Kindletrends
The data analysis newsletter for self-published authors
It's been a while, but we're growing steadily. I just got featured on an authors' podcast, and that's driven some signups.
I need to start thinking of ways to keep growing, but this isn't the kind of product that is going to suddenly hit the front page of Product Hunt or something and have everyone buy it. It isn't primarily a tech product, nor is it of general interest; but for people who need it, there's nothing like it. This is a good space to be in, I think.
Plus, I'm proud of the fact that churn is very low. Almost everyone who signs up stays that way. It'll climb as the product gets more popular, inevitably, but this means I must be doing something right.
Right, overnight I had two more signups, meaning that I am officially making the princely sum of USD15/month from all this monkey business. Woohoo, etc.
There's a lot still to do, but this is a good start. Next, I need to add a couple more features which will allow me to raise my profile in some relevant communities and provide a service to them.
Right, the site went live yesterday, after a beta test that took about a month. Now I start the real work of getting subscribers, one by one. The first test is whether the beta test people actually pony up real money or not.
My assessment is that the market for this product is about 2000-3000 people on Earth - as in, I think there are about that many people on Earth who are self-published writers and making enough money to justify USD15/month subscriptions to save themselves time. That sure ain't much, but on the other hand, if you need it, you really need it, because there's nothing else like it.
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Nat, this seems like a very interesting idea.
Self-published authors is a market I've been looking at but have had some difficulty sizing it. Just out of curiosity, what made you think the market is 2-3k people who make enough to pay a subscription.
There's clearly a lot more self-published writers, but I would also assume most may not have a good economic reason to pay, so just interested in your math.
Congrats on the launch!
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Hey, thanks. The main thing is that for this product I'm talking specifically about people who publish on the Kindle Store and do so frequently enough in a single genre that trendwatching/market analysis metrics are worth paying for.
You're absolutely right there are a lot of people who publish one or two books (esp. in nonfiction tech), but my product is really only useful if you make repeated publishing your primary revenue stream. So my (current) market is quite a subset of all self-published authors.
Some relevant links:
https://blog.aboutamazon.co.uk/innovation/kindle-a-year-in-review
Amazon says (2019)" "Thousands of independent authors who self-publish their books with KDP earned more than $50,000 from the sale of their books on Amazon, with more than a thousand passing $100,000 in royalties."
Also:
His suggestion (also 2019 I think): "3600 KDP books might make $1000+/month"
There are a lot of qualifications here, and ifs and buts - this is books, rather than authors. But if you're making a thousand a month on a book on a regular basis, then you can probably justify USD15 for market research.
Note that there's quite possibly a much bigger market for 'one-off' author services - that is, things you need every time you publish. Cover design is the obvious one, but promotion and marketing services are a biggie, and I know a couple of people doing well running ARC (advance review) management tools.
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Thanks for that background. Particularly interesting color from Amazon on the number of authors making $50k and $100k+.
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Yeah - and you'd think Amazon would have a vested interest in making those numbers look as positive as possible, right? Like, if anything, those numbers are likely to be on the optimistic side.
What were you looking at in the SP space? I'd be interested to hear about it.
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Honestly, no serious ideas yet. Just recently came across the space and it feels very underserved given the size of the market and how fast it's growing. I definitely plan to spend more time talking to people in the space to learn more.
I'll certainly let you know if there's anything interesting I come across!
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Sure thing. I've been in self-publishing (fiction) since 2016, so I'm happy to share my thoughts if they're helpful.
I'm pretty keen on text analysis of fiction manuscripts (e.g. Grammarly-type tools for fiction writers; there are a few, but they're not very good). But I think there are also opportunities here in marketing - a social media/marketing management platform targeted at authors could get some traction, because there's nothing in that space, and the general-purpose business ones miss out on some key use cases.
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