Add TEN Kindle categories on Amazon and increase your book sales
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2020
- How to add more Kindle categories to increase your visibility on Amazon and sell more books.
❤️ [Subscribe] More videos coming soon: ruclips.net/user/davidgaughr...
📝 [BLOG POST] Fancy all this in article form instead? Check out this post on my site, along with some bonus tips for international stores and some advice on avoiding bad categories too: davidgaughran.com/amazon-book...
🎁 [FREE BOOK] My guide to self-publishing - Let's Get Digital - is FREE on all retailers. Get your download links here: davidgaughran.com/digitalbook
🐱👤 [NINJA TIPS] My weekly marketing newsletter for writers is very handy and you get ANOTHER free book as a sign-up bonus, all about how to build an author platform: davidgaughran.com/newsletter
🚀 [SALES] This video is about categories, but if you want more direct help selling more books, these are the best promo sites in 2020: davidgaughran.com/promo-sites
🔎 [CATEGORIES] Uncover the Kindle categories for any book on Amazon with these handy tool: www.bklnk.com/categories5.php
🔧 [AMAZON] Want a whole book breaking down all the secrets of the Kindle Store, and how you can building marketing plans which work with the algorithms instead of fighting them? AMAZON DECODED is out now: davidgaughran.com/books/amazo... 
Хобби
![Sean Rii, Karyon, Sharzkii - Taungule [My Love] (Official Music Video)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eJoMuypbSzQ/mqdefault.jpg)
It's very helpful to have the step-by-step process. Thank you! If I wanted to publish also to amazon.co.uk and others, do I have to do this for every amazon page, or is amazon.com enough and the information gets across all the amazon platforms?
Some information carries across, some Amazon determines on its own, and some doesn't carry across at all - probably because the Kindle Store is broken down a little differently. So I recommend going through the process for all important markets
@@DavidGaughran Thank you for the clarification!
Great video from the guy who keeps his finger on the publishing pulse better than anyone.
Oh, stop. (Say it again...)
Thank you so much for the wealth of information!! I learned a lot in your video and can't wait to get started.
David, I'm thrilled to learn about adding more categories in KDP. My poetry book is divided in seven distinct chapters, each with its own flavor, subject matter and tone. Actually that makes the book hard to categorize, because of its diversity. There's a spiritual and mystical chapter, but there's also one entirely about music and dance, South American dance especially.( I was born there.) I live in the US. Then there are vignettes, brief and poignant, mostly about domestic life. Another is about death and dying. Etc. etc. I'm worried that if I ask KDP for instance for the category "Caribbean & Latin America", it will certainly apply to the dance and music chapter, but not to the entire book. There is humor everywhere, but I can't say it's nothing but humor. Some poems are serious, philosophical, thoughtful and so on. I'm guessing you're getting my drift, my dilemma. What would you suggest?
This was really helpful. Thank you!
This is especially handy for me, because I will be releasing my historical fiction series in September, and I've already dug deep into the historical fiction categories on the Kindle store. There are a LOT! Perhaps when the time comes, David will read my book as well :D
Hi David, many thanks for such a great and useful video. This totally demystified Amazon book categories for me. I’m about to hit go on my first publication and was struggling to understand how to find relevant categories in the small two category allowance on the publishing page. Definitely subscribed and liked and off now to bag myself a copy of your Amazon Decoded book. 👍🏻😀
You are my favorite mentor Thanks David
David, how did I miss this video? Glad I saw it now! Hope you are well!
Just sent in my email to KDP requesting adding categories to my two novels. Now we'll see if it helps. Certainly couldn't hurt. Thanks for sharing. I have just become a subscriber to your channel as well.
Really helpful video. Thanks very much.
Super detailed!
I'm a Yank living in Dublin running a press out of Australia…this was amazingly helpful from every perspective! Thank you very much David.
Smart man - books are bloody expensive down under!
Informative as always David, cheers for this :)
My pleasure!
Well done!
Thank you very helpful
Thank you! I just finished your book on Bookbub. It was great! Will definitely pick up the book on Amazon as well.
I think you'll like it! Has a huge section on strategy and marketing plans at the end and will dovetail very nicely with your newfound BB skillz.
@@DavidGaughran I added my books to new categories and I'm already starting to see promising results. My perma-free is in the top 20 in several categories, the subsequent books in the series are starting to sell, and I've had several preorders come through. I also picked up your book on Amazon. Super excited to learn more. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your knowledge!
Just sent updates to my thriller series via Author Central (they still say "up to two categories" and only reference kindle books for changes) so....we'll see what happens. Thanks David! Now to do the nonfiction. And then move on to the international stores. *head-desk it never ends*
Don't worry, the language on Author Central is well out of date on a number of topics - I presume they stopped updating it because a new version of AC is in the works (and in beta for some lucky users).
@@DavidGaughran Thanks. Yes, I got the beta version...haven't done much with it, either.
Brilliant. I've been wanting this precise information for ages. Thank you for providing relevant information so generously.
How serendipitous!
Dave, thank you - how do I get the ability to add an AGE group to my details? First time book maker. I am given only categories, (2 obviously), but no where anywhere in details page does it show AGE group drop downs - like I see in other people's books. Thanks.
Maybe I missed it, but once you look at all the categories under best sellers, I still don't know how to add those categories to my book.
Do you separate categories with ">" or "-"? Example: Kindle Ebooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Crime Fiction > Serial Killers in the contact us page? Thank you.
Thanks. I understand until I got to their "Follow the example below." I need an actual example. Let's say your example of an Irish historical novel for Kindle. I understand the hierarchy but not how to type it out for them. ISBN, Kindle store: .COM, eBook, ??? Separated by dashes, or on each line? I need a literal example and they provide rules for a format that I'm not following. But, thank you, this is still valuable and I thank you for taking the time to explain. It's the KDP instructions that don't click with me, not your presentation.
Once you give them all the requested information in some kind of understandable format, it's fine. They can usually figure it out anyway, but being as clear as possible makes it easier for them, which means it's likely to be processed faster and without any extra back-and-forth.
Most important thing to be clear about is the exact sub-category path you want. So for Irish historical fiction that would be:
Kindle Store > Kindle Ebooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Irish
You can transcribe any category path in that manner using the collapsable menu on the left-hand side of the screen. I usually just start at the Kindle Store top 100 and work from there: www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Literature-Fiction/zgbs/digital-text/157028011/ref=zg_bs_nav_kstore_2_154606011
So then in the email itself, following their suggested format I'd present the info something like this:
ASIN: [Insert ASIN]
Kindle Store: USA
Format: eBook
Categories to add:
1. Kindle Store > Kindle Ebooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Irish
2. [Etc.]
Thanks David. Always so interesting and helpful! Just FYI - I think the KW slot / category thing is still going. I did an experiment with my last erotica short. I put "erotic poetry" in one of the KW slots and lo and behold, it was put into that category. It's not erotic poetry, so I fixed it later, but I found it interesting that Zon automatically put it into that cat based on my KW info. I do wonder if this is how some of the red herrings end up in the cats.
OK this might be more information than you wanted or needed but here we go!
Yeah the keyword triggers still exist, and still work, but I do think Amazon is phasing the system out because if you dig around in the KDP help pages you will see the main page about keyword categories has been deleted (but if you dig a little more you can still root out some of the lists of keyword triggers for certain genres).
Just a theory, but I suspect that Amazon is slowly moving towards a metadata crackdown - UK publishers in particular are taking the mickey right now, and then a certain cadre of self-publishers are squatting in all sorts of inappropriate categories also. And when the problem starts impacting the very top of the charts - which is in the case in the UK right now - the chances of Amazon taking real action increase greatly.
If you look at the new Quality Dashboard, you can see all sorts of reference to metadata - and Amazon recently clarified the rules around metadata - which clears the way for them to move on the issue... except for one problem.
Someone deliberately squatting in the wrong category has a pretty good alibi right now: they can claim an innocent keyword choice triggered the category choice. But now Amazon has changed the *official* advice now saying that the only way you can get into more than two categories is by explicitly emailing and asking for them.
So my theory is that the next step - once they smooth out some issues with the quality dashboard - is to kill the keyword triggers and then finally move on those abusing metadata.
All that aside, he says 28 years later, I think best practice is to explicitly ask for your categories anyway because then that completely frees up your keywords to be optimized for search.
Hi David, Thanks for your great videos! I just wanted to mention that it seems that your screen capture program creates quite blurry videos, which makes it harder to watch.
Sorry Sharon, I had a number of technical issues with this video (including chopping off my lovely intro!), and youtube doesn't let you upload a new version or edit an old video, really - it's very restrictive. I hope to have better quality on the next video!
Great video, David! It's helpful to have someone step through the whole process. Do you use Bklnk for just the category tool, or do you also create universal book links with them as well?
I've only looked at the category tool so far.
Thank you, David. This is a most helpful video. I have subscribed and clicked the notification bell. I have a question: I have six books in a fantasy series. When I email Amazon, will I have to do so for each book in the series or can all of them be covered in a single email? Thanks again for all you do to help us authors.
You can do everything in one email, and for paperbacks and ebooks at the same time AND for all international stores as well, should you wish. However, to avoid confusion, if you think there is a danger of any miscommunication, you can always separate it out and do separate emails per book - which is what I did, but it's your call.
@@DavidGaughran Thanks for your reply. I will go with your suggestion and do separate emails per book. It won't be that much more work.
@@NormanHuard It also stops ME getting confused which might be the bigger danger!
David Gaughran Exactly! My thoughts too! Avoid confusion at all costs.
Very helpful video! In terms of the categories, does the 10 max mean 10 categories in total. Or is it the final 10 categories after going through the different lists. Does that make sense?
I can't remember if Amazon clarified this just after or just before I recorded this video, but either way, Amazon has explicitly said now that you can have up to 10 Kindle categories for each book and 10 Book categories as well. Does that answer your question? I'm not completely sure I am getting what you mean.
Thanks for this video.
Please where do you think the category of this 👇🏼 type of book falls?
I write about the wealth of resources in the human Body.
Particularly in Acupoints, etc.
It's like showing People how to heal, with the Body's healing Mechanisms.
I can't add videos to the books so I write as much as making it possible to assist a person totally new to this.
I also add a lot of useful images.
But I can't hit 120 pages.
Where exactly do you think my book fits into?
And how many pages should I have in my kind of category?
I have just subscribed.
I think I'll learn important things here.
Hi David, excellent stuff, thank you. Off-topic question: Which screen recorder is that?
It was called Clapboard when I got it in a lifetime deal from AppSumo but they might be rebranding it. You can check it out here: storyxpress.co/free-screen-recorder
Loom seems to be more popular but I found Clapboard had some extra features: www.loom.com/
@@DavidGaughran Thanks, mate. I've been using Loom in the past but I'm always interested in new tools.
@@patrick.baumann I haven't used Loom enough to compare properly, but Clapboard had a few quality of life features I liked - a bit more one-click simplicity, the Chrome plug in is much niftier than the Loom desktop app and integrates nicely with both Chrome and Gmail etc. - and then one proper feature which is ALMOST a gamechanger is the ability to switch back-and-forth between talking to camera and sharing your screen. I say almost because it doesn't let you go full screen when talking to screen - just inside that circle. Otherwise I'd use that all the time!
Question. Do you have to wait until your book is published before you email Amazon to add the additional categories? I would like to be in the categories that are going to work best for me upon publication. Any thoughts on that?
Yes your book needs to be on Amazon already - so already published or available for pre-order. But the process happens quite quickly.
Recently, CS has been adding those cats starting with Kindle Store >> but not those starting with Books >> Do I have to use the ISBN for Books?
Is that KDP or Author Central? When I hit a wall with one, I move to the other. Also, it's a pretty new change (i.e. in the last few weeks) so staff might not be fully up to speed on it.
thank you david! Question though, how can I confirm these books have been added to the categories?. I realized I wrote the wrong ASIN for one of my books but I still got a confirmation email that they have all been added to the additional categories...
Is there a way I can go online and check that these books are in more that 2 subgenres/bsr lists?
thanks in advance!
Not just for your book, but with any book! www.bklnk.com/categories5.php
Thank you for this. Just finished Amazon Decoded... great read by the way... and was looking into categories, best seller lists etc. and I've noticed something in these lists that disturb me a little. In the steampunk example on the screen I notice as you scroll down not many (less than a couple) seem to be actually steampunk (even a little bit ). Isn't this a problem if you're actually trying to compete with a book in the genre up against a space opera title that has a larger readership and naturally might sell more copies than a niche readership?
Sorry watched to the end. You sort of explained it. I looked in the superhero fiction category with similar results only three or so I would describe as a superhero novel in the top 50.
Superheroes in particular is a weird one because (IIRC) that's where one of the sub-genres that doesn't have a category on Amazon yet seems to have collectively decided to shelve their books - LitRPG I think? I have more sympathy for cases like that, where Amazon for whatever reason hasn't allotted them a category (and for existing authors in that category of course). Less for those gaming the system.
nope!I tried to click more than 2 categories and it didn't work
It definitely works! You must have missed a step somewhere. You can follow along this blog post instead if you prefer: davidgaughran.com/amazon-book-category-kindle-categories/
@@DavidGaughran thank you.
@@DavidGaughran May I please ask, since those categories are different between books and e-books( and my novel comes out in both e-book and paperback), and since the categories synchronize automatically in the settings, should my email say: these are the 10 categories I'd like my e-book to be in, AND bellow, kindly find the 10 ( other) categories my paperback should be in? or just pick 5+5? ( btw, I've already sent the 10 categories, hand-picked for EACH amazon foreign store that carries kindle, but I haven't heard from them in 2 days, when otherwise customer service responds within hours)...help, please?