The Business of Writing: My Book is Bi-What?? (BISAC codes demystified) #ASMSG #MFRWOrg

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There is no magic-bullet formula for getting your book noticed out of the millions of titles that are published each year.

The right subject matter categories and keywords, however, can help your work float to the top of potential customers' search results pages.

For assistance with defining keywords, I direct you to this post published earlier this year on The Maze. Today I discuss...


BISAC Basics
If you’ve spent any time defining your book’s information in Bowker, CreateSpace, IngramSpark, or any of the e-book vendor accounts, you’ll see the acronym BISAC, or Book Industry Standards and Communications. Managed by Book Industry Study Group Inc., BISAC is a list of several hundred classifications for identifying a book’s subject matter.

Amazon calls this classification the browse category and likens it to major headings you'll find labeling the aisles of a brick-and-mortar bookstore. It's an apt analogy.

As of this writing, the BISAC 2015 edition is the most recent list.

For the record, the BISAC category Non-Classifiable (NON000000) applies to books containing no subject matter, such as blank books. It is not intended for use with a book that contains multiple nonfiction topics or elements of many fiction genres. (Fess up: if I thought about applying it to one of my books, you considered the idea for yours too. :D)

Some distributors, like Amazon and Draft2Digital, kindly lead you through the selection process by giving you expansion choices when a BISAC code (e.g., Fiction, FIC000000) contains subordinate codes. Others, like Google, expect you to know the codes off the top of your head… or else you must know where to find the latest list.

I’ll save you the headache. The BISAC 2015 edition may be viewed via this page. If you write fiction, save yourself a click by starting here.

In theory, you may assign as many BISAC codes to your book as you wish. In practice, you must heed each distributor’s rules.

Amazon and IngramSpark, for instance, limit a book’s BISAC identification to two codes; with Kobo you may choose three. Nook Press, on the other hand, permits the assignment of up to five codes. Most third-party book distributors, such as Draft2Digital, will allow you to assign the maximum number supported by at least one of their partner e-tailers, but they advise you to make your selections in order of importance because not all e-tailers will accept that many BISAC codes for your book.

I’m not certain when BISG plans to publish the next BISAC edition, but I will endeavor to keep you informed when it does.

Best of luck with classifying your books!

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The Business of Writing: Defining Keywords for Your Book

Underground logo by transportation systems in London
c2012 by nanka-photo, Depositphotos ID, 9911981
EDITORIAL USE ONLY.

As I mentioned to an author-friend recently, there is no "magic bullet" formula for getting your book noticed out of the millions of titles that are published each year.

The right keywords, however, can help your work float to the top of potential customers' search-results pages.

I attended a panel at MarsCon (Williamsburg, VA) in January, where I learned that I could stuff the "seven keywords" field available via Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) with huge multi-word phrases.

The "phrases" don't even have to make sense as long as the words are applicable to the book and don't violate rules such as using a celebrity's name to imply an endorsement.

This was exciting news, since most of my novels contain elements from several genres, and redefining their keywords became one of the first tasks I assayed after I got home from MarsCon.

What the presenter neglected to mention was the 350-character limit that I bumped up against in KDP. The keyword limit is even shorter in Createspace—five keywords (rather than the seven that KDP allows) of no more than 25 characters apiece. In Nook Press you're limited to just 100 characters total.

Still, you are doing yourself and your book a favor by stuffing in as many keywords as each e-book publishing platform allows.

Not sure where to start?

Amazon's article "Make Your Book More Discoverable with Keywords" is a good general "best practices" reference. Another general reference, "Selecting Browse Categories", includes links to keyword tables by Amazon category, to help you decide how to land your book in one or more subcategories. Here are a few category tables to give you an idea:

• Biographies & Memoirs.
• Business & Money.
• Comics & Graphic Novels.
• History.
• Literature & Fiction.
• Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense.
• Religion & Spirituality.
• Romance.
• Science Fiction & Fantasy.
• Teen & Young Adult.

Don't be shy about pulling keywords from categories that you might not otherwise think of for your novel, as long as they fit!

Keyword definition is not all fun and games, however. This article by Sarah Arrow on the Sark eMedia blog lists actions that make your keywords irrelevant. It's geared toward bloggers, but the "Know Your Niche" and "Know your Audience" tips are essential for book authors.

If you're struggling with understanding your audience, Georgina Roy offers "5 Ways to Learn About Your Target Audience for Your Book" on e-Books India blog. The title is a bit of a misnomer, since #5 is geared more toward what an author should do once s/he has exercised tips 1-4, but Ms. Roy's advice provides a good starting point.

Best of luck in your book writing and your keyword writing!

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All this month, you are invited to…

— Follow Kim on Twitter
— Follow Kim on Pinterest
— Subscribe to Kim's YouTube channel
— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books. 

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