A Quick Tip for Selecting Your Best Amazon Book Category

Have you ever had this experience?  Through keyword searches or just guessing, you have narrowed down your choices for which categories to use for your new book.  But then, since Kindle Direct Publishing only allows two categories, you get forced to choose between two pretty good category fits!  How do you intelligently choose between the two?

Let me offer a simple suggestion.  It may not be the most advanced or highly scientific one, but it works pretty well for quickly getting high rankings after a book launch.  All books on Amazon are in competition with one another, both on the Amazon Best Sellers Rank and on their ranking within a particular category.  We can use this fact to select the easiest category to get a high ranking!

Look at the #100 ranked book in each category you are considering.  Compare their overall Amazon Bestsellers Rank to see how high you must rank overall in order to be in the top 100 of that category.  Here are two examples we can use.  Suppose you have written a book that could logically fit into either the category for budgeting or for money management.  Both fit the book well, but which would be best to quickly get a high ranking?

When you look at the #100 book in each of the categories you are considering and then go to their book page, here’s what you’ll find:

The #100 book in the budgeting category ranked at #233,001 Paid in the Amazon Best Sellers Rank.

 

The #100 book in the money management category ranked at #122,354 Paid in the Amazon Best Sellers Rank.

 

I hope you can instantly see that the money management category is an easier one for high ranking than the budgeting one.  Wish I had known that when I wrote my book on getting out of debt!  I chose Budgeting.  I still hit #1, but I would have probably been wise to have put it into Money Management instead.