And once again, things change. As of January 2013, Amazon deleted all tags. You can still search by keyword and the tags you input are still there, but NEW tags are no longer available. If you want to know how tags USED to work, read this post:
Like the changing tides, different movements surge in and out of style among Amazon authors. For instance, we love to read and leave reviews for our fellow authors, but now Amazon is quietly removing some author-for-author reviews, citing conflict of interest. “Like” chains are popular (authors who agree to visit each others’ book pages and click the “like” button), but folks are beginning to grumble that the practice of artificially increasing a book’s like numbers may mislead the reader about the quality of the novel. 
One thing we can do for one another that can’t be misconstrued as inaccurate or artificial? “Tagging” books.
Tag, you’re it!
The day my contemporary fiction/mystery novel Mark of the Loon went live on Amazon, I emailed half a dozen friends who had read the mss and asked them to hop over and “like” the page when they had a chance (so my book wouldn’t be all alone). A couple of these clearly-savvier-than-me authors reported back that they’d added tags, and I should go agree with them. Say what? Okay, one more thing to learn. So I Googled “What are tags?” and found Amazon’s handy-dandy explanation. Here’s what I discovered.
Book tags help determine Amazon search results
When a reader searches Amazon for books associated with a genre or topic, items on Amazon tagged with that specific genre, topic, word or phrase pop up in search results. The more readers/page visitors “agree” with the tags already associated with a book, the higher that book will rank in Amazon searches using one of the words or phrases the book has been tagged with. And the closer a book gets to the top of the list that results from a random search, the more likely readers are to actually click on the cover to read more about it. Once they find it, they can decide for themselves whether they want to buy it or not.
Add your Amazon book tags NOW!
If you haven’t already, add tags to your own Amazon books NOW so readers and page visitors can “agree” with them! Here’s how:
• Go to your book’s Amazon product page
• Scroll down below customer reviews and your bio
• At the very bottom, you’ll see a “tag” section
• Enter (type in) up to 15 tags
Note: your tags can be words from the book title, your genre(s), topics associated with your book, as well as countries, cities and regions where the story takes place.
A SIMPLE WAY to agree with other authors’ book TAGS
Few of us have time to read and review all the books we’d like to get to. But it just takes a few seconds to support other authors by “agreeing” with their tags. Here’s a shortcut:
• Land on their book page
• Type the letters “tt” (just type tt twice anywhere on the page, don’t look for a box to type it into!)
• Wait for the tag window to pop up
• Click on each highlighted tag suggestion one at a time. They’ll be added to a box called “your tags”
• Click on Save Tags
Note: You can try this nifty method out right now and support this hopeful author by linking here. My book page will open in a new window. You don’t even need to scroll – just 1) type tt, 2) click on each highlighted word/phrase, and 3) Click “Save Tags.” Close the browser window and you’ll come right back to this page. (THANK YOU!)
You can click any tag on any book’s page, and Amazon will display the other books tagged with that same word or phrase. For instance, Mark of the Loon is tagged with the word “girlfriends.” when I click on that tag on my book’s page, all other books & items for sale on Amazon that are tagged with that word are displayed. As I’m writing this post, there are nine pages of search results in this category, and Mark of the Loon was #6 on the returned search results, YAAAY! (Note: Not all tag search results are books. “Gilmore Girls,” the complete DVD, was rated #81. Alas, “Bust Boom Breast Enhancer” was rated #98. So exciting that I beat them!)
You can also join Twitter’s #TagitTuesday tag swap – just tweet your book link along with the #TagitTuesday hashtag. Be sure to search the hashtag and give back as much as you get!
Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to my blog and you’ll never miss my weekly posts! Just enter your email address in the upper right corner of this page. It’s easy, and I won’t share your email address with anyone!
Really helpful! I cannot wait until I have a book up on Amazon!
We can’t wait either, Jodi!
#I #heart #your #how-to #posts. ######Thank you!######
Ha! Thank you, my sister!
Have tagged and liked you Molly, thanks for the tip.
Mwah! Thanks so much, Steve!
Tagged and liked. Thanks for the post!
Thanks so much, Steve!!
Thanks for the update, Molly! You’re the best. Great information. I appreciate you taking the time to share it.
Cat 🙂
Thanks so much, Cat! I have nightmares about running out of blog post ideas … feel free to help me out w/suggestions!
I’ve participated in the tagging for the reasons you explain here but sometimes I wonder how effective this is. I have seen books with hundreds of tags selling lousy and books with a handful of tags selling well. Does having many tags REALLY make a difference in book sales? I would like to see hard data on this because tagging books takes a substantial amount of time.
Hey Rolando! My opinion? Tags only help “offer” a book to readers who search for the tagged phrases/words. I don’t think tags can make a book sell, they can only help improve chances of it showing in a search result. Purchasing is still up to the reader/searcher. And like everything else, YES! it does take time. But now that I know about tags, I use my handy-dandy shortcut to tag books when I land on an Amazon page. Can’t hurt!
You’re a marvel, Molly.
I played the ‘tt’ game with your book. It sort of feels like being on a ‘Secret Seven’ adventure; never knew you could just type ‘tt’ at random on an Amazon page and, hey presto, up pops a window. Funny, I always wondered about the message ‘Agree with these tags?’ I also wonder if Amazon customers in general know about this ‘tt’ game. JB 🙂
Hey JB! Thanks for tagging my book, will tag yours back and appreciate the support!
Hi Molly –
I visited your “Mark of the Loon” page on Amazon and typed in “tt” anywhere on the page. The tags did come up as you said (like, you were playing a trick on us :P). It was quick and easy to click on your tags, so, they’ve been liked by Charlie.
I’ve never understood how tags, or tagging, works. Maybe that’s why my “LOL” book tags have only been clicked a few times. I’m not even sure they are the correct (or most favorable) tags for my book. Please pop by my Amazon page and take a look when you get some free time. I’d like to know just how whacked out my tags might be.
Thank you for an informative and well-written post. Happy Thursday evening. 🙂
Hey Brian! Thanks for the “tag,” I visited your book page and tagged you back. Your tags aren’t whacked out at all … but as for “correct” tags for your book, I’m a newbie there and haven’t read it. Could you add more genres to your tags that books similar to yours might also be tagged with? Reader searches by genre may be the most common searches. Hope this helps and makes sense! And thanks so much for the read and your lovely comment, I appreciate it!
Thanks for this informative, easy to follow post. I learned what I have been missing about tagging on Amazon. I don’t think I really understood how to tag on someone else’s page. Your instructions rock! Tagged yours and hope I get some for my own book. I’m going to check them over to be sure I did them correctly!
Molly, Thanks for the great tip. Getting people to the book is the goal. From there, hopefully, a great cover and the sample will sell the reader on the book. Thanks again for this tip!
-Bill
Hi Bill! Agreed. Add patience to the mix and we should be all set! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog.
Really useful post, Molly! I went to your book and did as you say – the ‘tt’ thing is magic! BUT when I went to your book on amazon.co.uk there were no tags! If you put some in I’ll tag those too. If you feel like tagging any – or all – of my books, that would be great!
Hi Tim! I owe you … thought I had all the bases covered, but I forgot all about Amazon UK and my friends across the pond, BAD MOLLY! Will right this wrong within the next couple days and will tag your books ASAP!
My pleasure, Molly. Glad to be of help.
I ttd you. Hope it worked.
Continued good luck.
mwah! Thanks, Marie, same to you!
I LOVE this! I’ve added this post as a link to a post where I talked about it because I had a similar situation happen to me! Thank you so much! This was VERY helpful!
Hey Frankie, thanks so much for adding my post link to your blog, I appreciate it and am so pleased that the info helped!
Hello everyone, my book titled “Where Did We Go Wrong” was released August 16th and it has great reviews so far. I would certainly appreciate additional tags and I will return the favor. Thanks
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0615662072
Hi Molly, I agree with you that tagging helps get books in front of readers who may not otherwise see that book. Just a note, I couldn’t find “Save,” but tagged and then clicked “Agree with these tags,” and it worked as well. Mark of the Loon looks great. 🙂
Valerie, thanks so much for the tagging and for taking the time to leave a comment and let me know! And thanks for stopping by my blog!
Mercy me… Thanks so much for this… I do know I have to tag but it was getting beyond me… A lot does these days….x
Am off to have a go on your book…xx
Thank you so much, Tallulah!
For some reason the “tt” did nothing for me. I wonder if it’s browser-related? I’m using Firefox.
Cassandra I am so sorry! I was just logging in to hide that post when I found your new comment. Amazon deleted all tags last week. You can still search by keyword, but tags are no longer available.