How to Add Book Categories on Amazon
Adding as many book categories on Amazon as possible is hugely important in getting your book in front of readers. You can have your book listed in a total of ten categories on Amazon in addition to the two you chose when publishing the title. But how do you go about adding all of these categories?
First, let’s look at why the book categories are important.
Why Are Amazon Categories Important?
You may wonder why you need to have your book in as many categories on the Amazon store as possible. The reason is simple. The more categories your book is shown under, the more visibility it gains in the store.
Think of categories as bookshelves in a bookstore. If your book is on display in ten areas, as opposed to one, your title will be more visible and easier for new readers to discover.
The more categories your book is listed under, the more searches it will show up in, and get a ranking for. (Each book is ranked by category on Amazon).
Whilst it’s important that your book is in the large categories in which it truly belongs, you could also place your book into categories that aren’t that popular because there your book can get a higher ranking. You may even get a best-seller tag, which will again increase the book’s visibility.
How to Find the Right Categories
To find the right categories for your book, you could use software such as Publisher Rocket, or simply browse the Amazon site for suitable categories for your book. Publisher Rocket gives you more information, such as the competitiveness and popularity of each category, but you can quite easily do the research yourself.
First look for a book that is similar to yours. Then tap on the category at the bottom of the book’s detail panel and you will be taken to the best-sellers in this category.
The categories are found on the left-hand side. The category for this book is: Kindle Store>Kindle eBooks>Literature & Fiction>World Literature>Scandinavian. If your book is set in Scandinavia (as mine are), this could one of your categories.
Do this exercise for several books that are similar to yours, and you’ll end up with a list of categories.
As well as finding the right categories through comparative titles and authors, you can also determine the categories with your genre, subject matter, and keywords. This metadata will give you an idea of which categories you should choose. Just search Amazon with these details and see what books come up and then see what categories the books are listed under. For Kindle books search under ‘Kindle Store’ and for paperbacks under ‘Books’. (See below why this is important for your research.)
Don’t forget, the categories you choose have to relate to your book. For more about how to choose your categories, read this: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652170
Up to 10 Categories
What not everybody realizes is that you can have up to 10 categories for your KDP Book.
You add the first two categories from the KDP dashboard whilst entering the details of your book before publishing it. You can search for categories in the panel itself. Then you’ll have to ask Amazon to add the eight categories. For this, you’ll need to get the category “string” exactly right. (See the example above and below).
Kindle and Paperback Categories
The categories are different for both Kindle and paperback books. Kindle books will have ‘Kindle’ in the category string, while paperback books will include ‘Books’.
The above title in paperback format is Books>Literature & Fiction>World Literature>Scandinavian
To confuse matters more, Amazon often displays both the Kindle and the paperback categories on the product detail panels for one. So a Kindle title – just as the book above – could have a paperback category listed under the Kindle book details, especially if the book ranks higher on one than the other.
Country Stores and Categories
In addition to having different categories for the different formats, the categories are also different in all the international stores. When asking Amazon to add or change categories (which you can do at any time), you have to specify the country store, ie. COM / CO.UK / CA / AU and so on. Bear this also in mind when doing your research into the categories. For the Amazon.uk.co site, for example, categories can be quite different from the Amazon.com site.
Obviously, for the different language sites, the categories are also different. It's worthwhile, even if you don't speak the language and your books are published in English, to investigate the categories in different language markets. I hit the No1 bestseller in the German store (Amazpon.de) in several categories when I spent a little time drilling down and finding the right categories for my fiction books.
Amazon likes to change the category strings occasionally, so it’s also important to keep an eye out for your categories after you’ve published your title. The store will add your book to categories it thinks are right, if you haven’t asked for the maximum of 10 categories.
Step-by-step Guide to Asking Amazon for 8 More Categories
To add the eight categories on top of the ones you chose when publishing your title, you need to go first to your KDP Bookshelf. Incidentally, you can also ask Amazon to remove and change categories that your book is listed under. This might happen if the categories aren’t performing well for your book, for example.
Tap on the “Help” function at the top of the page.
2. Next, go to the bottom of the Help Page and tap on the orange button labelled, “Contact Us”.
3. On the page “How Can We Help?”, click the first item on the list and you will be given a pre-filled email form. Follow this to the letter, detailing each ASIN, title, and country separately and giving the accurate category string.
It’s important to put all information on separate lines. Below is part of the latest message regarding categories changes I requested:
Hi, please can you update categories as follows:
ASIN: B07Y269QYZ An Island Christmas
eBook
Kindle store: UK
Categories to be added:
1. Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Holidays
2. Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Psychological
3. Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Family Life
4. Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Contemporary Women
5. Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction
Categories to be removed:
1. Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Contemporary (This is listed twice in the book's categories)
2. Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Classics > Romance
It can take Amazon a few days to action your email, but I have found that the updates happen very quickly.
That’s it! I know this all seems a bit daunting, especially if it’s your first time as a self-published author. But with practice finding categories and asking Amazon to place your books into their right categories becomes second nature, I promise. ;-)
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