Metadata best practices for higher visibility

Metadata is the data that describes your book — title, description, keywords, categories. It's the single biggest lever for discoverability on every retailer.

Title

• Exact title: match your cover exactly, including capitalization. "The Marriage Trade" not "the marriage trade".
• No retailer mentions: don't put "(Kindle Edition)" or "Best Seller" in the title — retailers strip those.
• Series naming: if it's part of a series, put the title alone in the Title field, and use the Series Name + Number fields. Don't put "Book 2 of XYZ" in the title.

Description

This is the marketing copy that appears on every retailer page. 250–4000 characters; 800–1500 is the sweet spot.

• Opening hook: the first 2 lines are what readers see in search results. Make them irresistible.
• Specifics over generalities: "set in 1980s Lagos during the SAP riots" beats "set in a turbulent African city".
• Genre cues: mention recognisable comp titles ("for fans of Akwaeke Emezi and Bernardine Evaristo").
• Avoid spoilers: describe the setup, not the ending.
• HTML allowed: <p> for paragraphs, <b> for emphasis, <i> for italics. Most retailers strip everything else.

Keywords

You get up to 7 keyword slots. These are how retailer search engines find your book.

• Be specific. "African historical fiction" beats "fiction".
• Use phrases, not single words. "queer Nigerian love story" beats "queer".
• Don't repeat words from your title — that's wasted.
• No competitor names. Amazon will reject "fans of Akwaeke Emezi" — they don't allow author names in keywords.
• Don't keyword-stuff in your description. It hurts more than it helps.

Categories

You can pick up to three BISAC subject headings. Choose the most specific ones — "African Romance" > "Romance > Multicultural" > "Romance".

For each retailer, more specific categories rank you in smaller, less competitive lists. A book in "Fiction > African" is competing with 500 others; a book in "Fiction > Africa > Nigeria > Contemporary" competes with 30.

Language

Pick the primary language. If your book uses Pidgin or has substantial Yoruba/Hausa/Igbo passages, still mark it as English with those passages — that's how readers will search for it.

Publication date

For new releases: pick a Tuesday or Thursday. Mondays are the day NYT bestsellers list updates, so launching then puts you in front of attentive readers.

For backlist: pick the original publication date. Retailers use this for "newest first" sort order, so older books in the New Releases list look out of place.