Guides
KDP categories and keywords: how to choose them
Amazon does not find your book by reading it. It finds it through the categories you choose and the keywords you type into seven boxes at upload. Choose a category with two thousand competitors and you are invisible; choose one with two hundred and a dozen sales puts a bestseller badge on the book. This guide is about making those choices on purpose.
Categories: pick small and precise
KDP now lets you pick three categories from a browsable tree. The rule: go as deep as the tree allows and choose the most specific category where your book honestly belongs. “Business & Money” is hopeless; “Business & Money › Small Business & Entrepreneurship › Home-Based” is a place you can rank. Check the depth by opening the top book in a candidate category on Amazon and reading its category path and sales rank; a #1 book with a rank above 50,000 means the category is small enough for a new title to reach the top 10 with a few sales a day.
Keywords: seven boxes, 50 characters each
- Each box takes a phrase or several words; Amazon matches individual words across boxes, so do not repeat words already in the title or subtitle.
- Use phrases buyers type, not labels: “how to grow tomatoes in pots” beats “gardening, tomatoes”.
- Cover different intents: the problem, the audience, the outcome, the format (“workbook”, “beginners”), a comparable topic.
- Fill all seven. Empty boxes are lost searches.
Where to find the phrases
- Amazon’s own search bar: type the topic and note the suggestions, then add a letter and note again.
- The subtitles of the top 20 books in your category: they were chosen for the same reason.
- The “Customers also bought” row: the vocabulary of adjacent books.
- Your own readers’ words, from emails and reviews.
What Amazon forbids
Other authors’ names or book titles, brand names you do not own, “free”, “bestseller”, “new”, subjective claims (“best book on…”), and anything not related to the content. A rejected keyword can hold up publishing; a misleading category can get the book recategorised or removed.
Changing them later
Both are editable from the bookshelf at any time and take effect within a day or two. Review them 30 days after launch: if the book sits below rank 300,000 in every category, try a smaller one. If a keyword phrase brings no impressions in Amazon Ads search terms, replace it.
The AI question
Categories and keywords say nothing about how the book was written. The AI disclosure is a separate step at upload and is not shown to buyers.
Frequently asked questions
How many categories can I choose?
Three, since 2023, chosen from the tree in the KDP form. The old trick of emailing support for extra categories no longer applies.
Should keywords repeat the title?
No. Title and subtitle are already indexed; use the seven boxes for phrases that are not in them.
Can I use competitor names?
No. Names, brands and titles you do not own are against KDP’s guidelines.
Do keywords matter more than the cover?
Keywords get the impression, the cover gets the click, the description gets the sale. All three, in that order.