And if you are selling as many books as you want, this is an excellent time of year to reevaluate what you want out of life. 
If you're not selling as many books as you want...
...it might be time to examine your book categories.
Most of my books are humorous, so I categorized them as fiction/humor. But I was finding it hard to get any traction or sales. One day I decided to dig deeper into the categories and stumbled onto humor/form/parodies. Since recategorizing my books, sales have doubled. Granted, I'm not selling in huge numbers, but to know that I can sell double with the same books, same covers, and same blurbs just by finding a better category was a huge thing for me. Now, why did this happen? First, let's take a look at...
Fiction/Humor
The #1 bestseller in humor (Notorious Nineteen) is at #26 in the overall kindle store. The #100 bestseller in humor (Body Movers 2) is #3794. That means to even be #100 on the fiction/humor bestseller list, I'd have to sell dozens of copies a day to get to a #3794 rank (I've never sold dozens of copies of any of my books in a single day).
Meanwhile the hot new release list has over a hundred books in it with the #20 book in the hot new release section (Exit Stage Right) is at #19,769. Plus there are over 100 free books in humor at any given time. It's no wonder I was having a hard time getting exposure.
Now take a look at humor/form/parodies
The #1 book in parodies (Fifty Shades Of Beige) is at #487 in the overall kindle store while the #100 book in parodies (Mansfield Park And Mummies) is at #85,651 in the overall kindle store. That means by selling at least one copy of my book per day, I'll be under teh 85,000 rank and in the top 100 of parodies. If I sell one copy a day (approx 50,000 rank) I'm in the top 60 of parodies.
Also, there's only 46 hot new releases currently with the #20 hot new release for parody having a rank of #320000. That means for the entire first month of release if I sell a copy a day I'm in the top 20 first page of the new releases for parody.
Plus, there's only 18 free books at any given time in parody, so when you do a select run, you're automatically on the first page of the parody bestseller list on the free side.
Finding a subcategory for maximum exposure is not just good for humorous books though. Say you write a young adult book, try children's books/arts & music and you have a category that's wide open. The point is, if you analyze some sub categories, you could find yourself with better sales while having to change nothing about your book.
Most of my books are humorous, so I categorized them as fiction/humor. But I was finding it hard to get any traction or sales. One day I decided to dig deeper into the categories and stumbled onto humor/form/parodies. Since recategorizing my books, sales have doubled. Granted, I'm not selling in huge numbers, but to know that I can sell double with the same books, same covers, and same blurbs just by finding a better category was a huge thing for me. Now, why did this happen? First, let's take a look at...
Fiction/Humor
The #1 bestseller in humor (Notorious Nineteen) is at #26 in the overall kindle store. The #100 bestseller in humor (Body Movers 2) is #3794. That means to even be #100 on the fiction/humor bestseller list, I'd have to sell dozens of copies a day to get to a #3794 rank (I've never sold dozens of copies of any of my books in a single day).
Meanwhile the hot new release list has over a hundred books in it with the #20 book in the hot new release section (Exit Stage Right) is at #19,769. Plus there are over 100 free books in humor at any given time. It's no wonder I was having a hard time getting exposure.
Now take a look at humor/form/parodies
The #1 book in parodies (Fifty Shades Of Beige) is at #487 in the overall kindle store while the #100 book in parodies (Mansfield Park And Mummies) is at #85,651 in the overall kindle store. That means by selling at least one copy of my book per day, I'll be under teh 85,000 rank and in the top 100 of parodies. If I sell one copy a day (approx 50,000 rank) I'm in the top 60 of parodies.
Also, there's only 46 hot new releases currently with the #20 hot new release for parody having a rank of #320000. That means for the entire first month of release if I sell a copy a day I'm in the top 20 first page of the new releases for parody.
Plus, there's only 18 free books at any given time in parody, so when you do a select run, you're automatically on the first page of the parody bestseller list on the free side.
Finding a subcategory for maximum exposure is not just good for humorous books though. Say you write a young adult book, try children's books/arts & music and you have a category that's wide open. The point is, if you analyze some sub categories, you could find yourself with better sales while having to change nothing about your book.
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So true.ElisaBlaisdell said:And if you are selling as many books as you want, this is an excellent time of year to reevaluate what you want out of life.
There are some writers that can hang in the big broad general categories and rack up big sales, but for people like me, niche categories give me exposure I wouldn't have otherwise.
Agreed, and thanks for mentioning my book Mansfield Park and Mummies. ;-)
These days I am all over the parodies list, because of my Supernatural Jane Austen Series of parodies (see my sig below for links), which currently includes:
Mansfield Park and Mummies
Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons
Pride and Platypus
and several more titles forthcoming in the next few months, to cover the entire Jane Austen oeuvre.
I also just released an unrelated parody, Vampires are from Venus, Werewolves are from Mars, which makes 4 titles in the parody category.
Before discovering this particular category (thank the gods!), my humorous books were also simply sitting in the general humor greater category, and things were not selling at all (not counting paper print, in which the Mummies was a long-time bestseller).
But, once I switched to this category, things definitely picked up.
These days I am all over the parodies list, because of my Supernatural Jane Austen Series of parodies (see my sig below for links), which currently includes:
Mansfield Park and Mummies
Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons
Pride and Platypus
and several more titles forthcoming in the next few months, to cover the entire Jane Austen oeuvre.
I also just released an unrelated parody, Vampires are from Venus, Werewolves are from Mars, which makes 4 titles in the parody category.
Before discovering this particular category (thank the gods!), my humorous books were also simply sitting in the general humor greater category, and things were not selling at all (not counting paper print, in which the Mummies was a long-time bestseller).
But, once I switched to this category, things definitely picked up.
How do you get your books into some of these sub categories? When you list your book, it allows for two categories, and most of them don't break down into too many subs. Is it a matter of emailing amazon and asking them to put your books into a certain category? I've noticed several sub categories I would like to put my books into, but when I go into my upload page, those categories aren't there.
So funny I was actually going to post this same tip this morning. I realized how important categories were after doing my free promo last week. My books that were in obscure categories skyrocketed in downloads where as the book that I can't seem to find the right category for had very limited downloads.
I've been waiting for over a week for Amazon to put my book in the right category. They keep saying they've done it, but it's still in the wrong category. Very frustrating. I ended up unpublishing and republishing it in order to see if that helped. Then sent a new message to kdp support for them to put it in the right category. Hopefully this time it'll work.
Thanks for the suggestion! My sales are weak and a change in the categorization may breathe some new life into things. Off to Amazon to tweak it
Also, if anyone else has good niche categories for genres that aren't humor, please free to share them here.
So how do you change categories? Do you have to email author central?
If you go to your KDP bookshelf, you can highlight the book, go to edit details, then change the categories and resubmit the book. The old version of your book will stay online and the category changes will be revised in 12 to 48 hours.Hosanna said:So how do you change categories? Do you have to email author central?
But I have never seen sub categories available.If you go to your KDP bookshelf, you can highlight the book, go to edit details, then change the categories and resubmit the book. The old version of your book will stay online and the category changes will be revised in 12 to 48 hours.
You can directly mail KDP with the category request, showing the 'trail.' Eg, fiction > genre > mystery/thriller > heartbreaking work of staggering genius....
I think that last category must be something already established.
I think that last category must be something already established.
Science fiction, mystery and thrillers, and romanc all have subcategories.Caddy said:But I have never seen sub categories available.
Any sub-cat that exists on the lefthand side of the main Kindle page can be used as one of your two choices--even if it doesn't appear within KDP when uploading. You have to email KDP support and specifically request it. The thing is, if you already have two cats/sub-cats checked, you will have to delete one of them beforehand, otherwise KDP won't agree to your request.
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