Up until recently, authors self-publishing through Amazon KDP could apply up to 10 categories to their book and also rank simultaneously in all of those categories, if selling like gangbusters. But in early September, Amazon made a change that prevents most books, regardless of format or publisher, from ranking in more than three categories at any one time, even though 10 categories can still be assigned. (You can use this tool to see all categories assigned to a book and the three categories it is currently ranking in.) But no one is sure if this limitation is a deliberate change or a temporary glitch.
In one of his latest trend reports, Alex Newton at K-lytics offered an early, high-level look at how this change has affected rank and what books appear in Kindle bestseller lists in the Science Fiction & Fantasy category. K-lytics has been following trends for SFF in particular for seven years, and sales in this genre have been trending high since the pandemic.
Within SFF, some subcategories experienced a strong rank decline—what Newton called a “reset”—due to the new rules. For example, the subcategory of Greek & Roman Myths and Legends saw a 12-month rank change of -848 percent. A bestselling series like Zodiac Wolves by Elizabeth Briggs, which once ranked well in this subcategory, no longer appears there. Instead, it ranks only in Paranormal, Paranormal Witches & Wizards Romance, and Fantasy (as of this writing). Of course this raises the question of how a book’s three ranking categories get determined if it can rank for more. No one knows, but Amazon says it’s based on customer activity.
Another example of this effect can be found in the Humor & Entertainment category, which includes puzzles and games. If you dig deep enough, there’s a subcategory under puzzles and games specific to werewolves; this category would include LitRPG work. The sales rank for this tiny niche looked overwhelmingly positive prior to September, but it has since bottomed out as a result of the changes. Funnily enough, some of the top-ranking books here now include paranormal romance. Perhaps authors have seized the opportunity to become an easy “bestseller” by applying these deep niche categories that have been hollowed out due to ranking limits? More than a few categories will be interesting to watch as romance titles get filtered out (or possibly return through manipulation), including Women’s Fiction > Fantasy and Military Fantasy.
Whether this ranking limitation is good or bad depends on the eye of the beholder, says Newton. Generally high-ranking books like Zodiac Wolves have been kicked out of multiple bestseller lists. And that means less visibility. But if you are an author who has never had a chance to rank in a subcategory because of these big sellers, you may achieve rank and visibility going forward. Consumers may enjoy a better browsing experience, as they’re not running into the exact same titles on every bestseller list. It also improves the accuracy of categories like SF Classics, which now reflects, well, classics! (Contemporary indie authors have infiltrated the category in the past by applying the category to their own work.) Of course, this is all trying to make sense of a change that we have no official explanation for.
What should self-publishing authors do, if anything, in response? Some have already asked Amazon to remove some of the 10 categories that have been applied to their books so they can better control or direct where their book ranks. We reached out to Dave Chesson of Publisher Rocket about the situation, both to confirm that ranking limitations are occurring and to ask what a savvy author should do in response. After his team analyzed the data, he was able to confirm that limitations are indeed occurring with 95 percent of titles and these limitations happen in a very specific way. In short, it appears that it’s no longer possible for books to rank in more than three categories under a level 4. So … what does that mean?
Take a look at this list of categories from the Amazon retail site. Level 1 is the Kindle Store. (Another example of a level 1 would be Audible Books.) Level 2 is Kindle eBooks. Level 3 is Science Fiction & Fantasy. Level 4 is Science Fiction. Level 5 is everything you see listed underneath, starting with Adventure and ending with Time Travel. Some have subcategories with levels 6 and 7 if you click into them.
Fully expressed, a ranking category for a book might look like this:
Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Science Fiction & Fantasy » Science Fiction » First Contact
Under the new rules, a book can only rank for three categories under Science Fiction, a level-4 category.
Chesson says that if an author wants to rank for more than three categories total, then they need to limit themselves to three categories under a level 4, then look for another upper-level category to appropriately rank in. Here’s an example, using a science fiction book, of how that might be done.
In this example, let’s say the book can be accurately categorized as Alien Invasion, First Contact, and Military (all under the Science Fiction category). If the book performs well, it could rank for all three. However, if you were to add a fourth category under Science Fiction, that’s a step too far; you’ll only rank for three (and Amazon will determine which three). To increase your ranking potential across additional categories, you could also categorize your book under Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction, then choose up to three level-5 categories—in this case, Disaster, Men’s Adventure, and War. With these selections, a book could potentially rank in six categories under Amazon’s new rules.
Bottom line: Chesson says he’s not entirely sold that Amazon made this change on purpose and worries it might be a bug. A handful of books, inexplicably, break the three-category rule. Also, when Amazon makes these types of changes, it’s almost always to increase earnings, but Chesson doesn’t see how or why this change would make more money or really do that much to “clean up” the overall browsing experience. “If I am a fiction author and I write science fiction [for example], this motivates me to force my book outside of science fiction. I don’t think it’s well thought out,” he said. “What does it do? I don’t know. Frustrates people?”
Ultimately, he doesn’t have a firm recommendation for what authors should do. He understands that some authors might choose to adjust their categories for more ranking potential (as described above) and to make sure they rank for the things they care about. But he felt there was also an argument to be made for doing nothing at all in case it’s a glitch. When we asked children’s author Darcy Pattison what she planned to do, she wrote us, “The lack of trust in Amazon keeps me frozen. To me, that’s always the problem. When Amazon lacks transparency, it’s hard to make choices about categories because the results could be erratic.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
