Discoverability...picking the right categories

One of the most important things to consider when publishing your book is choosing your categories wisely. Because so many indie authors find that Amazon kindle will be their best sales channel, I recommend optimizing for it.

To do this you need to first know which categories have bestselling lists. I'm going to focus on science fiction and fantasy as that is the area I'm most familiar with. Let's start with kindle

1. Open Amazon to the main home page
2. From the list on the left side of the screen select Books->Kindle eBooks
3. Under Popular Features, select Bestsellers

Under Fantasy I find the following:

• Anthologies
• Arthurian
• Contemporary
• Epic
• Historical
• Series

Under Science Fiction I find:

• Adventure
• Anthologies
• High Tech
• Series

But that's not the end of the lists, as Kindle eBooks also show up in the book section so let's look there as well.

1. On the left side click on: Any Category
2. Click on Books
3. Click on Science Fiction and Fantasy

Under Fantasy I find:

• Alternate History
• Anthologies
• Arthurian
• Contemporary
• Epic
• Historical
• History & Criticism
• Magic & Wizards

Under Science Fiction I find:

• Adventure
• Alternate History
• Anthologies
• Graphic Novels
• High Tech
• History & Criticism
• Short Stories
• Space Opera

But that's still not the end of the lists. There are many "non" science fiction and fantasy lists that could fit my stories such as:

• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Action & Adventure
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->Action and Adventure
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->Men's Adventure
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->War
  
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Romance
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Romance->Fantasy, Futuristic & Ghost
• Books->Romance
• Books->Romance->Fantasy & Futuristic
• Books->Literature and Fiction
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->Action and Adventure
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->Men's Adventure
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->War

You want to pick list that are, of course, relevant but you also want to look for lists that are the easiest to dominate. In other words a list that you can be a big fish in a small pond. For instance, Michael's fourth book in his Riyria Revelations series was called The Emerald Storm. Like all of the books in the series that was an epic fantasy, but it also takes place on a sailing ship and there is a category, Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->Sea Adventures. If we look at the first page of this is the ranking of the books are: #1 - 25,832 and #20 296,445. The Emerald Storm is being taken off the market in just a few days but over it's life it's rankings have ranged from 284 to 16,784 so I could have the #1 best seller for sea adventures simply by selecting this category.

The first page of the Men's Adventure list goes from 299 to 2,683 while the first page of epic fantasy goes 19 to 1,018. So if your epic fantasy appeals to men -- it might benefit you to use the Men's Adventure category when your ranking is too low to hit the epic fantasy list.

List popularity changes all the time. I recommend you watch the ranking ranges for the ones applicable to your books and change the list if you've fallen off one of the "harder to get on" lists - it might even introduce an audience to your books that wouldn't normally find it. For instance, if Emerald Storm couldn't make ANY fantasy lists - then I would probably classify it for sea adventure or men's adventure as then it would easily make one of those.

Sometimes a list that you want to be on is not available through the DTP interface. No problem. Simply make sure you have an open spot (i.e. only have 1 or none categories selected) and put in a ticket. They will set it into a category that you can't get to.

Be careful about DTP categories that don't have a best seller list. I have two great military science fiction writers: Joe Haldeman & Marshall Thomas. If you notice there is no bestseller list for Military Science Fiction (too bad because with my sales numbers for them would guarantee some dominance there). When setting up my title, one of the choices I COULD select Military Science Fiction as that best describes these books but if I do, then I miss an opportunity for hitting a bestseller list which is a high impact to my sales.

So what to do? For thse books I select:

• Fiction->War
• Science Fiction->Adventure

Remember that any lists "higher" than the one selected is automatically eligible. So using these categories actually make those books eligible for:

• Books
  
• Books->Science Fiction and Fantasy
• Books->Science Fiction and Fantasy->Science Fiction
  
• Books->Science Fiction and Fantasy->Science Fiction->Adventure
• Books->Literature and Fiction
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->War
• Kindle
• Kindle Store
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->Science Fiction
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->Science Fiction->Adventure
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->War

That's a lot of lists. For Leslie Ann Moore I could use lists such as:

• Epic Fantasy
• Romance Fantasy
• Historical Fantasy

When her numbers are good as they are now then I keep her in the Epic Fantasy and Romance Fantasy as those are very relevant to her series. But if her ranking were to fall off these lists...then I would move to Historical Fantasy because that is a list that is easy to dominate.

A key element to success is getting on a best seller list - as many people use these to discover new authors. It even makes sense to "mix them up". There is usually more than one category that applies and since you can only use two then switch them every few months to expose your books to sub-markets that "fit" your book.