KDP gives you seven keyword slots and a set of categories, and together they decide which searches and which store shelves your book can appear on. Get them wrong and a good book is invisible. Get them right and Amazon does the distribution for free.
This is a practical walkthrough. Amazon changes its metadata rules regularly, so treat everything here as a starting point and confirm against the official KDP help center before you publish.
What the keyword slots actually are
Each of the seven slots takes a phrase, not a single word. This is the most common misunderstanding. "dragons" is a wasted slot. "cozy dragon fantasy for adults" is a slot doing work.
A few things that follow from that:
- Think in search phrases. Write what a reader would type into the Amazon search bar, not what a librarian would file the book under.
- Do not repeat your title, subtitle, author name or series name. Amazon already indexes those. Repeating them wastes a slot.
- Do not repeat words across slots. The slots combine, so "small town romance" and "small town mystery" spend the phrase "small town" twice.
- Skip the category names. You select categories separately; keywords are for the terms categories do not cover.
- No other authors' names, no brand names, no unsubstantiated claims like "bestseller." This is where books get pulled.
Research terms readers actually type
The whole game is finding phrases with genuine demand that are not already dominated.
Use Amazon's own autocomplete. Type your genre into the Amazon search bar and read the suggestions. Those are real queries from real shoppers, ranked by volume. It is the best free keyword tool there is, and it is sitting on the page you are publishing to.
Search the phrase and look at the results. If the first page is packed with books exactly like yours from major publishers, that phrase is expensive. If the first page is only loosely relevant, you have found a gap.
Look at comparable books. Read the store pages of five books that share your reader. The language in their descriptions and reviews is the language your reader uses.
Mine reader vocabulary, not genre labels. "Enemies to lovers," "found family," "slow burn," "cozy," "unputdownable" are how readers search now. Trope language often outperforms genre language.
The free KDP keyword generator turns a book description into a candidate list to start from. It needs a free account, costs no Creation Points, and is meant as a starting shortlist. Validate every phrase against real Amazon autocomplete before you paste it in.
Choosing categories
Categories are the browsing shelves, and they matter for two reasons: they decide which bestseller lists you can chart on, and readers who browse rather than search only ever see shelves.
Choose accuracy first, then specificity. A precise subcategory with fewer books is easier to rank in than a broad one, and ranking in a category earns you the orange banner and the visibility that comes with it. But a category that does not honestly describe your book gets flagged, not rewarded.
Check what the category actually contains. Open the category on Amazon and read the top 20. If your book would look out of place next to them, it is the wrong shelf, however good the numbers look.
Watch for restricted categories. Some require specific content or metadata to qualify. If your book does not qualify, being in it will not last.
Fiction and non-fiction browse differently. Non-fiction readers browse categories heavily and search with problem language. Fiction readers search with trope and vibe language and browse the also-boughts. Weight your effort accordingly.
Metadata mistakes that cost the most
- Keyword-stuffing the title or subtitle. Explicitly against KDP metadata rules and a common reason for removal. Keywords go in the keyword fields.
- Using another author's name as a keyword. Same category of problem, and it is enforced.
- Choosing a category you cannot honestly defend to chase an easier bestseller rank.
- Setting it once and never revisiting. Keywords and categories are editable after publication. If a book is not being found after 60 days, the metadata is the cheapest thing to change.
- Skipping the AI-content questionnaire honestly. KDP asks whether your book contains AI-generated text, images or translations. Answer accurately. AI content disclosure explains how the distinctions work, and publishing an AI-assisted book on KDP walks through the full submission.
Do the listing in one pass
Keywords, categories and the description are one job, not three, because they all have to describe the same book in the same language. If you have finished a book on BookZeta, the Publishing Kit generates the blurb, up to seven keywords and category suggestions together from your title, genre and synopsis, so the whole listing is consistent before you upload.
Then check it against the current KDP rules, because Amazon's requirements are the ones that decide whether your book goes live.
