Author Topic: How to tell what categories your novel is in (Read 7548 times)

JRTomlin · « **on:** July 02, 2020, 03:44:35 AM »

I mean the ones Amazon puts you in usually at your request, not the first two you select. I'm pretty sure I remember there is a way to tell but can't remember what it is.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #1 on:** July 02, 2020, 03:55:52 AM »

But, you don't select categories, right? You put in keywords and hope the algos haven't changed. I don't know any way to find out all 10 categories my book is in other than to call them and ask them.

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #2 on:** July 02, 2020, 11:36:32 AM »

For the main high level categories, you want a copy of the keywords list, which tells you which word puts you into which sub-category.

Look for categories in the KDP help, and its off that page on the keywords link. Then select your broad category.

alhawke · « **Reply #3 on:** July 02, 2020, 11:56:13 AM »

Do you mean this ?? :
https://www.bklnk.com/categories5.php

This is from a past post either from here or another site I was on. A very useful resource.

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #4 on:** July 02, 2020, 12:06:50 PM »

Quote from: alhawke on July 02, 2020, 11:56:13 AM

Do you mean this ?? :
https://www.bklnk.com/categories5.php

This is from a past post either from here or another site I was on. A very useful resource.

No.

That will tell you what categories the book is in.

The keywords are what place the book in those categories.

Edit: Interesting site. Pity it only picks up the ranks of the 3 categories showing on the page. It would be really good if it picked up all of them. But I guess Amazon won't allow that.

Lu Kudzoza · « **Reply #5 on:** July 03, 2020, 01:41:28 AM »

If your book is ranked high enough you can search for your book's ASIN. The categories will be shown on the left hand side if you drill down into "Kindle Store".

JRTomlin · « **Reply #6 on:** July 03, 2020, 02:08:45 AM »

Quote from: TimothyEllis on July 02, 2020, 12:06:50 PM

Quote from: alhawke on July 02, 2020, 11:56:13 AM
Do you mean this ?? :
https://www.bklnk.com/categories5.php

This is from a past post either from here or another site I was on. A very useful resource.

No.

That will tell you what categories the book is in.

The keywords are what place the book in those categories.

Edit: Interesting site. Pity it only picks up the ranks of the 3 categories showing on the page. It would be really good if it picked up all of them. But I guess Amazon won't allow that.

I have to strongly suggest that a better way to get your book into categories is to ask. You can just email Amazon and ask them to put your novel into the desired category, and normally they will do so. I've never had them refuse when I asked.

JRTomlin · « **Reply #7 on:** July 03, 2020, 02:11:53 AM »

Quote from: Lu Kudzoza on July 03, 2020, 01:41:28 AM

If your book is ranked high enough you can search for your book's ASIN. The categories will be shown on the left hand side if you drill down into "Kindle Store".

That may be what I was thinking of. Unfortunately, the novel I am wondering about is #54,420 which is evidently not a high enough ranking.

MonkeyWithAPen · « **Reply #8 on:** July 03, 2020, 08:06:21 AM »

Quote from: JRTomlin on July 03, 2020, 02:11:53 AM

Quote from: Lu Kudzoza on July 03, 2020, 01:41:28 AM
If your book is ranked high enough you can search for your book's ASIN. The categories will be shown on the left hand side if you drill down into "Kindle Store".
That may be what I was thinking of. Unfortunately, the novel I am wondering about is #54,420 which is evidently not a high enough ranking.

This works regardless of what your book's rank is, but you do have to click through the list in the sidebar to see them all. The most straightforward way to verify what categories a book is actually in is to use this site, and plug in your ASIN:
https://www.bklnk.com/categories5.php

As was mentioned, the best way to get your books into categories they might not be in is to just email and request specific categories. But you need to be sure to offer the full string, for example, don't just say "Werewolves and Shifters", you want this: "Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Romance » Paranormal Romance » Paranormal Werewolves & Shifters Romance" (which was a request I made myself earlier this month and they added it for me).

You're limited to 10 categories total so it's good to check bklnk.com to verify and count first, because you might need to request to be removed from a couple before you can add more.

MonkeyWithAPen · « **Reply #9 on:** July 03, 2020, 09:01:05 AM »

BTW, the newest version of the "Publisher Rocket" tool has an option that shows you all of a book's categories now.

JRTomlin · « **Reply #10 on:** July 03, 2020, 10:26:35 AM »

Quote from: MonkeyWithAPen on July 03, 2020, 08:06:21 AM

Quote from: JRTomlin on July 03, 2020, 02:11:53 AM
Quote from: Lu Kudzoza on July 03, 2020, 01:41:28 AM
If your book is ranked high enough you can search for your book's ASIN. The categories will be shown on the left hand side if you drill down into "Kindle Store".
That may be what I was thinking of. Unfortunately, the novel I am wondering about is #54,420 which is evidently not a high enough ranking.
This works regardless of what your book's rank is, but you do have to click through the list in the sidebar to see them all. The most straightforward way to verify what categories a book is actually in is to use this site, and plug in your ASIN:
https://www.bklnk.com/categories5.php

As was mentioned, the best way to get your books into categories they might not be in is to just email and request specific categories. But you need to be sure to offer the full string, for example, don't just say "Werewolves and Shifters", you want this: "Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Romance » Paranormal Romance » Paranormal Werewolves & Shifters Romance" (which was a request I made myself earlier this month and they added it for me).

You're limited to 10 categories total so it's good to check bklnk.com to verify and count first, because you might need to request to be removed from a couple before you can add more.

Odd since I did not get a list in the sidebar. You're correct about the limit of 10 which is why I want to double-check how many it is currently in. Thanks for link.

LilyBLily · « **Reply #11 on:** July 03, 2020, 11:31:31 AM »

It's an interesting site. I followed down the top 100 for several of my titles' categories. As far as I can see, in many cases, the books listed are discounted at .99 or 1.99. Which means don't count them because they're at an artificial high--and that skews the data about what categories the big selling books are listed under.

I've been collecting obscure categories some books are listed under that mysteriously "earn" them a Best Seller tag, so I guess I can correlate those with the ones in these lists.

I know I copied down all my categories via this site once before, and now I am wondering if I took any action after doing so. Some of my titles can take a few more categories. Might as well fill them up.

RIckH · « **Reply #12 on:** July 11, 2020, 02:46:03 AM »

I am the owner of the BKLNK site. I thought I'd add a few notes to clarify how it works.

The site uses the Zon API to get category information about the book. That information includes sales ranks, but not on all categories. The sales rank is shown if the info is available via the API.

The API gives information about all the categories that are assigned to a book. Although you can only assign two ccategories with the KDP entry, you can email Zon and ask to get into more categories. The format to show them is as shown in the BKLNK CATFINDER.

If you use the CATALIZE button on a category found by CATFINDER, you can see the categories used by the top 25 books in that category. That gives you information that you can use to determine the categories that might be good for your book.

There is a PDF on the CATFINDER/CATALIZER page that tells you about how to do that, and how to put the category info into a spreadsheet and analyze it.

It is true that KDP also has the CATFINDER information - that's something that was added very recently. But I like to think that I did it first - BKLNK has been doing it since about Oct 2019.

Note that the keywords you enter in KDP have nothing to do with the categories for your book. The keywords are only used if someone uses those keywords in a search. And the API doesn't give you info about the keywords, so there isn't a KeywordFinder thing that is available.

BKLNK also does Universal Book Links, and if you sign up (all free, no obligation), you can add your country-specific affiliate codes to your UBL. The UBL is simple to use - and doesn't require a signup - you just add your ASIN/ISBN10 number to the BKLNK URL, and you're done.

It's a tool I built for myself - for the UBLs first, then the CATFINDER to help with the marketing of my books. I decided to make it free for all. I gain a tiny bit of revenue (enough to keep me in Jelly Bellies) by using my Zon affiliate code on UBLs.

Note that CATFINDER/CATALIZE is working well for the US Zon store. There's a recent issue about results from the UK/CA store related to not enough affiliate revenue from those stores... in order to use the API, you have to have sales resulting from your affiliate codes on that country store. Working on that issue.

But, the whole BKLNK site is free to use. You can contact me through there. Hope it is helpful.

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #13 on:** July 11, 2020, 03:35:57 AM »

Quote from: RIckH on July 11, 2020, 02:46:03 AM

Note that the keywords you enter in KDP have nothing to do with the categories for your book.

No.

The use of specific KDP keywords are what put your book into specific sub-categories.

Each major genre has a list of them, and the sub-category it puts the book into.

RIckH · « **Reply #14 on:** July 11, 2020, 05:46:30 AM »

My research indicates otherwise. I put in a goofy/non-sensical word into one of my book categories. Then checked that word via a search in the Zon. The book came up because of that search word.

Categories are different. You define them in KDP when you add/revise your book information. You can only have two via KDP. If you want more categories - you are allowed up to 10 - you have to email the Zon KDP support to add them, providing them in the format that I show on the BKLNK CATFINDER page.

Keywords do not directly relate to categories in any way, and do not 'auto-generate' categories. They are only used as a search parameter in the Zon search box, along with titles. You can search for a category, but your keyword entries in your KDP book entry do not generate or add categories.

alhawke · « **Reply #15 on:** July 11, 2020, 06:05:11 AM »

But Rick, Timothy's right, the keywords you enter do link to special categories. When I create a list of keywords, I always check the list for what is expected for subcategories. You can get this through KDP. A lot of times, Amazon will enter my book in a niche category based on the keyword alone. But usually to take full advantage of all possible categories, I have to email or call Amazon.

Thanks for your BKLINK website! I use it often to check my books.

RIckH · « **Reply #16 on:** July 11, 2020, 06:14:50 AM »

Any keyword you enter will not magically make your book appear in a category. Nor will that category show up when you CATFINDER it with BKLNK.

You may find your book via a search using your keyword, but it will be a very general/top-level category. For instance, if I search for "cowboy", I'll get a list of books with "cowboy" in the title, and books with 'cowboy' in their keywords, and maybe in the description. But the category that will be shown will be "Books" - top-level.

At least, that's my experience with Zon search function, and with the API.

Glad you are finding BKLNK useful.

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #17 on:** July 11, 2020, 10:11:06 AM »

Quote from: RIckH on July 11, 2020, 06:14:50 AM

Any keyword you enter will not magically make your book appear in a category. Nor will that category show up when you CATFINDER it with BKLNK.

You may find your book via a search using your keyword, but it will be a very general/top-level category. For instance, if I search for "cowboy", I'll get a list of books with "cowboy" in the title, and books with 'cowboy' in their keywords, and maybe in the description. But the category that will be shown will be "Books" - top-level.

At least, that's my experience with Zon search function, and with the API.

I'm sorry, but you are 100% dead wrong.

I just checked one of my books on your site, and it shows the exact sub-categories I used keywords to put the book into.

'Cowboy' may be exactly where you are going wrong. That simply may be one of the genres which don't have the keywords.

Romance, Sci-fi, Fantasy and a number of others ALL have keywords for placing books in sub-categories automatically.

The lists are in KDP Help.

notthatamanda · « **Reply #18 on:** July 11, 2020, 10:52:46 PM »

<whine> It would be sooooo much easier if we could just check them off. <end whine>

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #19 on:** July 11, 2020, 10:55:19 PM »

Quote from: notthatamanda on July 11, 2020, 10:52:46 PM

<whine> It would be sooooo much easier if we could just check them off. <end whine>

One of the great mysteries as to why it was never done that way.

MaxDaemon · « **Reply #20 on:** July 12, 2020, 01:08:36 AM »

Quote from: TimothyEllis on July 11, 2020, 10:11:06 AM

Quote from: RIckH on July 11, 2020, 06:14:50 AM
Any keyword you enter will not magically make your book appear in a category. Nor will that category show up when you CATFINDER it with BKLNK.

You may find your book via a search using your keyword, but it will be a very general/top-level category. For instance, if I search for "cowboy", I'll get a list of books with "cowboy" in the title, and books with 'cowboy' in their keywords, and maybe in the description. But the category that will be shown will be "Books" - top-level.

At least, that's my experience with Zon search function, and with the API.

I'm sorry, but you are 100% dead wrong.

I just checked one of my books on your site, and it shows the exact sub-categories I used keywords to put the book into.

'Cowboy' may be exactly where you are going wrong. That simply may be one of the genres which don't have the keywords.

Romance, Sci-fi, Fantasy and a number of others ALL have keywords for placing books in sub-categories automatically.

The lists are in KDP Help.

I think it's a massive overstatement to say Rick is "dead wrong", but it was my experience with Lacey and Alex. I don't say anything about LGBT anywhere in any of the descriptions, but I did put "lgbt fantasy" in as one of the keywords and with no further prompting than that, Amazon has Lacey & Alex listed in the "LGBT Fantasy" category.

But we all know that Amazon moves in mysterious ways, not discernible by mere mortals.

And I found Rick's BKLINK tool to be great for finding out what categories Amazon has stuffed my books into. It would take a lot of hours of checking each book section for your book, and BKLINK does it in seconds.

So, even dead wrong, he's right. ;-p

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #21 on:** July 12, 2020, 01:20:43 AM »

Quote from: MaxDaemon on July 12, 2020, 01:08:36 AM

And I found Rick's BKLINK tool to be great for finding out what categories Amazon has stuffed my books into. It would take a lot of hours of checking each book section for your book, and BKLINK does it in seconds.

For me, the site just confirms what I already knew.

But what would be truly useful, is displaying the actual rank of the book in every category.

Picking off the 3 displayed on the product page is easy. But searching out the ranks outside the top 100s - that is information I truly WANT.

MaxDaemon · « **Reply #22 on:** July 12, 2020, 01:53:46 AM »

Quote from: TimothyEllis on July 12, 2020, 01:20:43 AM

Quote from: MaxDaemon on July 12, 2020, 01:08:36 AM
And I found Rick's BKLINK tool to be great for finding out what categories Amazon has stuffed my books into. It would take a lot of hours of checking each book section for your book, and BKLINK does it in seconds.

For me, the site just confirms what I already knew.

But what would be truly useful, is displaying the actual rank of the book in every category.

Picking off the 3 displayed on the product page is easy. But searching out the ranks outside the top 100s - that is information I truly WANT.

Not sure what you're asking. I see it's showing Lacey & Alex in six categories, with the rankings, and also showing the overall ranking. (90,359)

Lacey & Alex: The Dagger of Ill Repute: A Fantasy Adventure with a bit of romance. by Tapscott, V.R. (Author) (B08BX23YC8)
Books » Books » Mystery, Thriller & Suspense » Mysteries » Women Sleuths,
Books » Books » Mystery, Thriller & Suspense » Mysteries » Supernatural Mysteries,(Sales Rank: 2244)
Books » Books » Science Fiction & Fantasy » Fantasy » Paranormal & Urban Fantasy,
Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Mystery, Thriller & Suspense » Mysteries » Women Sleuths,(Sales Rank: 3923)
Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Science Fiction & Fantasy » Fantasy » Paranormal & Urban Fantasy,
Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Science Fiction & Fantasy » Fantasy » LGBT Fantasy,(Sales Rank: 298)

It IS showing rankings for some categories and not others, perhaps it won't show rankings if the rank is over - 10,000? 20,000?

Maybe Rick will chime in.

Along that line, it seems unlikely you'll get useful information from someone by yelling at them that they're dead wrong and having a big thumbs down. He's providing a useful application - for FREE - and I'm sure he's interested in having it be as useful as possible. Perhaps we could work with him with suggestions for improvements rather than bad tempered imprecations.

TimothyEllis · « **Reply #23 on:** July 12, 2020, 02:15:09 AM »

Quote from: MaxDaemon on July 12, 2020, 01:53:46 AM

Books » Books » Mystery, Thriller & Suspense » Mysteries » Supernatural Mysteries,(Sales Rank: 2244)
Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Mystery, Thriller & Suspense » Mysteries » Women Sleuths,(Sales Rank: 3923)
Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Science Fiction & Fantasy » Fantasy » LGBT Fantasy,(Sales Rank: 298)

Those are the ranks showing on the product page. It shows the top 3 categories.

I'm talking about the rest of them - I'd like to see ranks on them too.

But as far as I know, it isn't possible. If it is, no-one has thought the trouble of coding it worth the effort.

MaxDaemon · « **Reply #24 on:** July 12, 2020, 02:21:14 AM »

Quote from: TimothyEllis on July 12, 2020, 02:15:09 AM

Quote from: MaxDaemon on July 12, 2020, 01:53:46 AM
Books » Books » Mystery, Thriller & Suspense » Mysteries » Supernatural Mysteries,(Sales Rank: 2244)
Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Mystery, Thriller & Suspense » Mysteries » Women Sleuths,(Sales Rank: 3923)
Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Science Fiction & Fantasy » Fantasy » LGBT Fantasy,(Sales Rank: 298)

Those are the ranks showing on the product page. It shows the top 3 categories.

I'm talking about the rest of them - I'd like to see ranks on them too.

But as far as I know, it isn't possible. If it is, no-one has thought the trouble of coding it worth the effort.

Mm .. yea, I see what you mean. I wonder if Amazon doesn't provide the info to "scrape" .. for anything but their rated ones.

RIckH · « **Reply #25 on:** July 12, 2020, 02:29:59 AM »

Regarding sales ranking. I use the Zon API to get the category data on a book (by ASIN/ISBN10 number) for a country store. (Can only do US, CA, UK now because of Zon limits - API use is only you continue to have affiliate sales).

In the data returned, not all categories have Sales Rank information returned via that API call. If the Sales Rank data is returned via the API, then it is shown in the results.

The Sales Rank shown for a particular category could be the only ones shown in the actual book page, but I've never fully investigated that.

The point of BKLNK CATFINDER/CATALIZE is to show the categories that are assigned to a book. Not just the categories you see on the book's page, but all that are assigned (up to 10, although you only get to specify two in KDP). The Sales Rank data is shown when available, but that's not the point of CATFINDER.

Then if you use the CATALIZE tool on a category (or all of them), you can gather up a list of what the top 20 books in each category are using. That might give you an idea of what categories might be useful for your book to make it more visible. There's even a long PDF on the site that tells you how to do that.

The other point of BKLNK is for eacy UBLs (you just add the ASIN to the URL) that will direct the person to the proper Zon country store. And then I added the ability to add an affiliate link automatically; again, country-specific, if you sign up. That can give you some additional revenue on sales of your book - or any sales via that link for 24 hours.

I'm all for adding new features to the site, if possible. I looked into one that would do a 'word cloud' of book descriptions, with the idea that the results might be useful for keywords. But that data didn't seem to be very useful.

In the meantime....the entire site is free. I don't share the emails of people that sign up. The only monetization on the site is affiliate revenue, and maybe someone will buy one of my books.

RIckH · « **Reply #26 on:** July 12, 2020, 02:53:38 AM »

The only way to programatically get the sales data shown on a book page is to 'scrape' the page. And that doesn't add much value - you can see that if you manually go to the page.

The API doesn't provide Sales Rank data for all categories that it will return. If the Sales Rank is there, BKLNK's CATFINDER will show it.

Lu Kudzoza · « **Reply #27 on:** July 12, 2020, 03:12:40 AM »

Both Tim and Rick are half right.

Tim says the keywords put you in categories. Here's proof: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201276790

Rick says keywords make you show up in the search. Here's proof: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201298500

Rick, thanks for the great tool. Very nice for doing research.

Lu Kudzoza · « **Reply #28 on:** July 13, 2020, 03:44:31 AM »

I did a test where I removed two categories from my keywords and replaced them with search terms. Within 24 hours the book was no longer listed in the two deleted categories. Also, when I searched for the search terms the book now shows up in the search listing (when it didn't before).

So, from my testing the keyword list controls the categories the book is listed in and the search terms that are relevant for the book.

MaxDaemon · « **Reply #29 on:** July 13, 2020, 04:05:37 AM »

Quote from: Lu Kudzoza on July 13, 2020, 03:44:31 AM

I did a test where I removed two categories from my keywords and replaced them with search terms. Within 24 hours the book was no longer listed in the two deleted categories. Also, when I searched for the search terms the book now shows up in the search listing (when it didn't before).

So, from my testing the keyword list controls the categories the book is listed in and the search terms that are relevant for the book.

Sure seems to, whether they're tagged as categories or not. So if you wanted to be rated in "alzheimer's research" for your action killer zombie book, you could just put "alzheimer's research" in your search terms and voila! instant bestseller.

Don't get any ideas ..

<edit> And that means Rick's category search is all the more valuable, since you won't necessarily know where it wound up. I can tell from my LGBT findings that the book will look at multiple keywords and figure out which one seems to be appropriate. As a result, mine is in "lgbt fantasy" since "fantasy" occurs in the title and "lgbt" appears in the keywords. Or at least that's what it looks like to me.

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Author Topic: How to tell what categories your novel is in (Read 7548 times)