Metadata That Sells: Titles, Subtitles, and Keywords
You work hard on your book. The retail page should work just as hard. Most authors tweak covers and blurbs, yet leave the title, subtitle, and keywords as an afterthought. Those three lines of metadata decide who sees you, who clicks you, and who buys you.
Metadata looks simple. It isn’t. It’s the quiet salesperson greeting every reader query, and it has to do three jobs at once: signal genre, speak to desire, and be discoverable. Get those right and your ads get cheaper, your unpaid reach grows, and your conversion rate climbs.
Here’s the plan: understand how readers search, craft titles that pull, choose keywords that match intent, and test changes without burning months.
Reader Search Behavior
You sell to two audiences: the reader and the retailer’s search box. Most readers don’t browse like librarians. They search in plain language, skim thumbnails, and click what matches their current itch.
There are a handful of repeatable search modes. Each mode suggests what your metadata needs to say.
- “I want more like X” (author or series name).
- “I want a specific vibe” (trope, tone, setting).
- “I want help with Y” (problem or goal for nonfiction).
- “I want something quick and free/included” (format or price).
Readers following “more like X” type the author or series they just finished. They’re primed to buy and open to something adjacent. If your subtitle whispers the same promise, you become a valid substitute in that moment.
A romance reader might search “Emily Henry beach read.” The first page fills with bright, contemporary covers that promise banter and summer towns. A subtitle like “A small-town, slow-burn beach romance” tells that reader, “This fits your mood.”
Your next step: list the top three authors your target readers already love. For each, search their name plus one trope, and screenshot the top twelve results.
Readers chasing “a specific vibe” type descriptors and tropes. They pile on words until the results look right. That’s where long, specific phrases shine.
Picture a fantasy reader typing “found family mage heist.” They’re not asking for “fantasy” in general. They’re asking for “crew dynamics, magic, and a caper.” You win that click if your title or subtitle includes at least two of those signals.
Your next step: write ten “vibe” phrases your readers would type when they’re in the mood for your exact book. Keep them to two to five words each.
Nonfiction readers search by problem. They want clear, direct outcomes and timelines. They choose the book that feels fast, practical, and tailored to their situation.
A busy parent might search “meal prep for picky eaters.” A subtitle like “A 30-day meal plan with 15-minute recipes for kids who refuse veggies” beats cleverness because it confirms outcome, speed, and audience.
Your next step: write three “outcome + timeline” phrases your book can truthfully deliver. Check that each one implies a measurable result.
Some readers search by convenience. They add words like “short,” “novella,” “audiobook,” or “paperback.” They care about format, time commitment, or what’s included with a subscription.
For example, “novella horror haunted house” pulls up quick reads with tight promises on the cover and subtitle. A subtitle like “A 120-page haunted house novella” meets this reader on format and length, not just theme.
Your next step: decide your book’s strongest convenience angle (length, format, bingeable series) and state it in seven words or fewer.
The retailer’s search box gives you free data. As you type, autocomplete suggests popular phrases. That’s the closest thing to a reader’s mind you’ll ever get without asking them.
Start typing a seed word like “cozy mystery bake” and watch “cozy mystery bakery,” “cozy mystery baking competition,” or “cozy mystery baker amateur sleuth” appear. These are ready-made phrases readers use. Your subtitle and backend keywords should reflect them when relevant.
Your next step: gather twenty relevant autocomplete phrases from two retailers, copy them into a spreadsheet, and bold the five you can naturally support in your metadata.
Readers skim fast. They judge in less than two seconds on mobile. Your metadata must put the core promise front and center using the same words readers use to search.
If your current title hides genre and your subtitle rambles, you burn those seconds. If your subtitle carries the theme, trope, and outcome, you buy attention.
Your next step: open your product page on your phone and read the title and subtitle once out loud. Ask a non-writer friend to say the genre and core promise in one sentence. If they hesitate, your metadata is unclear.
Retailer algorithms match queries to tokens in your title, subtitle, series name, and keywords field. They also watch which results convert and adjust over time. Clear, consistent phrasing gives the engine a pattern to trust.
If your metadata says “witch, small town, and cat sidekick,” and readers who type “witch cat cozy mystery” click and buy, you’ll hold and improve position.
Your next step: identify three phrases you want to be known for and commit to using them across titles, subtitles, series names, and descriptions for your next three books.
Takeaway: understand the real queries your readers use, then reflect those words faithfully in your metadata.
Crafting Compelling Titles
Great titles do three things: attract the right readers, make genre self-evident, and earn search visibility. Clever is fine. Clear sells.
A title without a genre signal forces the subtitle to work overtime. A title that’s all trope and no craft feels generic. Aim for a blend: one evocative noun or verb plus one genre signpost.
“Ashes” is evocative but vague. “Ashes of the Iron Mage” signals fantasy. “Ashes of the Iron Mage: A Heist Fantasy” confirms subgenre and sets an expectation anyone can parse at a glance.
Your next step: draft twenty title candidates that pair an evocative element with a genre cue. For each, write a ten-word subtitle that states the promise.
Your title length affects scannability. Short titles read well at thumbnail; longer ones can carry more keywords. If you go long, keep the first two words punchy and the last word strong.
“Mercenary Mage” reads fast. “Mercenary Mage: A Found-Family Heist” reads fast and adds two search-friendly signals. The last word “Heist” lands the concept.
Your next step: put your top five titles into a one-inch-wide mobile mockup. Remove any that blur or lose impact.
Fiction titles should carry a promise of experience. Words like “heist,” “revenge,” “redemption,” “banter,” “haunted,” “cozy,” or “gritty” tell a mood and a shape of story. Use them without overloading.
“Graveyard Shift” could be anything. “Graveyard Shift: A Gritty Paranormal Detective Mystery” narrows it and uses two clear signals: “paranormal” and “detective.”
Your next step: list three mood words and two trope words that belong to your story. Combine one of each into a subtitle draft.
Nonfiction titles should anchor to outcome, audience, and timeline. Replace metaphors with what the reader will have after reading.
“Stronger” is vague. “Strength After 40: A 12-Week Plan for Busy Women” names a demographic, a timeline, and an outcome. It sells to intent, not curiosity.
Your next step: write three nonfiction subtitle formulas: “Outcome + Audience + Time,” “Outcome + Method + Count,” and “Outcome + Constraint + Benefit.” Fill each with your book’s specifics.
Series names are metadata too. A series title that carries a genre and a recurring element helps with discoverability across all volumes. Keep numbering unambiguous and consistent.
“Ravenwood Files” adds mystique. “Ravenwood Files: Small-Town Detective Mysteries” indexes better and tells readers exactly what they’ll get across books.
Your next step: define your series name with a genre anchor. Draft how it appears on the spine, the cover, and the product page to ensure consistency.
Use subtitles to add precision. Subtitles should read like a promise, not a word salad. Retailers penalize spammy strings and irrelevant words. Keep it natural and within guidelines, and make sure all metadata matches your cover and interior.
“Book One in a Brand-New Magical, Cozy, Paranormal Witch Pie Baking Mystery Series” wastes space and attention. “A Culinary Cozy Mystery with a Witchy Twist” reads like a human wrote it and carries two distinct signals.
Your next step: write five subtitle options, each under fifteen words, each a complete sentence fragment you’d be comfortable saying aloud to a reader.
Match your market’s naming patterns without copying them. Readers use conventions to find their vibe. If your subgenre often uses “A Highland…” or “A Space Marine…” and your book belongs there, meet expectations.
A historical romance set in Scotland with a second-chance romance can lean into “A Highland Second-Chance Romance.” That phrase signals place and trope, which is how readers shop.
Your next step: choose three top-selling comps and extract the common words in their titles and subtitles. Decide which two you will adopt and which one you will avoid to stand out.
Tropes are buyer language. Include one or two in your metadata only if they truly belong. Avoid stacking five tropes and confusing the promise.
“Enemies to lovers,” “grumpy sunshine,” and “fake dating” are clear to romance readers. A subtitle like “An Enemies-to-Lovers, Small-Town Romance” is direct and searchable.
Your next step: pick a single trope to highlight in the subtitle. Confirm it’s evident in your blurb and first three chapters so you deliver the promise.
Avoid internal jokes and opaque metaphors. What delights your critique group might mean nothing to a cold reader. Use the words your readers already mutter to themselves while searching.
“Blue Sunday” could be a song. “Blue Sunday: A Slow-Burn Rock Star Romance” anchors a mood and a subgenre. It meets a search like “slow burn rock star romance” word-for-word.
Your next step: run a “cold read” test. Send three title/subtitle combos to five non-writer readers and ask them to choose the one they’d click for your subgenre. Count clicks, pick the winner.
Respect retailer policies. Don’t use competitor names, brand names, or misleading qualifiers. Titles and subtitles should reflect what’s on your cover and in your book.
If you’re tempted to add “Kindle Unlimited,” don’t. If you’re tempted to stuff commas with ten unrelated keywords, don’t. You can still be descriptive and compliant.
Your next step: paste your working title and subtitle into a doc and highlight any word that could be seen as a brand or competitor. Replace them with generic equivalents.
Order matters. Put the strongest, most relevant words first. Readers skim left to right. The first two words carry weight on mobile, in lists, and in search results.
“Deadly Knit Night” beats “A Night of Deadly Knits” in scannability and memorability. It front-loads the promise (“Deadly” and “Knit”) and sets a cozy-mystery mood.
Your next step: rewrite your title in three orders. Say each out loud. Keep the one that punches first.
Titles live across formats. What works in audio introductions and paperback spines matters too. Shorter phrases are easier for narrators to say and for listeners to remember.
A subtitle like “A 12-Week Plan” is clear on audio. A subtitle like “Twelve Weeks to Transformative Empowered Wellness for Dynamic Women Leaders” is a mouthful and loses meaning when heard once.
Your next step: record yourself saying the title and subtitle as if reading an audiobook intro. If you stumble, simplify.
Genre-informed typography is metadata in disguise. While this article focuses on words, remember readers read your text design as a signal too. Sparse, modern fonts with ample spacing cue different expectations than script fonts with flourishes.
A thriller with a combative, blocky title font announces danger. A cozy with a playful script telegraphs warmth. The words and their visual treatment should align one-to-one.
Your next step: place your title and subtitle in two genre-appropriate font treatments and ask five target readers which one “feels more like the book” to them.
Clarity is kindness, and kindness sells. Make the shopping decision easy. A reader who knows what they’re getting before clicking buys faster and reviews more generously.
When someone searches “space salvage crew found family,” and your subtitle says “A Space-Salvage, Found-Family Adventure,” that micro moment feels like being seen. You remove friction.
Your next step: circle the one sentence in your subtitle that says “what it is,” not “how clever you are.” If you can’t find it, rewrite.
Takeaway: titles attract, subtitles explain, and both must speak the words your reader already uses.
Intelligent Keywords
Keywords are the connective tissue between your book and real reader queries. They work behind the scenes so your book can show up in the right searches at the right time.
Retailers give you “backend” keywords—fields customers don’t see—and they index your title, subtitle, and series name. Use backend fields to add phrases you couldn’t fit on the cover. Avoid repeating unique words already present in your visible metadata.
If your subtitle includes “witch,” “cozy,” and “bakery,” you might use backend fields for “baking competition mystery,” “amateur sleuth with cat,” and “small-town culinary cozy.” You’re adding edges to the profile, not stacking duplicates.
Your next step: compile a bank of fifty keywords and phrases relevant to your book. Tag which ones are already in your title or subtitle, and save backend slots for gaps.
Long-tail phrases are your friend. A long-tail phrase is a specific, multi-word query with lower competition and higher intent. These feel like how a reader would actually search after a few disappointing results.
“Fantasy” is broad. “Heist fantasy with found family” is a long-tail phrase signaling someone who knows what they want. That’s the click you want.
Your next step: choose ten long-tail phrases you can naturally support, each three to five words long.
Match keywords to intent. Intent is what the searcher wants to do: buy a vibe, solve a problem, or find a format. If your terms are mismatched to your content, you’ll get clicks that bounce, and the algorithm will learn to bury you.
A reader who types “slow-burn romance” expects restraint and build-up. Don’t use “slow burn” as a keyword if your book hits “love at first sight.” Misalignment hurts conversion and rankings.
Your next step: for each keyword, write a one-sentence “why this fits my book.” Delete any that feel like a stretch.
Group keywords by theme. You want coverage for setting, trope, tone, and audience. That balance helps the search engine triangulate and helps your ads learn faster too.
For a Vermont bakery cozy, setting could be “Vermont,” “New England small town.” Trope could be “amateur sleuth,” “baking competition,” “cat sidekick.” Tone could be “wholesome,” “humorous,” “comfort read.” Audience could be “for fans of culinary cozies.”
Your next step: select two phrases in each theme bucket. Ensure the total across buckets reflects your core promise first.
Harvest keywords from places your readers hang out. Look for the exact words they use to describe books like yours, not what writers call them.
- Retailer autocomplete for your top five seed words.
- Review language on your top ten comps.
- List names and shelf names on reading communities.
- Ad search term reports once you’re running campaigns.
Autocomplete gives you live demand. Reviews give you sticky descriptors. List names capture how readers categorize. Ad data tells you what actually drives clicks.
If you run a space opera with salvage crews and big battles, reviews might say “starship salvage,” “ragtag crew,” and “captain with a past.” Those are keyword candidates and also subtitle fodder.
Your next step: copy fifty relevant phrases from reviews and lists into your bank, then rank them by frequency and closeness to your book.
Avoid restricted and irrelevant terms. Don’t use brand names or trademarked words you don’t own. Don’t add unrelated topical keywords in hopes of “extra exposure.” Retailers can suppress or penalize your listing.
If you’re tempted to use “Kindle,” “Audible,” “Netflix,” or a competing author’s name, stop. Use generic descriptors: “ebook,” “audiobook,” or “for fans of witty romcoms.”
Your next step: review retailer metadata guidelines for your primary storefront. Remove anything doubtful from your keyword bank before publishing.
Think like a librarian and a shopper. Librarians use controlled vocabularies; shoppers use feelings and problems. Your keyword set should bridge both.
“Urban fantasy” is a controlled term. “Kickass heroine with magic and attitude” is shopper language. Use both, in different fields, to catch both types of searches.
Your next step: flag five controlled terms and five shopper phrases. Ensure at least one of each appears in your visible metadata.
Consider misspellings only if common and compliant. Some retailers auto-correct. Some don’t. Most discourage adding misspellings. Your time is better spent on synonyms and variants.
Instead of “bakerry” for “bakery,” consider “patissier,” “pastry,” or “bake-off,” if those are real parts of your book. These add nuance and avoid policy cliffs.
Your next step: list three synonyms for each of your top five keywords. Pick the most natural for your audience.
Don’t overfit to trends. Chasing what’s hot can backfire if it’s not your lane. Keywords should describe your book first, then reach for the tailwind of a trend if it aligns.
If “dark academia” is surging but your mystery is bright and wholesome, skip it. Use “campus cozy mystery” if your setting supports it. Honesty sells long-term.
Your next step: look at the top charts in your category. Note one trend you will ignore and one aligned phrase you will adopt.
Use backend fields efficiently. Most retailers ignore word order in backend fields and consider word presence. That means phrases are helpful, but you can chain words into fields and still get coverage on combinations.
If you enter “witch cat bakery cozy mystery small town,” you’ll match many combinations readers type. If you have space, include natural-sounding phrases where they match real searches.
Your next step: fill each backend field with a compact, comma-free string of words and short phrases, favoring coverage over repetition.
Track whether you’re indexed for key phrases. After you publish or update metadata, give indexing time. Then search for your exact phrase and see whether your book appears in the results.
If you search “baking competition cozy mystery” and don’t see your book in the top two hundred after a week, that phrase may not be supported by your content. Or you might need more sales and clicks for the engine to trust you.
Your next step: pick ten must-win phrases. Check your presence weekly for a month and note movement. Adjust only after you’ve gathered trend, not a day’s blip.
Use ad campaigns as keyword laboratories. Ads give you search term reports—the exact phrases that triggered your ad—and performance metrics like CTR (click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions) and conversion rate (orders divided by clicks).
If “grumpy sunshine small town” yields a 1.8% CTR and 12% conversion, while “small town romance” yields a 0.6% CTR and 5% conversion, you’ve found a higher-intent phrase. That should inform both backend keywords and your subtitle.
Your next step: run a small phrase-match ad with twenty long-tail phrases for seven days. Pause low CTR phrases and promote winners into your metadata and blurb.
Branded keywords matter once you have an audience. “Your Name,” “Your Series,” and exact book titles are branded terms. Protect them with ads if you can, and ensure your metadata is consistent so you always own your brand queries.
A reader who types your series name should see the cleanest, most consistent titling across all volumes. Consistency is discoverability.
Your next step: search your author name and series name in an incognito browser. Replace any inconsistent metadata across formats.
Keywords carry to your backlist. Each new book is a chance to strengthen your footprint for core phrases. Reuse the same two or three evergreen keywords throughout a series to teach the engine what you’re about.
If all five books in your detective series carry “small-town detective mystery” somewhere in their metadata, the retailer has more evidence to match you to that query.
Your next step: choose the two evergreen phrases you’ll use across your series. Add them to your series metadata plan.
Takeaway: keywords are not magic words—they are accurate, reader-tested phrases that make the right readers find the right book at the right moment.
A/B Testing Your Page
You improve what you measure. While retailers don’t let you split-test (A/B test) two titles on the same page at once, you can design simple, clean tests that point you toward better decisions.
Test one variable at a time. Change the subtitle, not the title and cover and price all at once. Give the test a defined window and a clear success metric.
If you run ads during the test, hold budget and targeting steady. Look at ad-level conversion numbers to see whether the change improved how efficiently a click turns into a sale.
Your next step: define your next test as “Subtitle A vs Subtitle B,” lasting fourteen days each, with a success metric of ad conversion rate improving by at least 20%.
Use preorders to test titles with lower risk. While you can change titles post-release, it’s cleaner to lock in what works before publication. Preorders give you time to test copy on ads and in newsletters.
You can run two social ads that only differ by headline (your title/subtitle) and watch cost per click and click-to-cart behavior. The better-performing copy is your likely winner.
Your next step: set up two ads with identical images, audiences, and budgets. Test two title/subtitle options as the headline and record click-through rate and cost per click for seven days.
Newsletters are quiet laboratories. Your subject line can act like a title test. Your link text can act like a subtitle test. The higher open and click consistently indicate what phrasing resonates.
Try “A Found-Family Heist Fantasy Arrives” versus “A Mage, A Crew, One Impossible Theft.” Then compare link clicks to the same landing page. The higher-click option gets your next focus.
Your next step: send your next newsletter with an A/B subject-line test that mirrors two subtitle options. Choose the winner based on click-through within 24 hours.
Polling works when done simply. Show two thumbnail mockups with titles and subtitles. Ask readers to click the one they’d buy. Emphasize that you want first impressions, not explanations.
A three-question survey with two side-by-side images and one checkbox forces a quick, gut-level decision. That’s the moment you’re designing for.
Your next step: build a one-minute poll with two options. Send it to your street team and cap it at fifty responses to avoid overfitting to superfans.
Landing pages help isolate variables off-platform. Build a simple page with your cover and two headline variants. Split traffic evenly and track button clicks to the retailer. You’re testing click intent in a controlled setting.
If Variant A gets a 22% click rate and Variant B gets 14%, you’ve found a more potent message to carry into your retail subtitle.
Your next step: use a link shortener that can rotate destinations 50/50. Run 300 clicks through it, then pick the better-performing variant.
Track changes with a simple log. Write down the date, what you changed, and what you’re watching. Without a log, you can’t trust your memory against fluctuating sales.
A one-line entry like “June 3: changed subtitle to ‘A Heist Fantasy with Found Family’” gives you a clean before-and-after marker against your ad dashboard.
Your next step: create a single spreadsheet tab titled “Metadata Changes.” Add columns for date, change, and reason. Fill the last three changes you’ve made.
Choose practical metrics. On-ad conversion rate and cost per acquisition are clear and controlled. Organic rank for a handful of tracked phrases is helpful but noisier. Overall sales can move due to seasonality, promo, or luck.
Anchor to metrics you can influence and measure week over week. Treat anything under a 10% change as noise unless sustained over a month.
Your next step: define a minimum detectable effect for each test. For example, “Ad conversion must improve from 7% to at least 8.5% to count.”
Automate where it helps. Use saved reports in your ad platform and calendar reminders to check results. Your time is better spent writing than refreshing dashboards.
A Monday check-in with last week’s click-through rate and conversion, plus a 15-minute note on changes, keeps you honest without eating your day.
Your next step: set a recurring weekly 20-minute block called “Page Performance Review.” Stick to it for four weeks.
Avoid testing during sales storms. Big promos, price drops, or holidays introduce noise. Pick calm, representative periods for clean reads.
If you just ran a free day or a Featured Deal, wait a week before you judge metadata changes. Your flow will take time to normalize.
Your next step: mark blackout dates on your test plan where you won’t make or evaluate changes.
Don’t yank levers mid-test. Commit to the window you set unless you see a dramatic collapse in performance. Discipline separates signal from noise.
If your ad conversion drops by 50% after a change, revert and note it. If it wiggles by 5%, stay the course and let the data accrue.
Your next step: set a stop-loss rule before you start each test, like “Revert if conversion drops below 4% for three consecutive days.”
Test upstream and downstream messages too. Your subtitle will work best when the blurb echoes it, and your cover supports it. If you fix one without aligning the others, you blunt the effect.
A subtitle promising “grumpy sunshine” without any mention of it in the blurb confuses readers. When the blurb states the trope in the first line, clicks turn into buys.
Your next step: rewrite the first sentence of your blurb to mirror your subtitle’s core promise. Measure conversion for seven days.
Respect review stability when renaming. Changing a title late can confuse readers and retailers, and sometimes triggers scrutiny. When in doubt, change subtitles first and keep titles stable unless confusion is hurting sales.
A subtitle shift from “A Thriller” to “A Psychological Thriller About Obsession” can lift relevance without risking product identity.
Your next step: if your book is live, decide whether your test will focus on the subtitle first. Note the rationale in your log.
Use your own link data as a proxy for “sessions” (page views). While retailers often hide product page views, your outbound link clicks from ads, newsletters, and socials are measurable. Paired with orders, they give you a simple conversion proxy.
If 300 tracked clicks produced 24 orders, your rough conversion is 8%. After a metadata change, if 300 tracked clicks produce 33 orders, you’ve improved to 11%. That’s a real lift.
Your next step: route all outbound links through a short link you control. Label links by source so you can compare channels.
A/B testing is a habit, not a one-off. Build a rhythm: observe, hypothesize, change, measure, decide. Keep the experiments small and the stakes low.
One better subtitle can lower your ad costs and increase daily sales for months. That compounding effect is worth the week of testing.
Your next step: pick one low-risk test to run this month. Put it on the calendar and block the time to set it up.
Takeaway: test one variable at a time, measure with care, and align the rest of your page to the winning message.
Decision for today: Choose one must-win reader phrase, rewrite your subtitle to include it naturally, and schedule a two-week ad test to prove it.