Finding and Using Competing Book Titles in Your Book Marketing

Competing book titles can help sell your book!

 By Penny Sansevieri

As an author you’ve probably been told to look at competing titles through multiple stages of your journey from writing, to publishing, to book promotion.

Competing book titles can be lucrative references for cover design, book length, and choosing your categories and keywords. They’re also helpful in deciding how to price your book and determining the best strategies for marketing to potential buyers in your genre or topic, and more!

But even if we all know competing book titles can be used to our advantage, we’re not equally versed on how go about finding them. Maybe you’ve never done this research, or you’ve tried a few obvious strategies but could dig deeper.

So I’ve created a simple checklist for you to follow. It will ensure you’ve done your due diligence. Plus it should leave you feeling confident about how competitive you and your book are in your market.

You can track your competing book title research in any way that makes sense for you of course. I recommend using a spreadsheet of sorts, or a simple document is fine. But be prepared to copy and paste URLs and links to the books you want to add to your list. for consideration. That way when you go back to see if you can weed any out, or when you start making your comparisons and assessments, you get to see the book in front of you in real time. You can see how they’re listed for retail sale and being presented to potential buyers.

Now let’s get started!

Do Keyword Research.

Keyword research will show you who else is showing up on Amazon for the keywords you’d like to be ranking for. This is beneficial not only because you’ll start developing a list of titles, but it will also clue you in if you’re not on the right path with your keywords, or sometimes your branding. But we can fix that!

For example, what if a keyword search brings up a bunch of books that make you say, “My reader wouldn’t be interested in these!” That’s a sign you might be using the wrong keywords. There are lots of keyword programs and assistance out there, but I recommend doing the research manually. That’s my preferred method, but having the proper keywords are really critical, so don’t get discouraged. Feel grateful you have a chance to do things better.

Maybe your keywords are on track but the books coming up just don’t look like the kinds of books you had in mind. Then perhaps you need to do some cover comparisons once you have a solid list of competing titles to work with. It may mean you should consider tweaking the branding of your covers to align with your readers’ expectations for your genre or topic.

Cover changes can sound scary, but in reality they’re one of the most inexpensive ways to make a dramatic difference in your sales conversions.

Do Category Research.

Similar to keyword research, category research is just another layer of ensuring you’re aligned with your reader market’s expectations.

Get on Amazon and I recommend the Kindle search because there are so many more categories to choose from. That way you can get really niche with your comparisons. Start digging into categories you’d like to rank in. Take notes of which books come up along the way, and go as far as you can down the rabbit hole of refine by terms that fit your book because this is how you find the competing book titles that are most like yours.

And just like the keyword research, if red flags start flying because what you’re finding isn’t what you expected, consider whether you need to enlist some professional help determining your best categories, or again, whether you can make some small yet impactful branding tweaks to ensure your book is ready to really compete.

Do Blog Research.

Hopefully you’ve already done some blog research and you’re already pitching yourself (or preparing to pitch yourself) to bloggers. Research the ones that could potentially give you a review, feature, spotlight or interview. If you haven’t, start that now. It’s relatively straightforward to find bloggers that cover specific genres and topics these days.

Once you have that list, check their posts to see who’s been getting coverage. These are the authors you want to reference and your competing book titles.

And this information is really quite important because bloggers are thought leaders. They know what their followers want and they influence buying and reading decisions. So whatever bloggers are covering should be on your list of competing book titles.

Look at what the authors of those titles are doing online to promote their books. That should give you a sense of what’s working for them.

Do Look at the “Customers who Bought this Item Also Bought” Section on your Book’s Page.

The “also bought items” section on your book page on Amazon is a great place to look for competing book titles.  It will give you insight into buyer behavior. Be prepared for some surprises here. Not every book will be a direct competitor of yours. But it’s a good reminder than a lot of readers, especially in fiction, will bounce between different subgenres.

It’s important to remember these connections – and perhaps it will solidify some ideas you’ve had about branching out or starting a new series!

Do Look at the “Customers Also Bought Items By” Section on our Author Central Page.

This section appears just below your Author Central profile picture and bio. Similar to the “also bought items” section, this gives you some insight into buyer behavior. Amazon is telling you the readers that buy your books also buy books by those authors listed.

You can take this a step further as well. Make a short list of authors you aspire to emulate–ones who are already successfully servicing your ideal reader base. Then check out the authors associated with them.

This is a smart way to find competing book titles by branching out from a role model author in your genre or topic.

Do Go to your Local Bookstore and Browse for Competing Book Titles

Bookstore people are a wealth of knowledge. The good ones, especially in indie stores, really stay on top of what’s working in retail. They know what readers are drawn to, and what trends are hot and even up and coming.

Bookstore people can show you which sizes of books are really selling well, meaning you shouldn’t assume a standard size paperback is always your best option. They can tell you which debut authors are really killing it in the market. And they know what readers in your genre are asking for when they come in to find new books to read.

And don’t forget to read your genre! I know it, none of us have a lot of free time these days but you should always make time to read what’s trending with your readers and what’s really working in your genre or topic. It will give you a strong sense for how your writing and story or content creation stacks up.

Do Read Reviews.

Once you have a solid list of competing book titles, be sure you’re not only reading as many of the books as you have time for. Definitely read the reviews for the books as well.

Reviews tell you what readers like, what they don’t like, what stood out as special, what they found distracting or too complex. They’re another great tool for gathering insight into how to compete in your genre or topic.

All of this information really adds up, and it’s pretty necessary for determining your book marketing approach as well. Success leaves clues. So while you don’t want to mirror another author’s efforts exactly, and it’s not realistic to set benchmarks based on what the big name bestsellers are doing, you should definitely be able to pick up on new promotion ideas that you haven’t tried yet, or ways to engage with your fans more effectively on social.

At the end of the day, researching and tracking competing book titles gives you a stronger sense of where you fall in the big scheme of things. You’ll learn whether you need to make some important changes to better align in your market, and it helps you set goals to reach that next level!

 by Penny Sansevieri (@BookGal) November 10, 2019

What about you, scriveners? Do you research competing titles before you launch or query your book? Have you felt confused about competing book titles? Which one of these tips have your followed? Did they result in more sales? 

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Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. She is an Adjunct Professor teaching Self-Publishing for NYU. She was named one of the top influencers of 2019 by New York Metropolitan Magazine.

Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most innovative Amazon Optimization programs as well as Social Media/Internet book marketing campaigns. She is the author of eighteen books, including How to Sell Your Books by the Truckload on Amazon, Revise and Re-Release Your Book, 5-Minute Book Marketing for Authors, and Red Hot Internet Publicity, which has been called the “leading guide to everything Internet.”

AME has had dozens of books top bestseller lists, including those of the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal.

To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.amarketingexpert.com.

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