Summer is for Experimenting!

I have been working/pitching a series of four board books for the last few years on the seasonal changes in nature and the connection to God’s creative care. Amazon had comp titles on changing nature and on Creation Event but none that connected them. I have a niche!

But how do we convey those unique selling points (!) to publishers? I needed to talk their talk. How would this book play in the open market? I put ChatGPT to work.

Amazon Categories

Specifically what Amazon categories: When God Colors…Spring. Red birds, brown mud, green frogs, pink worms. Every season God reveals new colors in nature. In this multi-engaging board book, objects appear under color flaps on each page. Other Titles: Summer, Autumn, Winter.

ChatGPT

For a book like “When God Colors…Spring,” you could consider the following Amazon categories:

1. Children’s Religious Books
2. Christian Children’s Books
3. Board Books
4. Nature & the Natural World Children’s Books
5. Early Learning Basic Concepts Books (Colors)
6. Christian Fiction for Children
7. Children’s Concept Books
8. Christian Baby & Toddler Books
9. Interactive Children’s Books
10. Christian Board Books

This is excellent information for finding comp titles. But for people to use Amazon’s categories, I needed keywords for online descriptions, articles, ads, and blurbs.

Key Words

I asked: the best keywords for the story: When God Colors…Spring. Red birds, brown mud, green frogs, pink worms. Every season God reveals new colors in nature. In this multi-engaging board book, objects appear under color flaps on each page. Other Titles: Summer, Autumn, Winter.

ChatGPT

1. God’s Palette
2. Nature’s Canvas
3. Colorful Creations
4. Spring Surprises
5. Flapping Colors
6. Discovering Spring
7. Hidden Hues
8. Seasonal Spectacles
9. Vibrant Springtime
10. Exploring Nature’s Tints

I must not have been clear. Those look like titles, not search terms. Most of them missed the connection to God. Would anyone look up “Exploring Nature’s Tints”?

Discoverability

I tried again with the buzzword: discoverability terms: When God Colors…Spring. Red birds, brown mud, green frogs, pink worms. Every season God reveals new colors in nature. In this multi-engaging board book, objects appear under color flaps on each page. Other Titles: Summer, Autumn, Winter.

ChatGPT

To enhance discoverability for “When God Colors…Spring,” you could use the following terms:

1. Christian board books
2. Nature-inspired children’s books
3. Interactive learning for toddlers
4. Colorful Christian stories for kids
5. Lift-the-flap board books
6. Seasonal exploration for children
7. Religious concept books for young readers
8. God’s creation in children’s literature
9. Early childhood Christian education
10. Christian-themed interactive picture books

Those don’t seem kid-friendly, but I am not selling to kids but parents and teachers. I’ll try those in my pitch or cover blurb.

Testing AI Results

I tried a few of those terms and did a Google search to see if it understood me. (Or me and AI)

Christian board books – besides sellers, I found a few blogs I might contact for reviews or inclusions on lists.

Lift-the-flap board books – only sellers.

Religious concept books for young readers -that term collected mostly books for middle school.

God’s creation in children’s literature – all original creation books, 1 reviewer

Christian-themed interactive picture books – this was a winner! Several different blogs and lots of full-color pictures.

Essentially AI is useful for sweeping data searches, but there must be some human evaluation almost on a micro level. It did give me some ideas to follow up and feel more ready to send When God Creates…Spring into the world!

Multi-award-winning author Robin Currie learned story sharing sitting on the floor during more than 1000 story times but is still unpacking AI. She has sold 1.7 M copies of her 40 storybooks and writes stories to read and read again!