A place for everything, and everything in its place — Dorothy Grant

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt
*This author hasn’t exactly gone fishing, but it’s her anniversary and she’s gone off for a writing weekend with her sweetie.  Deal.  She’ll be back on Monday.
Also, an  announcement Witchfinder is on Sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble for 2.99 electronic through noon on Monday.  It’s 2.99, so less than a half but a little more than 1/3 the price.  Please share the news as much as you can.  Much appreciated.*

A place for everything, and everything in its place — Dorothy Grant

For over a hundred years, his system has made it possible for people who are not experts on a single library’s particular collection to easily track down the area of the library with the general subject (history), the aisles with the more specific subject (American history), and get to the shelf with the Spanish-American War books. This is awesome. As an indie publisher, you want to know this if you want your book to end up in a library.Bookstores, though, found problems with the Dewey Decimal Code, in part because it has the inborn design view of a 1800’s American librarian, and doesn’t play well with fiction. They have mostly adapted the BISAC, Book Industry Standards and Communications. You’ll want to know BISAC, because that’s how you’re going to categorize your book for sale.https://www.bisg.org/complete-bisac-subject-headings-2013-edition is the page with all the categories. You’ll be using those for Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and itunes. When you hear the phrase cross-genre, these are the original genres, the categories that made publishers look at a book and go “Bookstores won’t know where to shelve it, so I won’t buy it.”And then there’s Amazon. Amazon took a look at BISAC, and says, “Well, that’s neat. But the customers who want to read about ninjas in space won’t know where to find it, and what if they want epic fantasy instead of adventure fantasy?” So they promptly went and created a whole bunch more categories, and sub categories, and sub-sub categories, and tickyboxes on the side of the page so you could say you wanted romance that only included men with kilts, or pirates in pantaloons, thank you.

Amazon is still creating categories. They love creating categories. They just made “short reads”, and are plunking fiction in sorted by the amount of time it takes the average reader to read ’em.

This is important. Every categorization system before Amazon’s was made to shelve a physical book. They are exclusive, as putting a book in one category prevents it from being put in any other category. Amazon’s is inclusive, designed to put your book in all the places a customer might look for it. It’s the difference between filing paperwork and tagging a photo on flickr. This is as different a worldview as Dewey’s was in his day.

Just as tagging a photo requires, commonly recognized labels to create a populated cloud of photos under that label, and #hashtags on twitter work because people #recognize them as a #commontrend, so Amazon has “keywords.” You only get to pick two categories when you initially publish, so the keywords you enter will unlock the subcategories for you.

For Example, War To The Knife (Laredo War Trilogy Book 1)‘s main categories are:
FICTION > Science Fiction > Space Opera
FICTION > Science Fiction > Military

However, it’s present in all the following categories:

Books > Literature & Fiction
Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Adventure
Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Military
Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Colonization
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Galactic Empire
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Military > Space Fleet
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Military > Space Marine
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera

We did that by putting in the following keywords: “Fleet, Marine, Space, Action, republic, Colonization, Starship”

But how did we know what keywords to put in? We went to the KDP help pages: they have lists. https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A200PDGPEIQX41

Note they have keywords for characters. Well, if you browse from the kindle ebook section of amazon, clicking on science fiction and fantasy, then on fantasy, you’ll see subgenres of fantasy on the left side of the screen. Scrolling further down, you’ll see tickboxes with specific characters. Did you want pirates? Clicky the tickybox, and anyone who put “pirate” in as a keyword will pop up, even if their title says “raiders” and their book description says “the dread scourge of the high seas”, but never once uses the word pirate.

Yes, that last sentence does indeed mean that keywords are not the only way to get in these categories and characters; putting the words in your book title and your book’s blurb will also do so… but NOT as reliably as a keyword. Also, “Swept Away ROMANCE KILTS TIME TRAVEL SCARED SHEEP by Ina Godda DaVida ” just looks tacky, and will drive readers away.

What about the book Description? Death of a Musketeer (Musketeers Mysteries Book 1) is in:
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Historical
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators

But there’s no good way to specify which period in history you want your historical mystery, or which city. So, the book blurb does it for the search engine.

“April in Paris 1625. D’Artagnan, and his new friends who hide their true identities under the assumed names of Athos, Porthos and Aramis, discover the corpse of a beautiful woman who looks like the Queen of France.
Suspecting an intrigue of Cardinal Richelieu’s and fearing the murder will go unpunished they start investigating. But the enterprise will be fraught with danger, traps from the Cardinal, duels with guards and plotting from the king himself.”

Yep, there you have Musketeer (in the title), Paris, D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, Queen, France, Cardinal, Richelieu, duels, king. That’s some search engine optimization right there.

What will this do for you? First off, it’ll put the book where the readers are looking for it. If your wild elven pirates are fighting the dwarven navies, no matter what terms you used, it’ll pop up in the search when a reader is looking for a good pirate tale. If you’re not on a top-100 list this is your best shot besides showing up in also-boughts at coming to a reader’s attention.

Speaking of those top-100 lists, there are 162,352 stories in Science Fiction & Fantasy right now. There are 1802 in steampunk. If you’ve written a post-apocalyptic steampunk adventure, your chances of getting on the top-100 list are weighing against 1802 others in steampunk, and 6,452 in post-apocalyptic. That’s a whole lot easier than competing against the multimillion dollar media campaign for George RR Martin, or against the several-decade rolling franchises of Star Trek and Star Wars. And once you get on those top-100 lists, by being visible, it’s a lot easier to capture browser’s attention and stay visible.

On the other paw, this also tells you the size of the market. There are 24,090 historical romances in ebook. Clearly, your PA-steampunk adventure isn’t going to have the same popularity as Say, Outlander: A Novel (#2 in the historical romances, #74 in the entire 2-million-plus kindle store, as I type). In fact, Shadowdance: The Darkest London Series: Book 4 is #2 in steampunk and #3,704 in kindle store as I type this.

Caveat: Your book should go in all the places it belongs, but don’t stick it in places that have more traffic, but it doesn’t belong. Chick lit about shoes and metrosexuals does not belong in historical romance. Quest fantasy does not belong in hard science fiction. You will get ticked off customers, one-star reviews, and refunds all saying “not what I expected/wanted!” Don’t piss off the readers, who are the people you want to help you pay for food.
dir=”ltr”>

46 thoughts on “A place for everything, and everything in its place — Dorothy Grant”

  3. I keep wondering whether I can put a book in the hard science fiction category. I haven’t yet. Two pivotal scenes have plenty of orbital mechanics. The central problem is orbital debris. There are light engineering descriptions. However, the first third of the book has horseback riding, contracts, mountain lions, intimations of romance and other frivolous stuff. This has given me great pause. Any fans of hard science fiction have any views?

    Like

    1. Orbital mechanics==hard sf :)

      Hard sf readers like frivolous stuff too as long as the core of the science and engineering is accurate.

      Like

      1. “Orbital mechanics==hard sf :)”

        Agreed, and that’s what makes that category so plausible and so tempting, but I’m sure there’s a ratio of tech to frivle (unit of frivolity, of course), and I have no idea what that ratio is.

        Like

        1. I’m about halfway through, I’d say tag it as hard sf with keywords. It is kind of what I would consider ‘light’ hard sf, but definitely involves enough ‘hard’ info to be tagged that way. The tag will get them interested in checking it out, and the blurb will tell them it is more a Travis Taylor style hard sf with a human interest story* than someone’s technical fantasy.

          Just be warned if you tag it as hard sf you better make sure any equations or technical info you put in it is accurate. Because you will get readers who will stop reading the story to do two pages of math, and then complain bitterly if you used an approximation.

          *I’m not a true hard sf reader, I read for the story, I don’t stop and do long complicated equations in an effort to prove the author wrong, nor am I interested in someone’s technical fantasy with no human interest. I’ve skirted around the edges of hard sf enough to learn I need to differentiate between hard sf with a human interest story and that without. Your blurb helps readers like myself know what we are getting into.

          Like

          1. Wow. Thank you, Bearcat. This is tremendously helpful. Thanks to Dorothy also for the information and making thinking happen!

            I did stay away from equations, and had an “orbital mechanic” read over certain scenes. I’m sure there’s an error somewhere, but I was as careful as I could be. The dead satellites are all pulled from trade press descriptions of the locations of real ones. Now, that same trade press regularly (not always, but more than never) gets legal stuff wrong, but you go with what you’ve got: an approximation of an inclination of a real satellite probably works fine for an imaginary one.

            Like

    3. If your book takes a while to get to what it’s “Actually about” you can have an opening scene or preface that shows it (and shows up in the look inside) and then go on with your slow build up.

      Like

      1. It does start with what it’s about, and I wouldn’t say the build up is slow, just not pervasive tech and science. It’s about a race, and the conflicts around the race are technical and human. So, I’m dithering over whether I can categorize it as Hard SF given that the tech is not always front and center. Having looked at the books in that category, I’m thinking maybe I can, but I await bearcat’s opinion. Kali’s view that as long as the tech is accurate at its core is heartening.

        Like

        1. Hard Science doesn’t have to be a technical dissertation, it just has to concern hard science. The numbers have to add up. And instead of “Dune, Desert Planet” planets shall have climate zones etc.

          Like

          2. That is a bad example for while the rest of the universe was not hard science the ecology of Dune was based on hard science.

            Like

  7. I can vouch for the fact that what Dorothy says works. She gently — as in she didn’t pound on me like Sarah does sometimes ;-) — told me what I needed to do to tag my work and I did as she said and my sales have been increasing as a result. So thanks for reminding me how important that is this morning, Dorothy!

    Like

  9. I’d add, “and keep checking, those browse categories change every week”

    YA SF action and adventure just got added, and it’s perfect match for the new book.

    Like

  11. “the BISAC, Book Industry Standards and Communications” The site states that one has to have a license to use the BISAC. The price of the license is more than I expect my books to sell for. However, I need it; so before I cut and paste- what am I missing?

    Like

    1. Ah, you are not the retailer shelving items by BISAC. You are a manufacturer who is coding your item such that it can be used in that system. Libraries and bookstores have to pay the license.

      Like

  12. Oops. There’s a missing first paragraph to this article. And I’m at work and can’t fix it. Will try to put it in comments tonight.

    Like

    1. Dewey’s system, in some ways, beats the LCC (Library of Congress) for the general user. LCC is more precise, especially with fiction categories, but when you want to browse genre, the modified Dewey that most libraries use is friendlier. And I like having my non-fiction lumped, so that history is all the 900s, for example, rather than having to remember that B is where you find British history (but not politics, so the Parliamentary Papers are elsewhere), DD is German history (and other things), American Indians are E 99 (then alphabetized by tribe) and American history may well be in military, state histories, politics, or hiding in Q (sciency stuff but not entirely).

      Like

        1. My memory may be slipping. I’ve been haunting the US history section for the past few years. The regional academic library has a, shall we say, minimalist approach to European history acquisitions.

          Like

    2. “In the 1880’s, a librarian named Charles Dewey got so frustrated at trying to find books (they used to be shelved by date of acquisition and height), that he released upon the world the Dewey Decimal system, with the (at-the-time) astounding advance of organizing books by subjects, from most general to most specific. ”

      That was the first paragraph.

      Like

  13. Thank you, sometimes I think I’m in the garden song, step by step, row by row; but, I am going to make this garden grow. With your help that is.

    Like

  16. I noticed they added some other things to the Book Details page. You can set age and grade ranges too for appropriate audiences.

    Do you (everyone) enable the Book Lending feature?

    Like

    1. I did; word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool out there, hands down. So make it easy to share!

      Like

  17. I do like the faceted classification system that Amazon uses. Not having the catalog limited by what can physically fit on the shelf is great, especially for fiction. In my work, we usually use LC for various contracts, sometimes Dewey and sometimes local call numbers.

    Like

  19. You know, I’ve read up on Amazon’s use of keywords and categories, scoured the intertubes and plowed through the results. I got more out of the few minutes I spent reading this than I did out of all that work. Thank you, you’ve made me better at my job. Well, and rendered that part of my job largely obsolete: I think I’ll just send my editing customers to this article rather than do any of it myself.

    Like

    2. Note that the keywords and categories are not exactly matched. The keywords are more related to the search-narrowing checkboxes you get on the category page.

      Like

Comments are closed.