Walking through the doors of a physical bookstore or a library, you will find shelves of books that categorized by either subject or genre. This makes it easy for the consumer to browse or locate a title easier than just rummaging through a large mound of books. E-Books are categorized on eShelves similarly for the same reason. When you write and publish an eBook, any site that would sell your book should be thought of as a physical bookstore when selecting your title’s categories. Notice that I say “categories” (plural). The luxury of eBooks is that they can be placed on multiple eShelves at the same time. Your book can be featured in mystery, romance, horror, western, humor, sports… all at once, and then sub-genred beyond that, but you must pick the correct categories that are appropriate for your book.

Depending on who you publish your book through, you're allowed a determined number of book categories by that company. If you want your book to appear on more than that designated number, you'll have to expand. Amazon, iTunes, and other book sales sites categorize your book not only from the sections you chose, but also from the keywords and description in your book listing. The easiest way to take advantage of this is to use the right keywords. And like categories, these sites allow a certain number of keywords for each listing. Each company considers all the words and spaces between commas as one keyword, ie. ‘Civil War romance’, ‘underwater deep sea fishing’, and ‘toxic food chemicals’ counts as exactly the same number of keywords as ‘romance’, ‘fishing’, ‘food’. The secret is to find the right keyword strings to make your book end up on the right eShelves. Amazon has kindly published a listing of keyword phrases that guarantee listing in its categories, as long as you list them between two commas. It's a simple page called Selecting Browsing Categories, and it contains links to pages for categorizing the major book niches such as Young Adult and thrillers. Additionally, in your perusing of Amazon, you might notice that some books contain more categories than others. How do I get my book listed under more categories than what Amazon allows you ask? Go to Library Thing. It is a company owned by Amazon. There you can go to your previously uploaded title and choose additional categories that will be added to your book’s Amazon page.

When making your selections of categories and keywords, just remember to be a reader and not a writer. Step into their shoes and use the search engines, as well as scouring pages for good examples. You don't want to fill your keyword space only with these keyword phrases. Aim for three or four good category phrases and fill out the rest with good search phrases people would use when looking for a book like yours: ‘19th century western horror’ or ‘award winning romance.’ Using both types of keywords will guarantee the maximum number of people who are looking for something to read. No matter where you publish your book, these keyword phrases will work for you toward getting your book onto the right virtual shelves.