Listing all Kindle Store categories

Downloading the Top 100

Searching the Kindle Store

I counted all the tropes/settings/character types/themes advertised in the bestselling 400 books, month-by-month

Some of them were simple, like 'Enemies to Lovers'

Others were 'umbrella' terms: 'Duke', 'Earl', 'Baron' -> 'Aristocracy'

The goal was to get an idea of what changed over the year

(At this high level) romance genres aren't as 'trendy' as we might think (or worry about) 

The things that were popular at the beginning of last year - were basically still pretty popular at the end of last year

We can slice and dice the approach, and change trope/element definitions, but it doesn't change the result (much)

Big changes do happen - but not often

This is a good thing

The changes we perceive aren't about high-level tropes or settings

Instead, they are about interpretation and communication - how these popular story elements are interpreted, and how they are communicated to readers

Let's try some other ways to look at them 

We know that cover elements communicate genre expectations, as well as series and author branding

Let's look at Top 100 covers from each quarter of last year

Cover elements indicate subgenre very clearly, and maybe tone a little bit 

They don't (usually) tell us as much about what's in the story

It's quite difficult (at the moment) to see obvious broad-based changes by looking at covers

Some changes do seem to be visible, but they are often just one or two covers, so hard to know how important they are

We know that blurbs expand and add detail to the promises that are made in covers 

Those promises are often about tone and atmosphere as much as they are about actual plot elements 

We're interested in changes to blurbs at a detailed level

What are authors talking about in January 2026 that they weren't in January 2025? 

I counted the words in Top 100 blurbs in January 2025, and compared them to the words in January 2026

This approach takes a bit of thinking to interpret, but it can tell us things that aren't obvious in other ways

'player' - Heated Rivalry

'brutal/warrior/gold/

ancient' - more romantasy

'hollywood' - Golden Age mystery romances?

'bond' - romantasy influence? 

Searching the blurbs

reveals:

'julia' - partly Bridgerton, but partly as a more common character name(!) 

'slow', 'burn', 'forced', 'proximity', 'trope' - tropes are being listed much more explicitly than in 2025

Searching the blurbs

reveals:

'bear' - definitely more bear shifters in 2026

'holiday' - more Christmas stories in the Top 100 in 2026

Searching the blurbs

reveals:

'cliffhanger' - oddly enough this isn't just 'no cliffhangers' (!)

Covers: Illustrated vs. photorealistic vs. object 'discreet' covers.

Font choices: Serif vs. sans-serif vs. script

Blurbs: Sometimes we see seasonal changes, like the increase in Christmas stories in Paranormal

Sometimes it's words related to trope/genre, rather than an explicit mention of it (e.g. romantasy-adjacent words)

But also structural changes in blurbs, like trope lists in Historical Romance

Kindle Power Search
https://kpowersearch.com/

Also Boughts and Top 100s Downloader
https://kindletrends.com/download-also-boughts-chrome-extension/

Bonus: List of all Kindle Store categories
https://kindletrends.com/categories/