April 19th, 2011
Loading ...Until I got involved with indie publishing, I’d never even noticed the product tags on Amazon. And I’ve been shopping at Amazon since the day it opened. Seriously. They own me. Shoes, blue jeans, groceries, electronics, toiletries. There’s next to nothing I haven’t bought there – and yet I’d never once looked at tags. It seems, however, that tags are a big deal for indie authors. But I’m more curious if they’re a big deal for readers. So take the poll and let me know, and comment early and often!
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I shop Amazon all the time too but honestly never knew about the Search Products Tagged With box!
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Same here, so I was really surprised to find how many authors rely on them being clicked and accurate. I’d never seen them before until I put out my backlist titles!
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I never knew they had the tags until I was posting a review for a book. It asked for tags at the end. I think I tagged the book, but don’t search with them.
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I’ve never run across anyone who’s searched with them. So I was very curious!
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I never knew it existed. I do look at what other books/authors were purchased, but never scrolled down far enough to see the tag box.
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I do that, too, Mary. Click through to other things folks have bought.
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I had no idea that was there, and I’ve been buying tons of baby stuff on Amazon. So going to use it now!
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I wonder if they’d be more effective if they were higher on the page. I never go that far down!
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Yes I have!
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Yay! That’s now TWO people, LOL! The other one was on Facebook where I asked the same question!
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Readers may “use” product tags more than they realize if they’ve ever clicked on the bar of related books that appears below the book they’re viewing. Even if readers don’t use them directly, Amazon uses them for its algorithms. I don’t often search within a tag, but I regularly click on those related books links.
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Right, I think we all click on the related books. But I wasn’t aware that a lot of indie authors seem to live and die by getting their books properly tagged. I just didn’t understand the obsession since I’ve never heard a single reader mention using tags! Now if they drive the related books, that totally makes sense!
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I don’t use them as a reader, but it is my understanding that they get used for things like lists, so if a book is tagged as X it might end up on the top 20 X books list, which a lot of us see as we log in.
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See, this is another cool reason for tags, and yet NO ONE on any of the author loops I’m on mentions any of this. I think people just follow along without understanding, but I’ve got to know the reasons behind these things, LOL!