SELF PUBLISHING - PART 7 - Choosing The Best Categories

If you choose to publish on Kindle Direct Publishing KDP, you will be asked to place your book in to two categories so I suggest you give some thought about what categories relate to your particular book.  For example, for a work of fiction in the mystery genre you would first choose the following:-

FICTION>Mystery Thriller & Suspense>

As there are several sub-categories under Mystery Thriller & Suspense, you can then choose two sub-categories.  The following are your choices:-

Mystery Thriller & Suspense

• Mystery
• Cozy
• Crime
• Police Procedural
• Suspense
• Thriller
• International Mystery & Crime
• Crime Fiction
• Series

FICTION>Mystery & Suspense>Police Procedural
FICTION>Mystery& Suspense>Mystery

Before you make your choices, however, do a bit of research in to how many books are listed on Amazon in the sub-categories you plan to use.  To do this, go in to Amazon, click on Kindle eBooks and on the left hand side of your screen you will see a list of categories.  If you drill down in these categories, you will then see how many books there are in each sub-category.

For example, at time of writing:-
Police Procedural 4,601
Cozy 1,486
Mystery 50,825
Crime Fiction 26,077
 -Murder 5,428


International Mystery & Crime 745
Series 411
Suspense 33,507
Thriller 43,616

As you can see from the two examples I chose above:-

FICTION, MysteryThrillerSuspense, Police Procedural
FICTION, MysteryThrillerSuspense, Mystery

the sub-category I chose for Police Procedural has a lot less competition with only 4,601 books compared to the Mystery sub-category with 50,825 books in it.  If you do happen to have a run on sales, you have a far better chance of obtaining a good rank in a sub-category with fewer books in it.

Therefore, rather than the Mystery sub-category, I would have been better off to choose Cozy that has only 1,486 books.

FICTION, MysteryThrillerSuspense, Cozy

Then again, I could have chosen Crime Fiction that has an extra sub-category:-

FICTION, MysteryThrillerSuspese, CrimeFiction,Murder

Crime Fiction does have 26,077 books , but Murder only has 5,428.  Your book will get exposure from both these categories.