There seems to be an ongoing debate within the KDP community about exactly how you should be searching for books while in the research phase.
Some people say you should be searching under “books”. Some say you should be searching under *ALL.*
So, what do I do?
I do BOTH of these things and I won’t stop there either.
What results you actually get when you search in the ALL VS BOOKS in the Amazon search bar, is going to vary greatly depending on what niche you’re looking at, what keyword you are searching for and how competitive the niche in question is.
If you limit yourself to only ever searching under ALL – you may greatly reduce the amount of low content books that you actually see and this is not going to give you a realistic picture about whether or not you can make sales in this niche.
There are many things to consider – but here are a couple.
If you search under ALL for a keyword and you find there are next to no books using this keyword on the front page with a good BSR…. Then the chances are, this is not going to be a good option for you.
Under the ALL section, these books should be the cream of the crop. If you only see books that are recently published, poor quality and zero BSR – this is a bad sign.
Does this mean you shouldn’t now search in the BOOKS category?
In my opinion – no. You still want to have a look!
Take a look for this keyword in the books category. Because what you will find is….A lot more books.
A lot more books, means a lot more potential keywords to explore.
Check for any books that ARE selling on the first and second page. Are these books using keywords in their title and subtitle that differ from the one you typed in?
If so, write all of these down and research those later.
You can check for variations on what you’ve typed in and may find more profitable keywords that you can now research further.
You may find that there are some books selling under a slightly different keyword, or in a related niche. Sometimes you find books in a completely different niche, which are selling well too.
Take note: Careful when you are adding your book to categories, – do NOT add your book to irrelevant categories, (see image below). Amazon is cracking down on this more and more and you can put your account at risk.
What Else?
If you’re seeing some recent books that are selling but are still wondering how many other low content books are in this niche; there are a couple of additional steps you can take.
- type your keyword in the search bar again – but this time also include: “independently published.” This will show up many of the independently published books, which are directly your competition.
2. If you want to check out recently published low content books, you can go up to the tab on the right and filter the books by publication date. This is a way you can see books that are very recently published and already making sales…. Although, I can find this a little disheartening when you see the sheer numbers of books with zero sales as you do this.
Do People Really ONLY Ever Search IN “ALL”!?
One argument for only searching in ALL, is that this is what regular people searching on Amazon do.
Is this right?
I don’t think so!
YES – most people will start off in Amazon searching under ALL.
But what happens when people don’t find what they’re looking for?
Maybe they are looking for a very specific gift, for their cycling loving enthusiast.
But when they search under ALL, the first couple of pages don’t yield what they are looking for.
What do you think they do then?
THEY SEARCH UNDER BOOKS!
This is exactly what I do when I search on Amazon for multiple different things.
I search under ALL… the results may not bring me what I want…. I then change the category to something more specific to what I’m looking for.
Similarly, we need to mirror this behaviour and really search under ALL and BOOKS to get all of the information we need – as well as useful additional info, that could help lead us to more profitable keywords and niches.
Don’t Miss Out By Limiting Yourself To Only “All” Or “Books”:
It’s simply by searching on Amazon that I get the bulk load of my book ideas.
By searching in a variety of ways, you will have the greatest opportunities to find profitable keywords, niches you weren’t even looking for and many ideas.
Sometimes you will find that the results for “All,” or “Books,” are pretty much the same. But in some niches, the difference is significant.
Also, by searching under “independently published,” you will sometimes come across niches you had not even thought of and were not searching for in the first place.
You may also find some diamonds in the rough – new books, that are already making good sales.
How Much Is Your Keyword Really Being Searched For?
When selecting keywords on Amazon, you will want to be choosing keywords that people are actually searching for on Amazon.
One way of doing this is simply by typing it in on Amazon. If your search term comes up in the AMZ suggestion expander, (the free chrome extension that I highly recommend you use!) then you know it is at least being searched for SOME WHAT.
What you won’t know, is how much.
That’s where I personally use Publisher Rocket. Which is a really useful tool for keyword research, researching low competition, (and relevant) categories, researching your competition, estimating search volume for keywords and more.
Amazon doesn’t reveal the search volume of search terms, so whatever publisher rocket suggests is an estimate.
While you shouldn’t base everything on their results, I personally have found Publisher Rocket really useful to use in conjunction with my research directly on Amazon.
So, by putting dachshund diary 2022 in Publisher Rocket, (this search for the uk) – we can see that the actual search volume for most of these is very low.
But unexpectedly, it’s showing that a hardback version is being searched for more often and also has a low level of competition.
It would also be very quick to check out other keywords you may have noted down with your manual search.
However, I would never purely base my decision on Publisher Rocket. Above anything, I am looking for books making sales on Amazon.
A decent amount of books in a niche making sales on Amazon – which are published in the last 6-12 months and are books that I can compete with – is the true evidence I need, that I have a good chance of making sales too.
So, What Do You Do?
How do you do your research on Amazon?
Do you search in ALL or BOOKs? And what else do you do, when you’re trying to figure out what niche to go for and what keywords to choose?
Let me know in the comments!
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