Underperforming Titles

The Underperforming Titles report highlights titles with high web and social activity but low online retail performance. The book and/or author have strong consumer activity and engagement (at least historically), but that is not translating into sales today. Ensure the book and author are appropriately positioned at Amazon, and consider a promotion to help convert that interest into sales.

Why does this matter?

These titles have demonstrated sales potential that you may be able to capture with the right marketing and promotion. Online Retail Performance is not just about sales; it’s about your overall competitive positioning at Amazon. We know readers out there are interested in this book, but it’s not selling particularly well right now. That may be indicative of under-optimized metadata, inaccurate BISAC codes/categories, weak competitive pricing, or pricing of this edition relative to other formats.

Now what?

Make sure the book is accurately and attractively positioned on Amazon:

• Is it in the right categories?
• Is it comparably and competitively priced relative to other books in the category and other formats/editions of the title?
• Does it have positive consumer reviews and ratings?
• Is the cover legible, professional, and genre-appropriate?
• Does the title metadata include retailer/search keywords?
• Is the book description detailed and fresh? (Make sure it does not include any outdated references, etc.)
• Does the author have a completed Amazon Author Central page?

Consider promotions, giveaways, or price-drop campaigns aimed at likely buyers:

• Goodreads members who “want to read” the book
• Lookalike audiences based on existing fans/followers of the author
• Fans of frontlist comp titles and authors
• Fans of the genre/book category (especially if the book had been previously miscategorized)
• Member of "deal" sites and newsletters

Be sure to view Insights & Actions for each title for additional recommendations.

See our extended help documentation for additional recommendations to improve online retail performance.

• Price and discounting
• Category rankings
• Consumer reviews and ratings
• Availability