What is the BISAC category to get into Parenting?

I believe the BISAC Subject Codes will be here. Right now the site is down for maintenance.

http://www.bisg.org/

As for your specific categories can you give a more clear idea of what the main subject of your book is? In other words who is the book for and what problem does it solve for them? That's how I would make the determination. Based on the BISAC list in iTunes Producer, Family & Relationships is most likely the major category for your book. Then there are a range of parenting sub-categeories within that...

Did you scan the store to see which categories are used for similar content?

K T wrote:

Did you scan the store to see which categories are used for similar content?

How would this help? As far as I can see, the store doesn't show the BISAC categories that were used when the book was submitted?

Michi.

You know you can generate multiple BISAC category+sub-category entries, right? You just have to define one of them as the Primary. For example, I'm going to use two or three BISAC entries for my book (unless someone recommends against it). That might help ensure all the possible "search angles" are covered for you?

In general though I do see your concern. As with support for ePub specs this is an area where if Apple lags behind the standard it could cause problems. Although, utlimately everything is controlled by their store experience so people have to go with the categories they give them. If the standard is updated but Apple isn't they can't search for a newly updated term and find it in Apple's store presumably. So the limitation we have is the same one the customers have, within this ecosystem anyway.

I think the key is how you rank your choices. That and it seems logical that the review teams may have some idea (or cheat sheet to work off of), and as long as your selections match, they'll drop it in the first one you want.

But if your settings conflict, they may override and decide on their own. Yes, it is a tricky path for many.

As well, it seems both authors and reviewers are learning how to trim the sales for this and other attributes. I give it another year before things smooth out and there's is enough consistency and feedback to help those just coming in - barring any major changes that don't reset the process, of course 🙂

K T wrote:

I think the key is how you rank your choices. That and it seems logical that the review teams may have some idea (or cheat sheet to work off of), and as long as your selections match, they'll drop it in the first one you want.

But if your settings conflict, they may override and decide on their own.

I expect so, yes.

When I decided on the categories for my book, I found it quite difficult and non-intuitive. The BISAC categories are quite limited in what they offer.

My book is essentially a DYI guide (drum making). The BISAC "Education" category was one of the first I looked at. But all the sub-categories of that relate to essentially school teaching, which isn't applicable. "Crafts & Hobbies" is another option, but there really isn't any appropriate sub-category in that. (The closest is "Woodwork", but that doesn't really capture it accurately.) "House and Home" has a "General" sub-category, but it's not really about house and home…

"Music" sort of works, but doesn't have a sub-category for instrument building and repair. And so on…

In the end, I settled on a few BISAC and BIC2 categories that matched the topic as best as possible.

The biggest problem with the BISAC and BIC2 categories is that there is no obvious mapping to the categories in the iBookstore. And, as a publisher, I probably care about what section in the iBookstore the book is published in much more than the BISAC or BIC2 categories (which appear to be invisible in the store).

It probably would help if publishers could at least suggest appropriate iBookstore categories when they submit a book.

Michi.