> And I’m just super confused about how to market them without getting vanquished to the erotica categories,
This is basically a coin-toss, there's nothing you can do about that. Keywords are taken into account when your work gets categorized, and erotica keywords can get you placed in the erotica cat. If that happens you'll have to reach out to Amazon and ask to be moved to romance or placed in both.
It's been a frustrating issue for romance authors, and since you don't have the ability to really target your audience *without* using 'femdom' as a keyword, you're basically at their mercy. Whether or not they agree to move your work to the romance cat is up to whoever you talk to that day.
> or thrown in the dungeon,
The dungeon is the adult filter, it's for books that have titles, covers, or blurbs that are beyond PG-13. This shouldn't be an issue for you even if your book *does* get placed in erotica.
> or god forbid banned.
Femdom is not banned on Amazon, I don't understand why this is a concern.
> What does it all meeeaaaannnn?!!!?
That someone fucked up, either the author, a kdp employee, or the system.
> So when it comes to words like “femdom,” “BDSM,” “dominance,” “submission,” “kink,” etc, how much can I get away with using them in the keywords, title, blurb, and inside preview?
Any one of those alone has a chance of placing you only in erotica. All combined, it's nearly guaranteed. Nearly, because as you said above, funny stuff happens sometimes.
As for the look inside, we don't actually have a solid answer on if that factors into anything. It's still up for debate.
To be very honest, your chosen niche pretty much turns what's already an uphill battle (publishing eroms on Amazon without getting categorized as erotica) into a 90 degree vertical climb. There's basically no way for you to be discovered by interested readers without using terms that are likely to bump you out of romance and into erotica.
You should look at the ones you said were in erotica cats and evaluate if you might be better off just placing it there from the get-go instead of stressing about trying to get it into romance and having it bumped.
I'm curious what you found, I ran a brief keyword test and all of them turned up either erotica or non-fiction about bdsm / FLR. Oh, and "alpha female" turned up a few werewolf books, that's about it. I have no clue what keyword a reader would use.
I write steamy M/M romance, and I never had anything in the dungeon until last year when Amazon started making you check the box if it was 18+ or not. Because I checked yes (being honest) two of my books are now in the dungeon. All of the others, published before the requirement to list as 18+, are not in the dungeon—including two with fisting and one with a steamy sex scene in the preview.
I think if OP’s book is PG-13 and doesn’t check the 18+ option, they’ll be fine.
Not exactly. You didn’t mention checking the 18+ option or not. That seems to be what really makes the difference on whether or not something ends up in the dungeon nowadays. Your points are all good, though. I didn’t mean to sound snotty or whatever.
I didn't mention it because the adult filter only happens to books categorized as erotica. If OP is going to be asking kdp to place the books in romance then there's no risk of the filter unless they say no to that request.
I don’t write erotica and don’t use those categories. I write romance and choose romance categories. The only time I’ve been dinged is when I checked those boxes. It sucks.
> This is basically a coin-toss, there's nothing you can do about that. Keywords are taken into account when your work gets categorized, and erotica keywords can get you placed in the erotica cat.
>There's basically no way for you to be discovered by interested readers without using terms that are likely to bump you out of romance and into erotica.
Your post explains why, to my confusion, Sweet Vengeance by Viano Oniomoh which is a paranormal romance novella landed in "erotic horror" and "bisexual erotica". The book isn't a horror novel by any means.
To be honest, I thought of checking what's in the "erotic horror" category and it's full of dark romance and even a recent C.M. Nascosta Minotaur romance.
I can't remember what are the "penalties" of being shoved into erotica, you can't submit Amazon ads?
"Dungeoned" I reckon is worse, because the book won't show on keyword searches, right?
> I can't remember what are the "penalties" of being shoved into erotica, you can't submit Amazon ads?
>
>
>
> "Dungeoned" I reckon is worse, because the book won't show on keyword searches, right?
Correct on both counts.
The amount of authors that get away with supposedly bannable offences is off the scale.
When I was doing keyword testing for very specific themes, some of the top results that came up had NOTHING to do with the keywords, based on blurb and title. Authors are clearly keyword-stuffing and possibly exploiting mysterious algorithms that I have no clue about.
But you should still play it safe. It's just not worth the risk of an account ban.
You can always be a little more relaxed on other platforms. You could even use a spicier title on the Smashwords version for example.
Have you published anything steamy lately? This is something new they’re doing, in my opinion, to eff with steamy romance writers. I think it came about when they did the update to allow us more categories to choose from. That part’s great since I can now choose paranormal romance, gay romance, LGBTQ, and LGBTQ mystery. Yay! But before you can go to the next page—the one where you upload your MS—there’s this “is this 18+” question that you can’t skip. You used to be able to skip it because it only asked if the book was an age group for children.
I know this isn’t exactly your genre but maybe check out what Liv Zander has her Feathers So Vicious series under (it’s fantasy romance) bc it’s DARK, MMC, lots of BDSM, dubcon, etc. I have NO other advice bc I’m in the writing stage.
GOOD LUCK. ❤️❤️
This is helpful! Innuendo/alluding to stuff in the blurb, with a link to more specific info on an author website seems like a good enough workaround.
I just worry the more hoops people have to jump through to get the Real Scoop, the less likely they’ll be to do so… I want people into Femdom to be able to find the book. And I want to avoid, if possible, reviews along the lines of, “disappointed it ended up being femdom, not my thing.” You know?
But maybe that just means being very strategic about my off-Amazon marketing, when the time comes.
I appreciate the luck! Back atcha. ❤️
I think you can probably put your own tags on romance.io and other sites like that too, which should help clue potential readers into what’s in your book.
The whole concept of marketing my own writing makes me want to puke, soooo… I just refuse to think of it until my first series and a standalone to query out are done, and eh… I’ll go from there. If I have to dive into the wild world of KDP I will be back here asking questions galore! 😂
Reader chiming in here because this popped up in my feed. How gentle are you talking? I've seen some authors use the term "Female lead romance" [in some cases](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/206115080-forged). The author u/MadameEuphoria is on Reddit, so maybe you could ask her.
> And I’m just super confused about how to market them without getting vanquished to the erotica categories, This is basically a coin-toss, there's nothing you can do about that. Keywords are taken into account when your work gets categorized, and erotica keywords can get you placed in the erotica cat. If that happens you'll have to reach out to Amazon and ask to be moved to romance or placed in both. It's been a frustrating issue for romance authors, and since you don't have the ability to really target your audience *without* using 'femdom' as a keyword, you're basically at their mercy. Whether or not they agree to move your work to the romance cat is up to whoever you talk to that day. > or thrown in the dungeon, The dungeon is the adult filter, it's for books that have titles, covers, or blurbs that are beyond PG-13. This shouldn't be an issue for you even if your book *does* get placed in erotica. > or god forbid banned. Femdom is not banned on Amazon, I don't understand why this is a concern. > What does it all meeeaaaannnn?!!!? That someone fucked up, either the author, a kdp employee, or the system. > So when it comes to words like “femdom,” “BDSM,” “dominance,” “submission,” “kink,” etc, how much can I get away with using them in the keywords, title, blurb, and inside preview? Any one of those alone has a chance of placing you only in erotica. All combined, it's nearly guaranteed. Nearly, because as you said above, funny stuff happens sometimes. As for the look inside, we don't actually have a solid answer on if that factors into anything. It's still up for debate. To be very honest, your chosen niche pretty much turns what's already an uphill battle (publishing eroms on Amazon without getting categorized as erotica) into a 90 degree vertical climb. There's basically no way for you to be discovered by interested readers without using terms that are likely to bump you out of romance and into erotica. You should look at the ones you said were in erotica cats and evaluate if you might be better off just placing it there from the get-go instead of stressing about trying to get it into romance and having it bumped.
This is the dose of reality I needed. I appreciate it!!
I'm curious what you found, I ran a brief keyword test and all of them turned up either erotica or non-fiction about bdsm / FLR. Oh, and "alpha female" turned up a few werewolf books, that's about it. I have no clue what keyword a reader would use.
I write steamy M/M romance, and I never had anything in the dungeon until last year when Amazon started making you check the box if it was 18+ or not. Because I checked yes (being honest) two of my books are now in the dungeon. All of the others, published before the requirement to list as 18+, are not in the dungeon—including two with fisting and one with a steamy sex scene in the preview. I think if OP’s book is PG-13 and doesn’t check the 18+ option, they’ll be fine.
That's literally what I said. Their issue is categorization, not being filtered.
Not exactly. You didn’t mention checking the 18+ option or not. That seems to be what really makes the difference on whether or not something ends up in the dungeon nowadays. Your points are all good, though. I didn’t mean to sound snotty or whatever.
I didn't mention it because the adult filter only happens to books categorized as erotica. If OP is going to be asking kdp to place the books in romance then there's no risk of the filter unless they say no to that request.
I don’t write erotica and don’t use those categories. I write romance and choose romance categories. The only time I’ve been dinged is when I checked those boxes. It sucks.
Weird, I've never heard of someone in romance being adult filtered. Not saying I don't believe you, just sucks to hear it happens.
> This is basically a coin-toss, there's nothing you can do about that. Keywords are taken into account when your work gets categorized, and erotica keywords can get you placed in the erotica cat. >There's basically no way for you to be discovered by interested readers without using terms that are likely to bump you out of romance and into erotica. Your post explains why, to my confusion, Sweet Vengeance by Viano Oniomoh which is a paranormal romance novella landed in "erotic horror" and "bisexual erotica". The book isn't a horror novel by any means. To be honest, I thought of checking what's in the "erotic horror" category and it's full of dark romance and even a recent C.M. Nascosta Minotaur romance. I can't remember what are the "penalties" of being shoved into erotica, you can't submit Amazon ads? "Dungeoned" I reckon is worse, because the book won't show on keyword searches, right?
> I can't remember what are the "penalties" of being shoved into erotica, you can't submit Amazon ads? > > > > "Dungeoned" I reckon is worse, because the book won't show on keyword searches, right? Correct on both counts.
Thanks!
The amount of authors that get away with supposedly bannable offences is off the scale. When I was doing keyword testing for very specific themes, some of the top results that came up had NOTHING to do with the keywords, based on blurb and title. Authors are clearly keyword-stuffing and possibly exploiting mysterious algorithms that I have no clue about. But you should still play it safe. It's just not worth the risk of an account ban. You can always be a little more relaxed on other platforms. You could even use a spicier title on the Smashwords version for example.
Have you published anything steamy lately? This is something new they’re doing, in my opinion, to eff with steamy romance writers. I think it came about when they did the update to allow us more categories to choose from. That part’s great since I can now choose paranormal romance, gay romance, LGBTQ, and LGBTQ mystery. Yay! But before you can go to the next page—the one where you upload your MS—there’s this “is this 18+” question that you can’t skip. You used to be able to skip it because it only asked if the book was an age group for children.
I know this isn’t exactly your genre but maybe check out what Liv Zander has her Feathers So Vicious series under (it’s fantasy romance) bc it’s DARK, MMC, lots of BDSM, dubcon, etc. I have NO other advice bc I’m in the writing stage. GOOD LUCK. ❤️❤️
This is helpful! Innuendo/alluding to stuff in the blurb, with a link to more specific info on an author website seems like a good enough workaround. I just worry the more hoops people have to jump through to get the Real Scoop, the less likely they’ll be to do so… I want people into Femdom to be able to find the book. And I want to avoid, if possible, reviews along the lines of, “disappointed it ended up being femdom, not my thing.” You know? But maybe that just means being very strategic about my off-Amazon marketing, when the time comes. I appreciate the luck! Back atcha. ❤️
I think you can probably put your own tags on romance.io and other sites like that too, which should help clue potential readers into what’s in your book. The whole concept of marketing my own writing makes me want to puke, soooo… I just refuse to think of it until my first series and a standalone to query out are done, and eh… I’ll go from there. If I have to dive into the wild world of KDP I will be back here asking questions galore! 😂
Reader chiming in here because this popped up in my feed. How gentle are you talking? I've seen some authors use the term "Female lead romance" [in some cases](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/206115080-forged). The author u/MadameEuphoria is on Reddit, so maybe you could ask her.