Kindle publishing has been a part of our portfolio for years. Our students ask about it frequently, so on top of developing a Kindle Publishing course, we’re going to discuss one of the most important aspects of Kindle publishing:
Choosing your niche.
When you look at the top 100 in Kindle, it can easily get intimidating. But trust us when we say that it’s not as complicated as you’re probably thinking.
We’ll show you how to conduct your own Kindle Publishing niche research, so you end up with something successful.
Not in the mood to read? Click the thumbnail below to hear us discuss Kindle Publishing niches instead.
Choosing Your Niche
Niches are present in all types of online businesses, from dropshipping stores to FBA to affiliate sites. However, from all the online business options out there, Amazon Kindle is the absolute easiest when it comes to choosing a niche. If you want to learn more about the first two – check out our guide: Dropshipping vs FBA.
That’s because there’s no secret to it. It’s not a process that’s shrouded in mystery. You should be picking a niche that’s obviously and extremely popular, rather than looking for something with little competition, like you would in other businesses.
Readers have a voracious appetite. All you need to do is get the content to them, and in popular niches, your content will be devoured.
That being said, you only have a handful of viable niches to choose from. Go to Kindle and look at the top 100. That’s where you should find your niche.
The top ones you’ll see will be romance, including categories like billionaire, shifter, sports, and paranormal romance. Science fiction is also up there. You could do any of those things and be extremely successful.
If you’re worried about oversaturating the market, don’t be. Remember, readers will continuously consume, which is the best thing about Kindle Publishing.
Just continue to develop your readership through building a list using things like Insta Freebie or Book Funnel. This will bring readers organically to your books, growing your audience.
Niches vs Themes
It’s important to have an understanding of both niches and themes. If all your book was about was your basic niche, you might run out of ideas pretty quickly.
That’s why authors add underlying themes to books in their chosen niche. You can think of the niche as the canvas on which you paint, and the theme as the individual elements in the painting itself.
We’ll look at billionaire romance as an example. Pretend that’s the niche for your book.
Your book doesn’t just have to be about a romance between a billionaire and another person (although you certainly can keep it that simple, if you want). You can add other themes within it, like a pregnancy or older man and younger woman.
Your themes are different elements you can plug in to make it more popular. Stack things together in a way that makes sense so you can tap into multiple markets. That way, you can market your books in different categories at the time.
For instance, with your billionaire romance and pregnancy theme, you could potentially market it as both a billionaire romance and a secret baby romance. (Yes, people search for these things – they’re both actually immensely popular.)
Wondering how we pick niches for other businesses, like dropshipping? Click here to read more about why we stay away from methods like niche lists.
When Choosing a Kindle Niche Goes Horribly Wrong
With both niches and themes, it’s dangerously easy to go a little crazy. You need to resist the temptation to combine things simply because you think they sound intriguing.
We’re going to give you an example of what happens when you choose a niche and inner theme that don’t mesh very well together. This happened with one of our friends, who was well-known for choosing niches and themes people didn’t want.
He decided he wanted to create a book for the lesbian romance niche, which is very popular. It makes sense to pick that. But then he decided to mix it with Christian romance, which is another popular niche full of clean romances.
These were two separate things that, by themselves, work fine. However, combining two popular niches doesn’t necessarily mean the end result is going to be popular or make sense.
What he ended up with was a book about a lesbian nun. Needless to say, it sold very poorly. There simply wasn’t a demand for it, and he wasn’t big enough to set the trends himself.
You need to anticipate what your readers actually want to see. When you’re a much more successful author with a devoted following, you’ll have more freedom to play with niches and themes, but not when you’re just starting out.
That leads us to our next topic of discussion:
Keep Track of KDP Trends
We’ve written before about how you shouldn’t follow flashy trends when it comes to things like dropshipping cheap gadgets.
That isn’t the case with Kindle publishing. In fact, you absolutely could and should be chasing trends with your books.
You need to be meeting people’s demands. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that these demands change with the times.
As an illustration, consider recent popular shows. Last year, Game of Thrones and The Witcher were both immensely popular. Fans of these trends would get drawn into themes from them, like wolves in Game of Thrones or monsters in The Witcher. Then they would look for other works that incorporate those themes.
For instance, shifter romance is pretty popular. “Shifter” in this case refers to shapeshifters, like werewolves. You could easily combine romance and werewolves to incorporate the wolf elements from Game of Thrones.
But don’t be the first one to try out something crazy and new, like a crow shapeshifter romance. As a new Kindle business, you don’t have the clout yet to shape trends. There will always be money in what works and what’s popular.
Consider T.S. Joyce, one of the most popular authors on Kindle. Yes, she’s doing a crow shapeshifter romance, but her fanbase will likely eat up whatever she releases. She has the wiggle room to experiment with themes because she has a loyal audience.
Until you get to a point like her where you can set the trend, you need to just follow it instead.
Wrap Up
Looking at lists of Kindle bestsellers, it’s easy to be a little intimidated by the market. However, choosing a niche for your own Kindle books is a fairly simple process.
Feel free to have a little fun with it. Get creative – just don’t get too creative by combining themes that don’t make sense together.
At the end of the day, all you really need to do is choose from the niches that are most in-demand. Once you’ve done that, start pushing out content, and the readers will eat it right up.
If you’re interested in learning exactly how we do everything in our own Kindle publishing business, take a look at our Passive Publishing Profits course.
Even if Kindle Publishing works really well for you, don’t let it be the only thing in your portfolio. Diversify yourself by learning about other business models.
You can find out more about our favorite business models in our Online Assets Playbook.