Amazon has defined 31 major Kindle categories. Obviously they are organized alphabeticaly, which is very practical for readers. Not so much for www.uneditedmeat.com self published writers trying to find the most profitable kindle categories to increase their income! What if we messed with this natural and arbitrary order? Let’s rank these categories differently, hopefully you will know more about readers preferences and learn to target the best kindle categories to increase your income! All data presented hereafter is available on Kindle Ranker if you want to replicate the results (I twisted the display page a bit to only show relevant data to each paragraph). As you can guess, we define a competitive kindle category as a category where most new writers will struggle to break in to the front page of the Kindle bestseller list (50 first books). I was a bit surprised by the "Biographies & Memoirs", "History" and "Religion & Spirituality" Amazon book categories showing up on this list.
No indie blogger ever lists them as top Kindle bestselling categories, yet here they are among the most competitive ones! Keep in mind that this study only focuses on the 31 main Kindle categories on Amazon. There are much more accessible sub categories in "Literature & Fiction", (Check out my article on Historical Fiction for instance) so do not despair and keep writing. The most competitive criteria may spike your curiosity a couple of seconds, but what you really want to know is which kindle categories are most profitable. That depends on two main factors: the median price of books listed as Kindle bestsellers and the book’s daily sales. "Literature & fiction" is always on top with a staggering sales volume of $462,473 per month and that’s just an average! Some kindle books are likely selling much more, while others are far behind. Does it mean that there are authors making 6 figuree income every month?
If they are indie authors you bet your sweet face they are, though you need to account for Amazon’s cut (30 to 65% depending on a variety of factors). If they are traditionnally published, it is the publishing house that gets the lion’s share then gives their due to the author (8-10% of the book’s price usually). You can see that some Amazon book categories are very cheap, around $2.99 per book (Romance) for instance. But they sell a lot of copies to compensate and still end up in front of more expensive categories like "Children’s ebooks". However, if you are an indie writer who just started dabbling with self publishing, maybe you would rather go with the "Children’s ebooks" category given it’s relatively low bestseller threshold. Less marketing efforts and less advertisint cost for a pretty good payout! When deciding about your pricing strategy keep these numbers in mind and align your strategy with the category’s pricing model. Now, which categories are buzzing with indie authors? Or to phrase it more accurately, which best seller lists are conquered by indie authors… Remember that we only look at best seller lists, not the whole category. Foreign Languages" with a high 65% ratio of indie books! Humor & Entertainment"…These are not categories that indie blogs talk about, yet the data is clear. These are the categories where indie authors are most successful! This particular result set varies frequently due to ever changing rank orders. One clear pattern emereges however. Non fiction categories tend to reward more indie authors than their fiction counterpart. Most fiction categories hover around 10-25% indie books in their front page bestseller lists. So there you have it! Three very different to look at Kindle bestseller lists when considering your next title.
There are plenty of Amazon Kindle Unlimited free trials running pretty much all year round, but with Prime Day right around the corner, there's bound to be more interest than ever in checking out the extensive Kindle Unlimited library for free on a new Amazon Kindle device. This is even more true considering that Kindle Unlimited isn't a part of Amazon Prime, and so many Amazon Kindle users will want to try the subscription service out before they commit to it not knowing whether they'll use it enough to justify the price. Fortunately, Amazon lets you try the service for free before committing to it, but the length of the trial periods can vary depending on where you are and what promotions Amazon is currently running. While a 30-day free trial period is the standard, they have sometimes run as long as three whole months, especially during special events like Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday. Amazon Kindle Unlimited is a subscription service for ebooks on the Amazon Kindle e-reader that provides access to a specially currated library of titles and Audible narrations on a "borrow" basis, kind of like a brick-and-mortar library. This data has been written with the help of GSA Content G enerator D em oversion.
