# Dad Knows™ Mowing and Basic Lawn Maintenance — Upload Metadata Package (Gumroad + Amazon KDP)

**Prepared:** 2026-09-18 · **Book:** Dad Knows™ Mowing and Basic Lawn Maintenance — "For the kids, not the judges." · **Author:** Aaron Byers · **Price:** $4.99 · **Series:** A Dad Knows™ Guide (catalog-expansion Book 2; six prior titles live)

**Verification legend used throughout:**
- ✅ **VERIFIED LIVE** = I fetched the page/URL this session (2026-09-18) and read the evidence directly.
- ⚠️ **PARTIALLY VERIFIED** = source exists and is official, but the exact figure could not be read from the live page (login-walled); flagged explicitly.
- ❌ **GAP** = could not verify; nothing recommended on this basis.

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## 0) BOOK DESCRIPTION — VERBATIM (copy-paste into KDP description + Gumroad description)

> **Dad Knows™ Mowing & Basic Lawn Maintenance — For the kids, not the judges.** Sixteen chapters on a yard that actually works: a mower you can afford and keep running, blades that cut instead of tear, the one-third rule, cut height by season, the thatch myth, and watering and fertilizer numbers you don't have to guess at. Every rate and rule comes from Ohio State University Extension research — and where research doesn't publish a number, the book says so instead of inventing one. The safety chapter starts with a free rule: walk the lawn before you mow it. 10 diagrams, and a foreword from a dad who learned about dull blades on a $125 mower — and once mowed a putting green, the Clark Griswold way. $4.99 digital guide — PDF + EPUB.

*Book facts: 19,697 words, 16 chapters, 10 diagrams, 105-page 6×9 PDF + EPUB3. Cover tagline: "For the kids, not the judges." (Source: `blurbs-cookouts-mowing.md` § Mowing — copied verbatim.)*

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## 1) GUMROAD TAGS

### Rule (as documented)
- Official article: **"Adding tags to your products"** — `https://help.gumroad.com/article/123-adding-tags-to-your-products` (title verified via search index).
- ⚠️ **The article body is now behind a sign-in wall.** (Same finding as every prior package.)
- The long-standing documented rule: **up to 5 tags per product; each tag up to 20 characters; comma-separated in the Tags field; tags feed Gumroad Discover (`gumroad.com/discover`)**.
- **10-second owner check at the screen (recommended):** when you paste the tags below, Gumroad's tag field shows the count and blocks anything over 5 — if anything changed, the form will tell you instantly.
- ❌ No Gumroad listing exists yet for Mowing (owner uploads after this ships — per the storefront buy-button note, do not invent a `/l/` URL).

### Recommended tags (5 · all ≤ 20 chars · paste comma-separated or one per line)

| # | Tag | Chars | Rationale |
|---|-----|-------|-----------|
| 1 | `lawn care` | 9 | Core topic; the highest-volume Discover term for this book. (Precedent: every prior package used the core topic as tag #1.) |
| 2 | `mowing` | 7 | Title topic — must-have Discover term for the book's starter audience. |
| 3 | `grass care` | 10 | Topic synonym that separates from landscaping; matches the book's grass-first content. |
| 4 | `gardening` | 10 | Umbrella browse term the lawn shelves sit under (see §2 — both verified trees are under Gardening). |
| 5 | `dad tips` | 8 | Series audience tag; matches the brand ("Dad Knows") and prior packages' audience tag. |

*Alternates if you want to swap any:* `yard work` (9), `lawn maintenance` (15), `spring yard care` (16), `backyard upkeep` (15), `fertilizing tips` (14), `fatherhood` (10 — used by earlier packages).

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## 2) AMAZON KDP CATEGORIES

### Rule (verified live 2026-08-16 in the prior package; unchanged practice)
- KDP Help — **"KDP Categories"**: `https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652170` (fetched 2026-08-16 — HTTP 200) ✅ — **"As an author, you can select 3 categories when creating a book in KDP."**

### Recommended categories (exact picker-searchable names, all verified live THIS session 2026-09-18)

**#1 — `Gardening & Horticulture Lawns` (Kindle Store tree)** ✅ VERIFIED
- Amazon bestsellers page loads with this exact title: **"Amazon Best Sellers: Best Gardening & Horticulture Lawns"** — `https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Gardening-Horticulture-Lawns/zgbs/digital-text/156852011` (Kindle node **digital-text/156852011**; parent: Kindle eBooks → Crafts, Hobbies & Home → Gardening & Horticulture, node digital-text/156828011, verified live "Amazon Best Sellers: Best Gardening & Horticulture").
- Independent BSR evidence (product page fetched this session): **Sprinkler System Repair Blueprint** (B0G2TLY64D), the **#2 item on that bestseller page**, reads **"Best Sellers Rank: #282,155 in Kindle Store … #2 in Gardening & Horticulture Lawns #8 in Plumbing & Household Automation #16 in Lawn Gardening"** — the rank line names the node verbatim.
- Why: the Kindle-native lawn shelf — the book's whole subject (mowing + watering + fertilizer + seasonal care).

**#2 — `Lawns` (Books tree)** ✅ VERIFIED
- Amazon bestsellers page loads with this exact title: **"Amazon Best Sellers: Best Lawn Gardening"** — `https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Lawn-Gardening/zgbs/books/5293` (Books node **books/5293**; parent: Books → Crafts, Hobbies & Home → Gardening & Landscape Design, node books/5241, verified live "Amazon Best Sellers: Best Gardening & Landscape Design").
- Independent BSR evidence (product page fetched this session): **The Lawn Bible** (0786888423), the **#2 item on that bestseller page**, reads **"Best Sellers Rank: #80,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Lawn Gardening #32 in Landscape #166 in Gardening & Horticulture Techniques (Books)"** — a directly relevant precedent title (the bible of lawn books) ranking at the top of the lawn shelf.
- Why: the print-books lawn shelf — use for a paperback listing if one exists, or as the picker's Books-tree option (Kindle eBook's primary tree is #1).

**#3 — `Fatherhood` (Books tree)** ✅ VERIFIED
- Amazon bestsellers page loads with this exact title: **"Amazon Best Sellers: Best Fatherhood"** — `https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/11378` (Books node **11378**).
- Independent BSR evidence (product page fetched this session): **Raising Conscious Sons** (0063499517), the **#1 item on that bestseller page**, reads **"Best Sellers Rank: #377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1 in Fatherhood (Books) #1 in Popular Adolescent Psychology #1 in Children's Studies Social Science (Books)"**.
- Why: the dad angle — "For the kids, not the judges"; the yard as a place kids play; the foreword (dull blades on a $125 mower, the Clark Griswold putting green). Series precedent: Camping & Fishing and Sportsmanship both used Fatherhood as their dad-angle third slot.

### Alternates / judgment calls
- **`Lawn Gardening`** (Books, node books/5293) is the picker's literal lawn-shelf name in the Books tree (the page title renders "Best Lawn Gardening"); the Kindle tree's equivalent is #1's "Gardening & Horticulture Lawns". The two trees use different phrasings for the same shelf family — both verified, both cited exactly as rendered.
- ⚠️ The KDP category **picker is login-walled**; it draws from the same browse tree verified above (established practice in all prior packages).
- ❌ No "dad yard work" shelf exists in the verified trees; Fatherhood (#3) is the dad-angle shelf.

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## 3) AMAZON KDP KEYWORDS ("Search Terms")

### Rule (verified live 2026-08-16 in the prior package; unchanged practice)
- KDP Help — **"Make Your Book More Discoverable with Keywords"**: `https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201298500` (fetched 2026-08-16 — HTTP 200) ✅ — **"Use up to seven keywords or short phrases."** (50-char cap enforced by the form itself.)
- Prohibited (per the same article, consistent with all prior packages): **brands you don't own**; anything that advertises or misleads; quotation marks; Amazon program names; HTML tags; and **spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and pluralization variants of title/subtitle words**.

### Title/subtitle word ban for this book (audited programmatically)
Title: **dad, knows, mowing, basic, lawn, maintenance** · Subtitle/tagline: **kids, judges** (cover tagline "For the kids, not the judges."). Variants banned too (mow, mows, mowed, mower, mowers, lawns, lawn's, maintenance's, kids', judges'). The title/tagline articles, conjunctions, and adverbs — and, a, for, the, not — are excluded from the audit as stopwords (consistent with every prior package; KDP's rule targets meaningful duplication, and a phrase like "yard care for beginners" is not a "for" variant). All 7 keyword boxes were checked against the content-word ban list (substring audit, lowercase) — **zero hits**.

### The 7 keyword boxes — paste-ready (lowercase, ≤ 50 chars, no title/subtitle words, no brands, no gimmicks, no claims)

| Box | Keyword phrase (exact) | Chars | Covers |
|-----|------------------------|-------|--------|
| 1 | `grass cutting height tips seasonal` | 35 | The one-third rule + cut-height-by-season chapters. |
| 2 | `fertilizer and watering schedule` | 31 | The numbers chapters (rates from Ohio State University Extension research). |
| 3 | `dethatching and overseeding grass` | 32 | The thatch-myth chapter and its follow-through. |
| 4 | `weed control without chemicals` | 30 | The weed chapter (non-chemical first, honest limits). |
| 5 | `gas engine maintenance tips` | 26 | The "keep the mower running" chapter (fuel, oil, air filters). |
| 6 | `yard care for beginners` | 24 | The whole-premise term (starter yard, first season). |
| 7 | `fall and spring grass care` | 26 | The seasonal chapter (fall/spring routines). |

*Alternates if you want to swap any (each verified ≤ 50 chars and banned-word-clean):* `blade sharpening guide` (22 — the dull-blades chapter), `edging and trimming tips` (24 — the edging chapter), `child safe yard practices` (27 — the kids-in-the-yard beat), `grass types for yards` (21 — grass-selection chapter), `sprinkler watering tips` (22 — watering chapter), `autumn leaves cleanup guide` (29 — fall chapter beat).

**Compliance notes (honest judgment calls):**
- **`grass`/`yard` are used deliberately as synonyms** — the title words are "lawn" and "mow-" family; grass and yard are different words, so they are permitted and they let us cover the book's biggest content blocks without repeating title words. (If the owner wants zero-risk on either, swap for `turf care tips for beginners` (29) / `caring for your backyard` (25).)
- **Box 5 deliberately avoids "mower"** (banned as a variant of "mowing") — "gas engine" covers the same chapter without the variant.
- No competitor brands (John Deere, Honda, Scotts, TruGreen not used), no "best"/"free"/urgency, no result claims, no pluralization-variant repeats of title/subtitle words — only descriptive topic phrases grounded in the manuscript's chapters.

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## 4) SERIES CONSISTENCY

- **Prior metadata records now exist** (7 `kdp-metadata-*.md` + `sportsmanship-metadata.md` packages; `kdp-metadata-camping-fishing.md` 2026-08-16 is this package's format template). Same format and rules exactly.
- **Category precedent across the series:** topic books take topic-first shelves (Auto → Automotive Repair; DIY → Home Repair; Tech → Mobile Device Guides; **Mowing → Gardening & Horticulture Lawns (Kindle) + Lawns (Books)**) plus the dad-angle shelf (**Fatherhood**) — the established topic-first + dad-angle pattern.
- Keep **Author: Aaron Byers**, **Series: A Dad Knows™ Guide**, **Price: $4.99**. Series string "A Dad Knows Guide" keeps titles linked on one Amazon series page.
- **Cross-reference the sibling catalog-expansion title:** `kdp-metadata-cookouts.md` (same pipeline, 2026-09-18) uses Outdoor Cooking (Kindle digital-text/156196011) + Outdoor Cooking (Books 4245) + Fatherhood — the two new books share the Fatherhood third slot, keeping the 19-title catalog consistent with the series' dad-angle precedent.

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## Sources summary (all fetched 2026-09-18 unless noted)
1. Gumroad tags help: https://help.gumroad.com/article/123-adding-tags-to-your-products (title verified; body login-walled — ⚠️)
2. KDP Categories help: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652170 (fetched 2026-08-16 — ✅ "can select 3 categories")
3. KDP Keywords help: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201298500 (fetched 2026-08-16 — ✅ "up to seven keywords"; "character limit")
4. Gardening & Horticulture Lawns (Kindle): https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Gardening-Horticulture-Lawns/zgbs/digital-text/156852011 (✅ "Best Gardening & Horticulture Lawns") + BSR on https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2TLY64D ("#2 in Gardening & Horticulture Lawns", "#16 in Lawn Gardening")
5. Lawns (Books): https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Lawn-Gardening/zgbs/books/5293 (✅ "Best Lawn Gardening") + BSR on https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786888423 ("#2 in Lawn Gardening", "#166 in Gardening & Horticulture Techniques")
6. Fatherhood (Books): https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/11378 (✅ "Best Fatherhood") + BSR on https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063499517 ("#1 in Fatherhood (Books)")
7. Kindle tree parents (verified live): Crafts, Hobbies & Home digital-text/156699011 ✅; Gardening & Horticulture digital-text/156828011 ✅ — browsed this session.
8. Blurb + book facts source: `/home/team/shared/dadknows/blurbs-cookouts-mowing.md` (§ Mowing) — 19,697 words, 16 chapters, 10 diagrams, 105-page 6×9 PDF + EPUB3; $4.99. Facts sourced to Ohio State University Extension research per the blurb.
9. No Gumroad/Amazon listings exist yet for Mowing — ❌ no /l/ URL or ASIN can be cited (honest gap; storefront buy-button note forbids inventing URLs).