What are KDP keywords?

When you publish on Amazon KDP, you can enter up to seven keywords or short phrases for each edition. They are not shown on the product page; Amazon uses them, along with your title, subtitle, description and categories, to decide which searches your book appears in. Other stores, such as Kobo and Apple, have their own keyword or search-term fields.

Think like a reader typing into the search bar. Good keywords describe what the book is and who it is for: sub-genre ("cozy mystery with cats"), setting ("small-town Kerala"), character types, themes, tropes or the reader's problem ("budgeting for freelancers"). Each of the seven slots can hold a phrase, and KDP currently allows up to 50 characters per slot, so use phrases rather than single words.

Avoid repeating words already in your title or categories, and do not include other authors' names, book titles you are not, trademarked brand names, misleading terms or words like "bestseller" or "free". Amazon's guidelines prohibit these and can suppress listings that break them; check KDP's current metadata rules.

Keywords are not set in stone. You can change them after publication, so watch what is working — through Amazon ads search-term reports, for example — and refine over time.