Top-Selling Amazon Kindle Categories Redux

A day or so after my original post Amazon went ahead and added a bunch more categories to their storefront. I took the weekend to go ahead and recalculate the top twenty Amazon categories based on this new hierarchy. The methodology was largely the same, but this time my sample was books ranked 20-81.

I skipped categories that were entirely represented by sub-categories. Romance Mystery/Thriller has a Romance Mystery and Romance Thriller category so that’s really all there is to it.

The results

Best sellers remained relatively consistent by genre; there were few outliers to account for. The increased granularity in category means that we have a better view of what kinds of stories readers buy. This lead to some categories rising in the ranks as higher-ranked categories were broken down more specifically.

Last time I presented a top 20 ranking, but in the top 20, the difference between “Contemporary Romance” and “Horror” is only 3000, which isn’t a lot when you consider how many books are available. As a comparison, Cyberpunk has a six-figure average.

Which Categories Sell

A more useful breakdown might be as follows:

Excellent-Selling Categories


Contemporary Romance
Thriller Suspense
Mystery


Romantic Suspense
Erotica
Paranormal Romance




Great-Selling Categories


Historical Romance
Historical Fiction
Action/Adventure


New Adult Romance
Women Sleuths
Urban/Paranormal Fantasy


Sword and Sorcery
Epic Fantasy
Fantasy Romance


Police Procedural
Westerns
Romantic Comedy




Good-Selling Categories


Horror
Romance Western
Romance Mystery


Sci Fi Adventure
Crime
Werewolf Romance




Fair-Selling Categories


Spy Thrillers
Vampire Romance
Sci-Fi Military


Hard-Boiled Mystery
Space Opera
Private Eye Mystery




Poor-Selling Categories


Gay Romance
Time Travel Romance
Legal Thrillers


Fairy-Tale Fantasy
Military Romance
African-American Romance




Worst-Selling Categories


Historical Fantasy
Hard Sci-Fi
Occult Horror
Historical Mystery


British Detectives
Mystery Series
Ghost Romance
Sports Romance


Dystopian Sci Fi
Witch Romance
Multicultural Romance
Technothriller


Sci-Fi Romance
Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi
Ghost Horror
Angel Romance


Sci-Fi Anthology
Demon Romance
Cozy Mystery
Gothic Romance


Alt History
Space Fleet Sci Fi
Fantasy Anthology
Lesbian Romance


Medical Thriller
Time Travel
Dark Fantasy
Space Marines


Alien Invasion
Genetic Engineering
Coming of Age Fantasy
International Mystery


Psychic Romance
Steampunk
Political Thriller
Mystery Anthology


Superhero
Metaphysical Fantasy
Cyberpunk
Sci Fi Colonization


Metaphysical Sci Fi
Galactic Empire
Arthurian Fantasy
Space Exploration


First Contact Sci Fi
Mythic Fantasy
Horror Anthology

Again, let me say that these rankings do not imply that the books in said category are of a given quality, or that individual books will not sell well or poorly. They are simply observations of the average overall sales-ranks in a given category, and how well a random book marketed in that category might be selling.

I like steampunk. I write a lot of steampunk. Steampunk books, by and large, do not sell well, but that doesn’t mean a steampunk book cannot sell well. While the average rank is in the 60,000s for steampunk books ranked 20-81, the top ranked Steampunk book is in the 3000s.

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