Publisher Rocket Releases New Data on Amazon Categories
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Publisher Rocket Releases New Data on Amazon Categories
And how it integrates with everything else we know about Amazon categories
Dave Chesson of Publisher Rocket, Kindlepreneur, and Atticus sent me a message yesterday about some really cool data he and his team have collected on all the Amazon categories changes that have come out in the last year. He’s just released a YouTube video for you that offers an overview of everything they found. It’s about six minutes so well worth your time to watch—and I also dropped a few of my own notes mixed with Chesson’s notes about it below.
#1 - Amazon Has Implemented Its Own Categorization System
If you are not caught up on the category changes at Amazon, the biggest change is that Amazon has moved away from the standard BISAC categorization that is prominent in the United States (it’s different for other countries) and has now implemented its own categorization system that is more closely based on the categories it actually shows in its storefront. You can now choose three of these categories for each of your books.
There’s a lot more to it than that, and you’ll want to read my recent post on the Five Important Fallouts of the Category Changes at Amazon to get the full overview.
#2 - 54% are Duplicate Categories
Chesson notes that 54% of the new categories are actually duplicates! It took me a minute to understand what this meant, but my own understanding of it is that you can get to certain sub-categories through two different category paths.
The good news is that you can’t select the same sub-category twice under two different paths—Amazon won’t let you! So you don’t actually have to worry about picking the same category twice.
Chesson also notes that if your book is selling well and ranking high in the sub-category, Amazon could put you in adjacent sub-categories in both paths. So it’s not a bad thing when Amazon shows that your book is in the same sub-category with two different category paths—it’s actually a feature in this new categorization system.
If you want to know which categories are duplicates, you can now find that information in Publisher Rocket!
#3 - Over 27% are Ghost (Dead) Categories
This piece of information blew me away—27% of the categories in the listings lead to absolutely nowhere. Chesson showed that these categories linked to pages that didn’t actually have Bestseller Lists. I looked into his example, and I couldn’t find the lists he used—just a broader category that contained Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense instead of just Mysteries.
To identify these ghost categories, you will need to watch the video. Look to see if the name of the category is listed at the top, and if there is any information in the sidebar.
The downside to selecting one of these categories is clear: if your book is listed in a non-bestseller list category, you can't rank on a bestseller list. This is going to affect Kindle Unlimited books much more than wide books, because they tend to focus on Bestseller List visibility strategies, but it may also affect wide books that use Bestseller List visibility to get sales.
That said, I have a couple of my own theories on what these Ghost Categories actually are (and how dead they actually are). It is my belief that Amazon has tightly segmented (and automated) lists of readers that like certain types of books. These lists are not visible on the storefront, but they drive a ton of the personalized recommendations via email, push notifications, and personalized carousels.
If you have a strong Bestseller List strategy on Amazon, then Ghost Categories may be something to avoid, but if you don’t, I wouldn’t be surprised if these categories still helped to market your book through other areas of Amazon’s algorithms. And if they are more relevant, or more niched down, they could actually be a better choice for your book! Reminder: this is just a theory, and if you don’t want to take the risk, it makes sense to avoid these categories altogether.
If you want to know which categories are Ghost Categories, you can now find that information in Publisher Rocket!
#4 - Certain Keywords Are Associated With How Amazon Sorts Your Book Into Categories
Amazon has basically always had the policy of being able to remove or add you to categories, keywords, and search terms throughout its store at will. More than any of the other retailers, it takes the stance that user-inputed data must be verified automatically before pushing it to the corresponding algorithmic mechanisms—and for good reason. Spammers, black and gray hatters, and even real authors with aggressive marketing tactics have spent decades trying to game Amazon’s algorithms to increase visibility for their products in the storefront.
Because of this, you can choose your categories, but Amazon will verify. They will check your category selections against title, subtitle, book description, keywords, and more. It’s all gotta be in alignment—no surprise there!
Publisher Rocket now gives keywords that you can use to strengthen your “case” for why you should be in various categories. This is awesome! You can use this to stay in your categories and possibly get into new categories, according to Chesson.
Get Publisher Rocket
I’m not an affiliate, there’s no exchange here, but I do own Publisher Rocket and it’s pretty awesome! I recommend it regularly. These updates to the program are really cool and I think it’s worth grabbing the tool if you haven’t done so already.
Get Your Book Selling on Amazon: A Book Update
This new data comes at the perfect time, as I’m just finishing up the second edition for my book, Get Your Book Selling on Amazon. If you’ve read the book, you know that I refer to a lot of Chesson’s and Publisher Rocket’s research and data in the book already. This is the last major tidbit that will be going into the book.
As for a more general update, I have a number of chapters to finalize besides the one on categories and metadata, but the book is coming along and should be done in just a few days. It’s clocking in at about 400 pages, so it’s as large as our Kickstarter book (Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter). It’s by far the largest retailer book and maybe the largest book in the entire Book Sales Supercharged series. There are 22 chapters, and I have about five more to finalize—it’s just taking a little bit longer than others!
The preorder for it is not working through my website (😑), but I’ll be sending it to Kickstarter backers in the next few days and will drop the link(s) to order this new book for non-backers in the Saturday Scoop!
Publisher Rocket Releases New Data on Amazon Categories
I know I've talked about this before, but quite apart from my other feelings about Amazon, I wonder what the point of even trying is, since Amazon will algorithmically change your categories and there is nothing you can do about it.
I just seriously don't understand how their algorithms think that it is in anybody's - mine, theirs, or the readers' - best interest to put books that deal with war, estrangement, and bullying in a children's category