The important thing to understand is that Amazon automatically creates several lists within each category to help readers see which books are trending - much the same way that a bookseller in a traditional store would arrange the window displays.

If your book is not listed where your target audience would expect to find it, then your sales will struggle, no matter how good your writing is. In short, categorization gives Amazon readers a way to search for books by genre or topic.

Why should you care about Amazon categories? For a deeper look at selecting categories, download his free ebook: How to Market a Book: Overperform in a Crowded Market.

In this article, we’ll reveal the importance of choosing the right categories and provide you some practical steps to perfectly place your book on Amazon’s bulging shelves.įor this post, we’ve had a helping hand from Reedsy's in-house marketing expert, Ricardo Fayet. But when an author self-publishes a book through Amazon, they actually have over 10,000 categories to choose between, ranging from the broad (like 'romance') to the incredibly specific (think 'viking historical romance'). To help its millions of readers discover their next literary fix, Amazon organizes all of its titles into book categories - just as traditional a bookstore would. If you needed any reminding, Amazon is still the biggest bookstore in the English-speaking world.

Kindle book store on amazon