Amazon Book Categories Frustrate Authors

For many authors Amazon is the best invention since sliced bread. On the other hand, Amazon can drive authors crazy.

I spend a great deal of time trying to take advantage of the opportunities and plow through the frustrations.

Recently I have both been working on changing the categories for my books on Kindle. I know that the categories from which authors can choose in the KDP dashboard are not the same as the ones for the Kindle store on Amazon.

This can be very frustrating for authors who have to email KDP asking to have the categories changed to the ones on the Kindle store.

In a recent flurry of emails back and forth with KDP, I finally got this additional information:

Keep in mind that the category options displayed in your Bookshelf won’t match the website exactly because the Bookshelf choices are BISAC categories (Book Industry Standards and Communications), while the names shown on the website are Browse categories.

Can you believe it! This disconnect drives me crazy.

Now the good news is that I also was told that more categories are being added to the KDP dashboard. Whether these will be only BISAC categories or actual browse categories remains to be seen.

Meanwhile I will continue my quest to find the answers to all my author Amazon questions.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON and the romantic suspense spy story CIA FALL GUY.

Click here to visit her Amazon author page at www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller

She also has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com