great Zon may have other reasons as well. (And it’s entirely possible that the cover/spine issue is triggered by some other factor, like the number of characters in your title or something.) Regardless, it looks like the days of keyword stuffing titles are over, and – frankly speaking – that’s not necessarily a bad thing.