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When I decided to try writing romance seriously, I went looking for the formula. I'm a data person, so I assumed there was one. I read eight guides, six of them in full, which was plenty, and reading about Amazon felt like progress. It wasn't. None of it put a single word on the page.
Here's what I found. An Amazon community manager on its seller forum says Amazon doesn't publish its search rules. The guides rebuild them from the outside, with different data, for different products. Four of the six I compared lean on sales velocity, three of them with a weight of 35 to 40%. Two put conversion first. None showed me their data. What Amazon does tell authors is short: keywords, categories, rank, and how long a change takes to show up. It was enough to start designing a test model of my own.
The key details
- Teneo, Sales velocity, 35%
- Teneo (search only), Keyword relevance, 60%
- Nova, Sales velocity, 35 to 40%
- AMZ Prep, Conversion rate, 30 to 40%
- Hill Tree Press, Sales velocity, 40%
- SellerSprite, Conversion rate, none given
- HMD Publishing, Steady daily sales, "89% better in search results"
Sources (7)
Source: CS3-129 CS3-130 CS3-132 CS3-133 CS3-134 CS3-135 CS3-141
See the numbers
| Guide | Top factor | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Teneo | Sales velocity | 35% |
| Teneo (search only) | Keyword relevance | 60% |
| Nova | Sales velocity | 35 to 40% |
| AMZ Prep | Conversion rate | 30 to 40% |
| Hill Tree Press | Sales velocity | 40% |
| SellerSprite | Conversion rate | none given |
| HMD Publishing | Steady daily sales | "89% better in search results" |
Lined up, four of the six lean on sales velocity and two put conversion first. But the six numbers aren't measuring the same thing. Half the guides are written for sellers of physical products, and they mix search with sales rank, so they can't be added up into one formula for ranking a book.
- 7: Keywords or short phrases per book
- 3: Categories you can pick in KDP
- 72 h: For most changes to show up on a published eBook
- 1 week: At most, for rank to update after a category change
Amazon says rank is relative, weights recent sales more heavily, and can give "general insight" into marketing, but "is not an accurate way to track your book's activity". And changes take time to land, so checking two days later can mean judging a change that isn't live yet.
- List price, 24 hours
- Keywords, title, description, 72 hours
- Categories, 72 hours
- Cover, 72 hours
- Sales rank after first completed sale, 24 to 48 hours
- Sales rank after a category change, up to 1 week
Sources (3)
Source: CS3-127 CS3-144 CS3-147
See the numbers
| Change | Estimate |
|---|---|
| List price | 24 hours |
| Keywords, title, description | 72 hours |
| Categories | 72 hours |
| Cover | 72 hours |
| Sales rank after first completed sale | 24 to 48 hours |
| Sales rank after a category change | up to 1 week |
My test model is a simple, written-down way to try one change at a time and see what it does. That's where my Amazon time is going now, and the rest of it is going back to the manuscript.
- Pick one thing: Keyword, category, cover, description or price.
- Write it down: Date, change, format, marketplace, sales before.
- Let it land: 72 h for most changes, 24 h for price, up to a week for rank after a category change.
- Judge by sales: KDP orders and pages read, not rank. Each format on its own.
- Change the next one: Note anything else that happened that week.
Sources (1)
Source: Waiting times from Amazon's Timelines page CS3-127
What "we modeled it" means
A model works out the rules from the outside by watching what happens, a bit like guessing a recipe from the taste. That's fair work, and it's fair for a guide to keep its data private. It also means nobody outside can check it, and every model has blind spots about the books it never saw.
- Snapshot model. Sees: Books still listed today, usually the ones doing well. Misses: Books that did the same things, sank, and were buried or taken down before that day.
- Tracking model. Sees: The rises and falls of every book it started tracking. Misses: Books it never added, and anything before tracking began.
Sources (2)
Source: CS3-131 CS3-145
Where this is soft
- I can't say how much each factor counts, because Amazon doesn't say.
- Where I say a guide shows no method or data, I mean none on the page I read.
- The comparison covers six guides I read in full in September 2026.
- Amazon calls its timelines "estimates only".
The full case study has Amazon's own words, the questions I asked every guide, and the full test loop.
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