I’ve known Richard McCartney, our guest blogger, for several years. He’s the founder of KBookPromotions, a site named by PAID AUTHOR as one of the Best Book Promotions Sites in 2022 and 2023. Richard is also the author of a book series on self-publishing. Each of his books reached #1 on Amazon’s bestseller lists, garnered hundreds of reviews, and won awards such as the Book Excellence Awards for Marketing. Richard is often invited to speak as an expert on publishing, self-publishing, and book marketing.

Huge changes in Amazon KDP: What authors need to know in 2023

By Richard McCartney

Just when you thought it was safe to dip your toes back into KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), Amazon has changed the rules again.

At the end of May, Amazon KDP announced a raft of immediate new changes, the most important of which concerned book categories. It also increased print on demand services pricing effective June 20.

These changes have much wider repercussions. For example, many books in the Amazon store related to self-publishing and dated before June 2023 will become largely out of date, because most reference book category selection or expected ROI from book sales.

Many authors were alarmed when they heard they could only select three categories. How would this impact their sales and visibility?  To better understand this, let’s look at how book category selection use to work, and how it works now.

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means if you click on them and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission (at no extra charge to you).

Previously, on Amazon…

Previously, Amazon had a pretty flawed system where authors were asked to select two categories when uploading their book into KDP.

Unknown to many, the categories displayed to them were notably limited and different from the larger selection of categories readers could actually browse through on the Amazon website.

Also, unknown to many authors, up to 10 categories could be added to a book, but for this to happen authors had to email KDP Support.

As you can imagine, this was a rather unfair and troublesome system because many authors didn’t know they could add more than the two categories provided in KDP.

This put them at a disadvantage.

Changes in Amazon KDP should eliminate category stuffing issue

Added to this, Amazon Support rarely checked the category selections sent to them, so some more savvy authors started abusing the system by employing what some call “category stuffing.”

This malpractice places a book in niche categories where only a few sales are needed to reach the bestseller lists (perhaps even reach the #1 spot), even if the book is irrelevant in those particular categories. For example, a steamy vampire novel could appear in the bestseller list for photography.

Why it took Amazon so long to resolve this flawed system remains a mystery. However, finally, all that is largely over.

And now …

Amazon has simplified the category selection process by listing all categories inside KDP. That means we can now select from a much broader range of categories than before. And, should we change our minds on the categories selected, we can update them whenever we like through our KDP Bookshelf.

One notable limitation is that Amazon now restricts books to three categories. On the whole, this is a good thing because it should prevent the malpractice of “category stuffing” I mentioned before. It should also fix a glitch many authors reported in November 2022 regarding incorrect categories showing for their books.

NOTE: The three-category limitation takes effect when you update your book. If no change is made, then you remain with the categories you had before the May 2023 changes.

Category selection tips

Being limited to just three categories makes your book category selection all the more important.

When publishing an e-book in KDP, most authors will select the first two categories that come to mind when browsing the list of categories now provided in KDP. In many cases, this is a mistake.

One of the objectives in selecting categories for your book is not so much to select the most logical ones, but rather the “best fit” ones. By this, I mean selecting the categories where you book is most likely to be found in the Amazon Store.

Amazon shoppers often discover books by entering keywords in the search box and by searching through the bestseller lists. Amazon has a “Top 100” list in hundreds of categories, and many readers will look at these lists.

So, one of your goals should be to try and select at least one category where your book appears in these lists with minimum sales effort needed. Popular tools like Publisher Rocket help with this, if you don’t mind paying for such products.

If you have a very limited budget, there are books in the Amazon Store showing you how to achieve this, too.

Amazon KDP print cost changes

As for the change in print prices, the largest impact will be for large trim size books, especially those with color printing.

Pricing will vary by format, page numbers, trim size, and even marketplace (CA, EU, UK etc.).

Thankfully, Amazon provides a KDP Printing Costs and Royalty Calculator tool. It’s the best way to determine your new print costs and projected return on investment.

The changes in Amazon KDP aren’t so bad, right?

When selecting book categories, authors now have a full range of category selection within KDP without having to contact Amazon Support. All of this is, I believe, generally good news for all of us published in KDP.

For book pricing, using the KDP Printing Costs and Royalty Calculator which will show you that only large trim size books will be seriously impacted. Calculating costs in advance will help you decide if you want to make changes, too.

What questions do you have about these changes? Please ask Richard in a comment.