Before jumping into writing your manuscript, spend some time doing a bit of research to determine if your idea has any economical merit. After all the work you put into writing, you do expect to receive some financial return for all your efforts.
Research the following metrics thoroughly to determine whether you have chosen the correct niche or not.
1. Amazon Best Seller Rank (BSR)
Search for your desired topic on Amazon and find the BSR for the top 10 books.
- BSR < 50000, you have just proved, there is demand for your desired topic.
- BSR < 20000, you are on the correct path for a successful book.
- BSR > 100000, move on the niche is over supplied and too competitive.
2. Amazon Reviews (Count)
Select the top 5 books in the niche and count the reviews for each.
- 500+ reviews indicates an active but saturated market.
- 50-200 reviews is what you are looking for. The market is proven, while there is room to compete.
- Less that 50 reviews is risky.
3. Search Volume
To check the search volume for a keyword on Amazon, you can use the following methods:
- Keywords Everywhere: Install the browser add-on, activate your API key, and search for a product or keyword to see keyword volume, CPC, and competition data.
- Helium 10: Log in to your Helium 10 account, navigate to the Keyword Research tool, enter your target keyword, and review the search volume data.
- Amazon’s Autocomplete: Type a keyword in Amazon’s search bar to see suggested terms, which indicate high search volume.
- Ranktracker’s Amazon Search Volume Tool: Enter a seed keyword to generate a list of related keywords and analyze their search volume and difficulty.
- Google Keyword Planner: Use this tool to find search volume data for keywords on Amazon and other platforms.
- 5000+ monthly searches is recommended for your main keyword.
- <1000 searches indicates insufficient buyers.
- >20000 searches indicates a highly competitive niche.
4. Competitor Pricing
Select the top 10 books in your desired niche and note the prices.
- $2.99 to $9.99 indicates there are sufficient sales and customers are willing to pay the price.
- <$2 across the board indicates that the market is not willing to pay.
- >$15 indicates this is a premium niche and entry here is going to be extremely difficult.
5. Rating Quality Score
To check quality scores of the top 10 books in your selected niche.
- 3.8 to 4.3 is the average score that you are looking for.
- >4.5 The quality is very high and difficult to enter this niche.
- <3.5 Market is not receiving the content it is looking for. This is where your opportunity lies.
Study the reviews and analyze the complaints. Use the complaints to improve on what you are going to be offering to the market.
6. Publication Date
Count the books published in the last 12 months for your selected niche.
- >10 release in the last year means the market is active and can be exploited.
- 0-2 new releases can indicate an untapped market or a dying niche. (Return to the BSR to make a decision of which of the 2 it is)