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Great Sub Categories To Help Your Books Get Discovered
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That's interesting. Thanks for posting that. Seems like that fiction/horror/dark fantasy would be particularly good to target. I imagine there are some horror and some fantasy writers out there whose work could fall into that without stretching much.lacymarankevinmichael said:
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Me! Except that Dark Fantasy isn't an option when uploading to KDP. I have lamented this.John Daulton said:
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I had this same idea several months ago, as my Templar Chronicles series falls squarely into Dark Fantasy. I had KDP Support move my three books into that category. Ever since, all three books have been in the top 50-100 (varies) in Dark Fantasy but the kicker is that sales dropped considerably. The only change was the category, so the less common category isn't being searched as much and therefore books in it actually have a LOWER rate of visibility.
-Joe
-Joe
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Oh! That is something to consider.Jnassise said:
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The one thing I'll point out is these niche categories are for discovery. My books can't hang in fiction/humor or romance/paranormal because they're too broad of categories with too much competition. If you're already selling thousands of books a month, these categories probably won't be a help to you. But if you're selling three or four books a day, they probably will.
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I think many authors don't realize that not all categories are directly accessible through the KDP dashboard. Some you get into by writing to KDP and asking to be put in. Why they do it that way really beats me -- seems like a whole lot of extra work for them.
Fantasy>Series is one of these. It's quite small: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/158583011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_kstore_2_5_last . Notice that there are only 18 free books in it altogether! Bizarre. The only way into that category is to write and ask.
I really, really wish we could have more than two categories. The trad pub books seem to be permitted more.
Fantasy>Series is one of these. It's quite small: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text/158583011/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_kstore_2_5_last . Notice that there are only 18 free books in it altogether! Bizarre. The only way into that category is to write and ask.
I really, really wish we could have more than two categories. The trad pub books seem to be permitted more.
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I'm starting to wonder if those sub-categories don't have something to do with the tags you pick. I say this because my cookbook/memoir, Fry Bacon. Add Onions has been ranked in sub-categories such as Bread, Soup, Family History, Middle Atlantic, and Pickles & Preserves. I KNOW those are not sub-categories on KDP!
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The other thing is that if you're in a small subcategory, if your book starts selling well, you get lumped in with the larger more general category, giving you three or sometimes four categories even though you only picked two on your dashboard.
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My book got put into the new teen category because of tags (I think).Kathleen Valentine said:
I just looked at my own categories and decided to change them. I went from "general -> gay" and "children -> general" to "children -> issues -> homosexuality" and "children -> issues -> depression"
In my original categories I was thinking as a writer, where would I get the post exposure and where would I possibly get the most sales?
But with 7 sales over almost a month (first month of release) I stopped looking at it as a writer and am now trying to look at it more as a reader. I wondered what I used to look for at the library when looking for books. "homosexuality", "Anorexia" and "lesbians" were words I used to browse for at the library to find new books.
So now I'm down to smaller categories but I'm hoping that it might actually get me more exposure to the right type of readers. I can always change it next month
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I'm going to ask what is likely a stupid question....
When selecting the categories, I only get 2 levels. For instance, for my short stories, I can get no more in depth than Fiction/Short Stories or Fiction/Occult and Supernatural. Is there some trick to get more detailed than that?
When selecting the categories, I only get 2 levels. For instance, for my short stories, I can get no more in depth than Fiction/Short Stories or Fiction/Occult and Supernatural. Is there some trick to get more detailed than that?
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Nope, but some categories are simply split even deeper, some are just 2 levels and some are 3 or more.bnapier said:
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