Choosing the Right Categories and Keywords for Your Book

Selecting the right categories and keywords will be the difference between readers finding your book or your title getting lost in a sea of similar books. Authors need to know what categories and keywords are and how to generate good ones. These serve to boost visibility in searches and make sure your story delivers what it promises.

Category refers to the genre. Most writers know their story’s basic genre but they need to dig deeper to find the specific sub-genres. There are several ways to search for sub-genres.

The Book Industry Study Group sets the standards for book genres – these are the genres recognized by booksellers and libraries. Find your basic genre (most fiction genres fall into FICTION, so start your search there) and then browse the sub-genres. Select ones that best fit your book. You might have more than one basic genre, so search through all that apply.

Publisher Rocket is a program that lets you search for categories. You can select your basic genre and search from there or start entering a word and it will show you all the subgenres. It’s tailored to Amazon but the categories can work for other retailer sites, too.

Use the Amazon search bar to find categories. Go into either “books” or “Kindle store” and type your main genre. Amazon will continue filling out suggested additional words (like Google does) and these can help you find both genres and key words to use.

Make a list of comparable books and authors. Do a search for those titles on Amazon and see what categories they are placed in.

Now, when referring to “keywords,” these are not single words but a string of words or a phrase. Similar to digging deeper for sub-genres, authors need to search for the best string of words to describe their book.

Keywords often blend into categories and genres, so some of what you find from the three searches above can net you some keywords.

Make a topics list of your book. Think of the type of character, where the story is set, themes in the book, and any other words that describe your story. Again, use the Amazon search bar to find categories and phrases that can be used as keywords.

Publisher Rocket is also an amazing program for finding the best keywords on Amazon. Type in a word or two and see what it pulls up. Then click the magnifying glass button to do a comparison. It will give you information on each keyword, including an overall score. That score needs to be a number as low as possible – definitely not in the red – but keeping in mind how many searches are done a month. (A score of 20 but with less than 100 searches a month isn’t any better.)

Remember, avoid very broad and generic keywords. Don’t use other author’s names or brand names, either. And keep in mind that the book’s title and keywords used in categories are already included.

Using those technics means authors are set to categorize and tag a book with great keywords. Keep that list, as genres and keywords can always be adjusted. Whatever helps readers find that book!