Orb Station Zero is a science fiction novel set on a spaceship about fighting aliens. It is not, never has been, never can be a superhero novel.
And yet.
The Fantasy > Superhero category Hot New Releases Section. Number 6 – woohoo! Oh.
Kindle has placed it in the Superhero category. It stands out like a sore thumb amongst the ACTUAL urban fantasy type novels that belong here. Sticks out like a sore, shiny, blue, spaceship-shaped thumb.
Kindle’s Fantasy > Superhero Category Top 20. Woohoo! Oh.
It is a Hot New Release for sure. Unless you only like Urban Fantasy. (It’s a Hot New Release in a bunch of scifi categories too, yes).
Sales Rankings Summary on Book Page
In fact, Orb Station Zero is in 7 Kindle categories. 6 of which are the scifi ones I wanted, more or less and one the mistake – superhero. Out of all these, Amazon automatically picks 3 that it shows under the Product Details section. And which of these rankings has it been showing constantly for the last couple weeks? Right at the top, every day. SUPERHERO.
How did this happen? Well, a few days after launch I rewrote the product description a bit and added the words “super soldier” and in the next paragraph had the word “heroes”. Clearly, that triggered an algorithm and here we are.
Kindle Direct Publishing customer support have always been fantastic with previous issues. And this time they responded right away and said they would change it. I chased a few days later and they told me to be patient, changes take up to 96 hours to show up on the marketplace. Last I heard, a few days ago, “We’ll need a little time to look into this. I’ve reached out to our Technical Team to investigate this.”
It’s been about 16 days since I asked them to change it. Has anyone bought the book in that time expecting a superhero story? It has a spaceship on the cover and is called the Galactic Arena Series so maybe not. Maybe they have though.
Maybe, and this is what annoys me the most, maybe I have had scifi fans, hardboiled military scifi fans who would love this book but then they saw the Superhero category there and thought “What the heck is this bullshit? I ain’t want no goddamned caped, masked idiot prancing about on my spaceships!” (yes, that’s exactly how they think and speak, all of them) and decided NOT TO BUY.
I have no way of knowing that. There’s another reason it irks me. Maybe some readers or fellow authors are assuming I am in some way attempting to game the system. Putting your book in a category it shouldn’t be in just to rank higher in a category – any category – is a tactic some people employ.
Not me though. Not on purpose, anyway.
Are you a reader? Would this sort of thing confuse you, put you off? Or would you not even notice?
Are you an author? Has this happened to you? Did it EVER get resolved?
Hi Dan. I had one of my Arthurian novels published by a Canadian publisher. Amazon would not let the publisher use the Arthurian category because they were in Canada. Never did resolve that until I took back my rights.
Hi Cheryl, that seems like a strange reason. Was it because a Canadian publisher isn’t from… Cornwall or something?? I’ve seen people using the Arthurian category with books that clearly have nothing to do with those legends. In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw a blog post a while back suggesting general fantasy authors try using it because you get more visibility in a niche and readers will forgive you. I don’t agree with that, seems like the wrong way to go about building a fan base to me…
Weird, but not so bad if you’re turning up on the “new hot” list in several categories.
It is weird, isn’t it. Why can’t they just change it? And you’re right, I’m pretty happy overall because 6 novels in and I am actually selling a little bit. Who knows how long it will last? Well, it will only be “new” for another week or so then it may well drop off that dreaded 30-day sales cliff. In the meantime, yes, not so bad.