Categories on Amazon

[notthatamanda]

Okay, so when you (or at least me) look at books and look at the rankings on the books for the different categories I see three different things:

category (Kindle Store) - those are obviously ebooks
category (Books) - I guess those are paper versions
category

There is also: category (Audible Books & Originals) Just as another example.

I looked at one "category" best seller list and all I see is kindle books in the top 100 paid.
Sometimes I see audible books on the kindle store best seller lists, I think, I couldn't find an example right now, naturally.

Does it pay to ask for "category" not specifying a format, or does that list happen organically and should you stick to the specific format ones?
I'll ask Amazon if no one knows how this works.  Thanks, Amanda

[Simon Haynes]

Amazon won't let you pick a 'book' category unless you have a paperback edition attached to the ebook. (I know because they pulled me up on this a while back.)

I haven't tried audio, but I would assume the same rules apply.

I've seen audio in the ebook charts too. I assume the audio edition just happens to be selling more than ebooks at that moment, but it's annoying to have precious spots in the kindle charts taken up with a completely different format.

[notthatamanda]

I guess I didn't phrase it well.  I want my formats in the right categories for the format. Ebook in (Kindle Store) and paper copies in (Books).  But what is the no format specified category and should I ask for those?

Side rant - I once called author central to straighten out categories on an ebook and they told me they didn't advise putting ebooks in the (Books) categories.  Maybe now they don't "allow" it.  Either way I sure as heck wasn't the one who put it there.

[BlueWren]

Amazon won't let you pick a 'book' category unless you have a paperback edition attached to the ebook. (I know because they pulled me up on this a while back.)

This confuses me because I don't have any paperbacks, but Amazon have always automatically put me in both the Books and Kindle version of my chosen category (which I only picked once). Maybe because I'm only picking 1 cat (as it's the only relevant one to my book) instead of the maximum?

Anyway, bit of a tangent.

[notthatamanda]

You can't pick categories on Amazon, it picks them for you based on your keywords.  Then readers get mad when your book in Christian romance has the word "darn" in it, or your women's action adventure is nothing of the sort.

BlueWren - if you are in the US you can log into authorcentral and have them call you and tell them exactly what categories you want. I recommend having them written down before you have them call you.  And I've got a pile of bitcoins they tell you you shouldn't have your ebook in the paperbooks category.

 

[BlueWren]

You can't pick categories on Amazon, it picks them for you based on your keywords.  Then readers get mad when your book in Christian romance has the word "darn" in it, or your women's action adventure is nothing of the sort.

BlueWren - if you are in the US you can log into authorcentral and have them call you and tell them exactly what categories you want. I recommend having them written down before you have them call you.  And I've got a pile of bitcoins they tell you you shouldn't have your ebook in the paperbooks category.

 

Thanks but unfortunately I'm not in the US. Not too worried about it either, as many bestsellers in My Subcat (Books) appear to be missing paperbacks, too. Just Amazon being Amazon, I guess. 

[notthatamanda]

I ended up on the phone with Author central today.  He said there are more categories for paper books than ebooks.  In order to figure out the browse path, find a book with the subcategory you want, then click on it. That will bring up the best seller list for that subcategory and from the category list on the left side of that page you can get the browse path eg Kindle store>ebooks>literature & fiction>more subcategories.

So I'm off to try to do that for my hardcover, having exhausted what I think are all the possibilities for the ebooks.