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BISAC code

Listing & discoverability

Also called: subject code, category code

A standardised subject classification used across the book trade. KDP maps the BISAC categories you choose onto the browse categories readers actually see on Amazon.

BISAC codes are the industry's shared vocabulary for what a book is about — a hierarchical list maintained for the whole trade, not by Amazon. Each code has a short label like JUVENILE FICTION / Animals / Cats.

During publishing you select BISAC subjects, and Amazon maps them to its own browse tree. The mapping is not one to one, which is why the categories a book ends up in are sometimes not the ones the author expected.

Category choice affects discoverability more than most metadata decisions, because bestseller ranking happens within categories. A well-matched, less crowded category gives a book a realistic chance of visible placement; a broad one buries it.

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Related terms

  • Best Sellers Rank

    A relative popularity ranking Amazon assigns within a store and within categories. Rank 1 is the best seller in that list; the number moves with recent sales, not lifetime totals.

  • Backend keywords

    Seven free-text boxes in the KDP listing form used to tell Amazon what your book is about. They are not shown to readers and are not a place to repeat your title.

  • Series page

    A single Amazon page collecting every book in a series, letting readers see the reading order and buy the next instalment without searching again.