How authors can use Amazon’s Kindle series book links to boost discoverability

Here’s some good news for authors who have a series of books as Amazon is making changes to how it lists series books in the Kindle store to make it easier for customers to find the books.

It’s a fairly simple matter to link your series books. Sign in to your Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account and go to Bookshelf/Your Book/Enter Your Book Details. You’ll see the first two boxes on the Bookshelf page are for book title and subtitle while the boxes relating to series are immediately below them. The screen shot here shows the three boxes you need to fill in to get your series linked.

Series books are books with multiple volumes — they can be complete books in a series or individual sections of a longer book.

In mid-May. Amazon will start displaying the title for series books as “Title: Subtitle (Series Title Book Volume)” on book detail pages which should help customers to find all of your books easily.

Amazon says this is how series information should be used:

  • Series Title: Your Series Title in KDP should be the name of the series. By ensuring all books in a series have the exact same value for “Series Title”, you will improve the discoverability of your books.

  • Volume: Enter only a numerical value (for example: 1, 2, 3; not “Book 5” or “Book V”)

For example, if your book is called “The World” and is the second book within your “Science Facts” book series, your information would be as follows:

  • Book title: The World Series title: Science Facts

  • Volume: 2

  • The title for this book will show up as “The World (Science Facts Book 2).”

To update your book information:
1. On your Kindle Direct Publishing bookshelf, in the “Other Book Actions” column next to the title you’re updating, click Edit book details.
2. Enter changes to your series information under Step 1. Enter Your Book Details.
3. Click Save and Continue, then click Save and Publish. Your book will be reviewed and republished with your new series information within 24 hours.

You can edit your book information now or wait to edit it in mid-May, after you see your title update on the Amazon.com Kindle Store.

Self-publishing distributor Smashwords added a Series Manager tool to its service in September last year, allowing writers to attach their books to series and manage multiple aspects of their series metadata. It features a lot more functionality and flexibility than Amazon’s new move but although the series metadata is supplied to the retailer, it’s up to the individual retailer’s policy how or whether it gets used.

You can get more information about using Kindle book details at KDP.