Finding a niche in the market is a great way to make sure that you have a unique title that should generate interest and sales.

While you may feel certain that your book has a unique title and subject, you should still conduct searches for competing books.

It can be gut-wrenching to find out that someone has already written the book you thought was your story. That’s why it is important to perform a keyword search first and then tweak your offering for the best impact.

In this guide, we will look at how to use Helium 10 to find competing books. This will include how to use Cerebro to check competitors, why you should use Cerebro, and how to form a strategy with a unique book. 

Use Cerebro To Check Competitors

Let’s say that your book is about how to train dogs and provides some expert advice on coaching your canine. Head to Amazon and type in ‘how to train dogs’.

Analyze the search results and try to find similar book titles to the one you have devised and write down those titles and their ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) if they seem a little bit too close.

If they are too similar, you may want to consider tweaking yours to stand out. 

Once you have collected a few ISBNs of the book titles that are closest to your own, open up the Cerebro tool.

This is where you can input the ISBNs and the tool will come back with plenty of useful information about those books.

That can include details on their monthly search volume and tangible longtail keywords. With those details, you can see what works for your competing books and which longtail keywords you can adopt.

Why You Should Use Cerebro To Find Competing Books

By analyzing your competition in the form of competing books, you can better understand your target audience.

It can be helpful to your own book’s chances of success by finding a true niche that is yet to be covered and which there is a tangible audience waiting to buy a copy.

Alternatively, if you can see similar, competing titles which have been out for a number of years then you can see what has worked well and what has held them back.

Enough of these competing books will have built up a sales history so you can base your sales strategy on their reliable data rather than blindly setting about how to sell yours.

How To Form A Strategy With A Unique Book

Using Cerebro may not prove to be that useful if you have a unique book. Perhaps it is non-fiction on a subject that is yet to be covered elsewhere.

That may prove ideal for your own chances of success yet it may mean that finding competing books on Amazon proves difficult. There is a similar strategy that you can try, you just have to go creative with it.

Try to perform the same search and you may find few, if any, competing books. You can try broader keywords but if there are no similar books identified then you may need some more tailored longtail keywords.

That is if you want to target your perceived audience. Should your book have a general theme then try that and you could use this information to speculate that lovers of this theme should love your book.

Use the ISBNs of books that match a similar theme to your own and enter those into Cerebro. You will still manage to pull the requisite data and that can prove useful to your own book.

The data should help you to determine further keywords to use and detail the search volume of those books with a similar theme.

As you delve further into the details, feel free to tweak your own book strategy as you go once the sales start coming in.  

Final Thoughts

Aside from Cerebro, you can also use the Inventory Level tool which has been developed by Helium 10. Access it through your Helium 10 Chrome extension and you can see the inventory of your competitors.

That should include how much inventory they have left, which ones are running low, and exactly how many they have left.

All in all, you get a sneak peek at your competitors and give you some indication of the number of copies you should have. 

Frequently Asked Questions