Market Awareness
for Indie Authors

Nat 'Nose' Connors

<nat@kindletrends.com>

Book Finishers' Summit December 2024

FINDING YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

Me (v. briefly)

• Small-town romantic comedy

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This talk

Some waffly conceptual stuff

Market awareness
vs market research

For experienced authors

• Understand how popular story elements can fit with your brand

• Stay connected with your readers as they change

• Avoid feeling stale or creatively unchallenged

For new authors

• Discover  core elements that resonate with readers over time

• Find your distinctive voice, and from it build your brand

Your 'neighborhood'

is a shorthand for a 'package' of emotions and experiences

Your 'neighborhood'

isn't just your comps

or your (sub)genre

Your 'neighborhood'

Why is the concept of a neighborhood useful?

• It helps reduce the sense of being overwhelmed by research

• It reinforces the idea that it's made up of different parts with different natures

A story element

is a shorthand for a 'package' of emotions and experiences

Isn't this just a trope?

...well, maybe

An example

Our goal

in one sentence

Understand the essential story elements in our neighborhood that are resonating with readers, and see how those elements are promised in a cover, detailed in a blurb, and then delivered in a story.

Think of our neighborhood

in four parts

Four parts

Four parts to our neighborhood

Keep in mind

Four parts to our neighborhood

Content

or, what's in a book

Content

• Emotional content as much as craft
• Identify key story elements/affecting scenes
• Read reviews
• Common features between books

The Top 100

• This isn't novel - but I think it's what you are looking for that matters
• Amazon categories are a good place to start
• But they may not be a good representation of your neighborhood - be aware

Tool #1:
Kindle Power Search

https://kpowersearch.com/

(I'll include all the links in the show notes so don't feel you need to copy them down)

Tool #2:
Categories List

https://kindletrends.com/categories/

Tool #3:
Also Boughts & Top 100s Downloader

https://kindletrends.com/download-also-boughts-chrome-extension/

Choose a few relevant books

Work through each book

in turn

• Look for story elements, more than beats 
  (although the two are not exclusive)

• Take notes - we're going to refer back to them when we compare books, and when we look at blurbs and covers

• Recurring elements are the most important

Next, read reviews

Note down the memorable story elements

What readers say is often less important than that they say it

Finally, compare your notes

Which elements are the same, and which are different?

How do similar or different elements affect the plot?

Which elements are consistently commented upon by readers?

Summary: Content

We can get a picture of how different writers interpret the same story elements

- and how these elements resonate with readers

Blurbs

or, what's on the buying page of a book

First

Start with the blurbs from the books we read for content

Start with the blurbs from the books we read for content

• What parts of the blurb relate to the content?

• Listing tropes is the most obvious feature
  

• But be alert for other signals: e.g. the voice of a specific character, or hints at plot beats

Examples (1): Romance

Examples (2): Mystery

Examples (3): Fantasy

• Look for story elements, but also beats, scenes and character voices

• (Ideally) each sentence in the blurb is doing work

• Look at reviews again

Summary: Blurbs

Drawing relationships between blurbs and content

Content

Blurbs

Covers

or, what's on the front of a book

Covers make a specific set of promises to the reader

We can see this clearly with a cover montage

Make notes about styles

Then look at the books you read

e.g:
Medium shot, no faces shown
Long shot, couple with faces shown
Object relevant to story

Examples (1): Romance

Examples (2): Mystery

Examples (3): Fantasy

Summary: Covers

What does each element say about the content?

Eventually

Content

Blurbs

Covers

Market mechanics

or, everything else

Release frequency

Some genres may be fairly consistent in frequency

But some may accommodate a range of frequencies

The Top 100 by age shows this pretty clearly

So

• A higher release frequency means that new story elements might crop up in your neighborhood more frequently

• Shorter books may give you more room to experiment.

Standalone vs series

• Writing in series can give you opportunities for new story elements and call-backs to previous books
  

• But a series can also be a collaboration between authors

Pricing

• Many genres have seen a gradual increase in price over the past 3-4 years.

• $0.99 books are still around but often are first-in-series, or part of a series which may be discounted temporarily

Reminder: you can do this all yourself

The Also Boughts and Top 100s Downloader* Chrome extension downloads titles, prices and other basic data

*yeah, I know, it's a mouthful, I'm a writer not a marketer

https://kindletrends.com/download-also-boughts-chrome-extension/

Summary: Market mechanics

• Release frequency

• Series vs standalone

• Pricing

• You don't have to copy what others are doing in any of these factors

• But understanding them means you can make choices about where you fit in the market

Conclusions

(1) No binding rules

(2) Key factors

(3) Tools

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Acknowledgements

Lana Love

Becca Syme

AJ Lancaster

TK Eldridge

Lizzie Dunlap from Pixie Covers

Elizabeth Brady

Thank you to all the authors and artists who helped with this talk

Rhonda for giving me the opportunity to speak

Jennifer Hilt and Matty Dalrymple for thoughtful advice and encouragement

All of you for your time and attention

Thank you for watching!

For more free resources, check out:

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For the slides for this talk:

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