Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

My first published book, Green Power, gave away its category with this title. Sure enough it’s a book about the environment. But the title alone might make potential readers think it’s a nonfiction book. Also, since I didn’t give it a subtitle to indicate it was a fiction novel, there’s no way of knowing this or which genre it belongs. Therefore, it had to be tagged as an environmental thriller in any promotional write-ups. Now when someone is looking for an environmental thriller, they would find my book. As a matter of fact, when I do a Google search for environmental thrillers, Green Power, is one of the main novels listed. So for discussion purposes, do you hunt for books by searching for genre? Also, how specific are you for entering a sub genre name for a search (e.g. medical thriller, eco thriller or techno thriller)?

What you've perhaps unwittingly tapped into is the power of SEO. Search Engine Optimization. There are entire companies built around discovering ways for business's, authors, anybody to get their products listed in Google search results.

But to answer your question; yes. Absolutely people search for books by genre. You've noticed how Amazon is very keen on providing a huge, and growing, list of genre categories, and sub categories, and sub-sub categories to help buyers find the kinds of books they are looking for.

You've probably hit a jackpot. Why? Take a look at the Fantasy category in Amazon. 100's of thousands of books are listed under the genre of 'Fantasy'. What that means is that my book, which is a fantasy, is buried under the thousands of other books so categorized.

Here's my suggestion for you then. Optimize, optimize, optimize. What this means in terms of SEO is this. Make sure that the genre title 'Environmental Thriller' Is everywhere. Make sure its in your book description, book blurb, author bio, amazon Keyword choices. If you have any websites or author sites or anything, get that Keyword there. What this does is give Google even more traction, so if anybody is looking for anything along the lines of, oh I don't know, say "environmental thrillers' your book pops up first.

That genre title is a magic keyword for you.
Keep it up.

---Demar