This “Low Content” Book Sold 28,153 Copies Last Month
Here’s why —
As an aspiring publisher, one of my favorite hobbies is analyzing books on Amazon that are selling extraordinarily well using behind-the-scenes data from Helium 10.
I recently started writing case studies like this one in my newly created Medium publication “Kristen’s KDP Project” to document my findings — both for my own reference and for anyone who’s curious.
I created a full tutorial on how I use Helium 10 for KDP niche research, so if these types of case studies interest you, you can bookmark it and check it out later.
However, today, I thought I’d bring you another book case study that has piqued my interest. Just to be clear — this is not my book.
The book I’m analyzing today is, Tell Me Your Life Story, Mom.
It’s a guided journal with a minimalist cover that contains questions and prompts that can be filled in by the recipient.
Books like this are quite easy to make using Canva.
The thing that caught my attention about this book was that it was recently ranked #3 on Amazon (it’s currently sitting at #143 as I’m writing this post.)
When I look this book up in Helium 10, I can see that it sold approximately 28,153 copies in the last 30 days with total revenue of $349,690.
Now, to be clear, total revenue is not the same thing as the author’s royalty share.
Based on my own experience selling books on Amazon, I would guess that the author is getting around $3.27 in royalties from each sale.
Therefore, the author‘s royalties were probably in the ballpark of $94,875 for the last 30 days.
*($3.27 royalty per book x 28,153 total sales = $94,875.)
Not too shabby.
I certainly wouldn’t mind getting a $100k royalty check from Amazon.
Another interesting thing to note about this book is that while it sells consistently throughout the year, there are two “seasonal” periods where sales really take off.
This is the sales graph for this book for the past year (data from Helium 10.)
(The points where the graph dips are the periods of higher sales.)
You can see these dips occur in mid-November to late December — most likely because people are purchasing this book as a Christmas/holiday gift for their moms.
We also see another big dip start around the end of April when people are shopping for Mother’s Day gifts.
However, even in this book’s “off-season,” it’s maintaining an average BSR (best sellers rank) of around #3,000, which means it’s still selling dozens of copies per day.
I’m guessing people are also purchasing this book throughout the year as a birthday gift for their moms.
Organic Keywords
Next, I want to take a look at some of the organic keywords this book is ranking for on Amazon.
Organic keyword rankings are important because they lead to sales all on their own without ads.
When I look in the keyword report inside Helium 10, I can see that this book is showing up for over 8,924 different organic keywords on Amazon, like “mothers day journal, mothers day book, etc.”
Many of these keywords have a good amount of search volume (which is the number of people searching for the keyword on Amazon each month.)
However, when I scroll down the report, I noticed this gem —
The single keyword phrase, “tell me your life story mom” is resulting in over 700 monthly sales on Amazon.
I’m not sure if the author has trademarked this phrase, so please do your research if you plan to publish a similar title.
However, here are a few competing titles that show up for the phrase “tell me your life story mom” on Amazon.
These competitor titles are also selling very well, with BSR numbers ranging from #512 to #1422.
Amazon Ads Keywords
Curious to see some of the keywords this book is using in their Amazon ads?
Currently, this book has ads running against 259 keywords, which is fairly low and could be easily replicated by a competitor.
Here are some of the keywords used in ads promoting this book that have the highest sales associated with them on Amazon —
In theory, if you wanted to create a book to compete with this product, you could pull all 259 of the keywords they are running ads on from the Helium 10 report and use them in your own Amazon ad campaigns.
Book Series
One thing that this author has done very well is that they found a niche that works (gift journals), and they turned it into a series.
Currently, there are eight similar guided journals in this series for moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, mums, papas, etc.
One of the major advantages of creating a series is that once you have three or more titles published under one author name, you can create “sponsored brand ads.”
Essentially, you can create one ad that promotes three of your books at once.
This ad (see image above) is placed at the top of the Amazon listings for whatever keywords you bid on.
This is a huge advantage over authors that just have one or two titles.
They can still run sponsored product ads on Amazon, but their ad will be placed with the other product listings further down the page.
Why This Book Sells
- Niche — This book is marketed as a gift for moms. Millions of people shop for gifts for their moms around the Christmas holiday season, Mother’s Day, and throughout the year for birthdays.
- Cover — The cover is a modern, minimalist design that is appealing to a wide range of people.
- Description — The book’s description is clear and concise, with a strong headline, “Create a timeless keepsake that will be treasured for future generations.” Not only is this book being marketed as a gift or journal, but it’s also a “keepsake,” which has more of an emotional appeal to the buyer.
- Keywords in Title — All of the keywords in the title and subtitle of this book have good search volume and have helped this book rank well on Amazon for thousands of related keywords.
- Ads — The author of this book has not left their sales up to the whims of the Amazon algorithm. Rather, they are strategically running Amazon ads to a curated list of highly relevant keywords that can be found using Helium 10.
Room for Improvement
One thing that surprised me when I was analyzing this book’s sales page is that the author doesn’t have any A+ content on the product page.
A+ content on Amazon is additional product images, comparison tables, or blurbs that help customers make a purchasing decision. It also helps your product stand out over your competitors.
If I were to hypothetically create a competing product, I would definitely take advantage of A+ content by including additional images of the inside of the book or pictures of someone using the book or giving it as a gift.
What do you think?
Is this a niche you’d consider publishing in?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
Also, let me know if you enjoy these types of case studies.
I plan to publish more of them in my new Medium publication, Kristen’s KDP Project, along with tutorials and monthly income reports.
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