How to Choose KDP Categories Using Books Like Yours
A free, step-by-step way to choose your three Amazon KDP categories: read the Best Sellers Rank on books like yours, spot the categories they share, and find the ones where a new book can stand out.
When you publish on Amazon KDP, you’re asked to choose up to three categories. They decide which shelves your book sits on in the Kindle Store, and which bestseller lists it can appear in.
Most authors pick something that sounds roughly right, like “Thrillers” or “Romance”, and move on. But broad categories are crowded, and a new book can sink in them without trace. A better choice can put your book in front of exactly the readers looking for it.
You don’t need a paid tool to choose well. Everything you need is already on Amazon, on the pages of books like yours.
What categories actually do
Categories are Amazon’s shelves. Readers browse them, and each one has its own bestseller list. A book that ranks well in a small, specific category gets a little orange “#1 Best Seller” badge and more visibility, even if it’s nowhere near the top of the whole store.
That’s why the choice matters. “Romance” is one enormous shelf. “Romantic Comedy” is smaller. “Holiday Romance” is smaller still. The smaller and more specific the shelf, the easier it is for your book to be seen on it, as long as it genuinely belongs there.
The free method: read the Best Sellers Rank
Every book on Amazon shows where it ranks, and in which categories. You’ll find it on the book’s page, under Product details, in a section called Best Sellers Rank. It looks something like this:
Best Sellers Rank: #4,218 in Kindle Store
#12 in Cozy Culinary Mysteries
#31 in Women Sleuths
#58 in Amateur Sleuths
The first line is the book’s rank across the whole store. The lines underneath are the categories it’s in, and its position in each. Those category lines are what you’re after.
Look at a handful of books like yours and the same categories start to repeat. Those repeats are the shelves your readers actually browse.
Step 1: Choose 3 to 5 comparable books
Pick books that are genuinely like yours: same genre, similar tone, similar readers. They should be selling reasonably well, because a book with no sales won’t show useful rankings.
A good test: would a reader who loved that book be likely to enjoy yours? If yes, it’s a good comparison.
Use the Kindle edition of each book, since ebooks and paperbacks are listed separately and can sit in different categories.
Step 2: Copy each book’s category lines
Open each book’s page, scroll down to Product details, and find the Best Sellers Rank. Note down the category lines under it.
Step 3: Look for categories that repeat
Put the lists side by side. A category that appears for three or four of your five books is a strong signal: it’s where books like yours live, and where your readers look.
Categories that appear only once can still be useful, but treat them with more caution. They might reflect something specific to that one book.
Step 4: Spot the categories where a new book can stand out
This is the part most guides skip. Compare a book’s overall rank with its rank in a category.
If a book is outside the top 10,000 in the whole Kindle Store but still in the top 50 of a category, that category is a small one. A modest number of sales is enough to rank well there. Those are the shelves where a new book has the best chance of being noticed.
If every book in a category is in the top few hundred overall, that category is crowded with big sellers. It’s still worth being in if your book fits, but don’t expect to climb it quickly.
A worked example
Say you’ve written a cozy mystery set in a bakery, and you look at four comparable books:
| Category | Book A | Book B | Book C | Book D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cozy Culinary Mysteries | #12 | #40 | #7 | #25 |
| Women Sleuths | #31 | #18 | #66 | |
| Amateur Sleuths | #58 | #90 | ||
| Cozy Animal Mysteries | #22 |
“Cozy Culinary Mysteries” appears for all four books. That’s your first category, without question.
“Women Sleuths” appears for three, so it’s a strong second.
For the third, look at the overall ranks. Say Book B is #18,500 in the Kindle Store but #22 in “Cozy Animal Mysteries”. That tells you the category is small enough for a book selling modestly to rank well. If your book has a cat or a dog playing a real part, it’s a good third choice. If it doesn’t, “Amateur Sleuths” is the safer option.
The rules worth knowing
Only choose categories your book genuinely fits. Picking a category just because it’s easy to rank in, when your book doesn’t belong there, frustrates readers and can lead Amazon to move or remove your book. Readers who find you on the wrong shelf rarely buy, and the ones who do can leave disappointed reviews.
The names don’t always match exactly. The category names on a book’s page and the names in KDP’s category picker are sometimes worded slightly differently. Search the picker for the key words and choose the closest genuine match.
You can change them later. Categories aren’t permanent. If your book isn’t finding readers, you can update them from your KDP Bookshelf, just as you can your keywords.
Categories and keywords work together. Once you’ve chosen your categories, you don’t need to repeat their words in your keyword boxes. Amazon already knows them. Spend your keywords on other phrases instead. More on that in How to Choose KDP Keywords.
Doing it in Libba
Copying category lines from five books and lining them up by hand works, but it’s fiddly. Libba’s Amazon tab does the lining up for you.
In the category finder, paste the Best Sellers Rank section from each comparable book. Copying the whole section is fine. Libba reads the category lines and builds a table of every category across all the books, ordered by how many books share it. It also points out categories where a book with a modest overall rank still sits near the top, so you can see the smaller shelves at a glance.
You then keep your chosen categories with your book, next to your keywords and description, ready to copy on upload day. Libba doesn’t connect to Amazon or collect data automatically: it only reads what you paste in, so it never breaks when Amazon changes its pages.
Common questions
How many categories can I choose? KDP lets you choose up to three when you set up your book.
Should I choose very broad categories like “Fiction”? Usually not. Broad categories are dominated by the biggest sellers. A specific category your book truly fits gives it a far better chance of being seen.
How many comparable books should I check? Three to five is plenty. Fewer than three and you can’t see a pattern; more than five rarely changes the answer.
Do I need a paid category tool? No. Paid tools can save time if you publish a lot, but everything this method needs is free on Amazon’s own pages.
Your categories, keywords and description together make up your Amazon listing. See also How to Choose KDP Keywords and How to Write and Format Your Amazon Book Description.
