There’s something rank in the world of online publishing.

I’ve felt down and been asking THE QUESTION. WHY am I writing? It’s an isolating, thankless, frustrating task and one that seems more fruitless when you consider the relentless war of *SEO words when plugging your products into a hugely competitive global market.

Yesterday, someone asked me where did my books rank? Because I’ve been bobbing along the bottom of the massive Amazon soak-hole, I haven’t really considered my books ranking anywhere. But this morning I downloaded some online reports.

With millions of books on Amazon’s website, Duplicity hit Number One twice in the Biographical Fiction genre in the last three weeks. Today it’s #441 – amongst more than 50,000 individual titles in the same genre. Trouble is Amazon’s bots don’t take notice of you unless you’re in the top 100 – so a bit more to go!! While I was at it, I thought, why not check my other books? No Ordinary Man is sitting at #33, also in Biographical Fiction. Maybe, just maybe, this is my REAL genre and NOT romance? Quelle horror! I’ve never felt sure about where my writing sits as it threads across several different themes and genres. A few months ago, I decided to become genre-agnostic – that didn’t help, and the relentless Amazon bots chose to ignore me. How many harsh lessons does a human have to learn in a lifetime? Enough already!

No Ordinary Man is ranked at #133 in the massive genre of over 90,000 War Fiction titles. That was a surprise too! I need to get off my chuff and make sure I list my books in these genre’s, which readers have cleverly selected for my work. After much personal gnashing of teeth and sleepless nights trying to work out what category my books fall into, so I could target new readers, they have finally told me themselves! Aren’t algorithms grand (tongue firmly in cheek)!

Voila! Customer search words are telling me where I need to focus my tiny advertising budget. The time and dollars wasted over the past few years by not selecting the relevant search words would bring a tear to your eye. Trying to beat those bot-machines is a fulltime job, and I’ve got better things to do, like book writing!

In the Deep End (a two-book family saga), which I’ve barely marketed at all – too busy writing the next book after being told you need at least ten published books before the Bots notice you. This book is ranked in Contemporary American Fiction, with over 90,000 titles, at #38 and #96 in Women’s Sagas with 30,000 titles. I better do some work around keywords and categories with all my books and kiss the romance genre (over 200,000 titles), goodbye. Farewell, dear friend, our love of one another was so short-lived! Bitter-sweet romance is now culled from my vocab!

What’s worse? There are only 36 DAYS to Christmas!!! No Pressure!!