mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
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You are welcome to look at some of my listings. I sell some Craft Books, so it is a little different than what you sell, but you can get an idea.
I don't use any of the prefill info offered by Ebay's catalog. I have found too many errors in it for my liking. I also don't sell in the Books categories [higher fees] as what I sell can be under the craft category which is less expensive. So not everything in the way I set up a listing may be appropriate for you.
I haven't had ISBs [item specific boxes] erased in a very long time. But I remember it happening and it was beyond annoying. I set up my own ISBs. I have templates for each type of craft book I sell and my ISBs are set up in those templates. So I only need to fill in the blank when I set up a new listing. Of course along with creating the title, descriptions and adding pics.
For your type of books, I'd say the most important thing is to start with the Title of the book, then the author. And if there is still room, maybe the subject or that it is a Children's book. Or age range. Or whatever you think that a buyer might put into the search engine to find your book.
I like the way you format your titles. That is VERY good IMHO. You might be over using that squiggly line a bit and I'm not sure Google searches like them, but I'm not sure. What Google likes is important because a great number of buyers come to Ebay through a Google search.
You will notice if you look at my titles that I too use that character a lot, but rarely to I use it in place of a space. Running it into the words may not be a good thing for the searches. But I'm simply not sure. It is a thought to consider.
And remember your ISBs are VERY important. The search engine searches titles and ISBs when giving a return to the buyers on this site. So don't minimize the importance of them.
OK I'm going on a bit. You let me know if you need clarification on anything or if I missed your point.
I try to make sure that any fancy characters never run into a word in the title. Seems too risky to me that the search engine either here or Google just won't recognize the word correctly. IMHO
@dhbookds wrote:did you change categories? That wipes out all Item Specifics........
Oh I forgot about that. That was a HUGE problem for me at one point when Ebay was messing with categories I use. Dang that was a lot of work.
@12345jamesstamps wrote:You want to reach everyone who reads books...correct? Or do want only those who are looking for a specific titled book and most of the book buyers will never see what books you have for selling.
I stopped doing specifics....it narrows the item down to a few buyers so I noticed when I was posting specifics in the title.
I would have the word "Book' in the title....and then name of book...no dots. lines and such.
Boy I couldn't disagree more with most of what you said. With the exception of the last line. That is something I do regularly.
If it is your goal to reach "everyone who reads books" you will be forever disappointed because that is simply an impossible goal. Buyers are often looking for specific books. I know every year my daughter gives me a LONG list of books she wants for Christmas. She is big on reading with a wide variety of interests. So authors and titles are very important to many people. Doing a generic title will cause less people to see the listing.
ISBs are important and the search engine searches them too. So you can put adding info in the specifics that you can't fit into the title and still get the benefit of the search.
