SFA 039 – Trends on Amazon, New Opportunities, and How CoVid-19 Is Affecting Ebook Sales with Alex Newton

Our guest this week is Alex Newton, the mastermind behind K-Lytics, a market intelligence service that monitors close to 100,000 Amazon titles each month to help publishers of fiction and non-fiction spot trends, identify opportunities, and gauge the competition levels for the various niches and genres in the ebook space.

We asked Alex a bunch of questions on trends for ebook sales, both over the last few years and also during the time of this CoVid-19 pandemic. We were curious to find out which genres were doing better and which were doing worse, and if there are any up-and-coming trends (viruses aside) or new categories in the Amazon Kindle store that fast-acting authors could take advantage of.

Here are some of the specific questions that we asked Alex:

You’ve done a couple of trends reports on how Covid-19 is affecting the Amazon Kindle store and ebook sales. Could you share some of the results for our listeners?
Trad publishing, with their higher prices and reliance on physical books, seems to be hit hardest right now. I’ve heard speculation that they might realize ebooks are where it’s at and shift tactics a bit. Is there any evidence that they’re dropping prices or changing anything up yet?
Crazy viruses aside, overall, have ebook sales flattened out or is there still a lot of growth in the various Amazon markets? Are any international stores coming on strong?
Something that sometimes can get confusing for folks dipping their toes into international markets is the performance of an English-language edition in a non-English market, versus a translation to a native language for the market. Do you have data on which markets outside traditional English-speaking markets are the best to target for English language novels? Does genre influence that?
How possible is it for authors to set a new trend? What needs to be in place for it to work, and do you have any examples of when it’s been successful?
Have you noticed any new fiction sub-genres opening up where there might be opportunities to get in early this year for people who can act quickly?
Are you able to determine if newer books outperform established books in a rising genre? If you just so happened to have written a book two years ago in a niche that was beginning to blow up today, would that help you, or are new releases the ones that get all the love?
I’m always interested in learning more about the clean and wholesome romance market. How is that category and the romance market in general performing right now? Is there anything authors should be aware of?
As a sci-fi/fantasy author, I will greedily ask if you see any new trends emerging or hot new sub-categories in these genres?
Obviously up and coming trends are useful, but how much data do you have on sub-genres that are starting to sag? Are there any former cash cows that it might not be a great idea to start a 10 book series in today?
Are unicorn novels for adults going to be a thing? They’re huge with younger audiences, and Publisher Rocket says people are searching for books with them for adults. Will a focus on them in novels slowly leak up into adult audiences? What about anything else popular with kids? How often do fads like this swap from one age to another?

If you want more in-depth coverage, Alex puts out genre-specific reports and also has a monthly service with continually updated information on the Amazon Kindle store. Check it all out at K-Lytics.