Fun Fact:
Amazon accounts for OVER 50% of all book sales in the United States!
The online retail giant’s dominance in the book industry is absolutely undeniable.
To put this into perspective, the total revenue for the U.S. trade book segment (which includes adult and juvenile fiction and non-fiction) in 2022 was a substantial $17.36 billion.
The print books contributed 78.80% and digital sales made up 21.19%.
This figure is projected to soar to $82.7 billion by 2027. (Source: Wordsrated)
Meanwhile, Amazon sells an estimated $5 billion worth of books annually. This makes it the book industry titan with retail dominance, publishing power, and technological innovation like Kindle.
Today, we will dive into how we used Pline to extract the best-seller book list of 2024 from Amazon and analyze their genre trends.
Extracting Data with Pline
Pline is a new DIY data extraction tool that makes the collection of web data simpler and easier than any other tool in the competitive landscape. It doubles your extraction efficiency with AI integration and automation, freeing you from the manual grind.
Pline guides you in each step of your data collection process so that you don’t feel lost or confused midway. It even has tutorials that you can always go back to if you’re at sixes and sevens.
It has several built-in features that assist users in extracting quality data quickly such as:
- Simplified Easy to Follow Guidelines
- Automation
- Browse and Capture
- Inner-Page Data Extraction
- Multi-Tab Extraction
- Adaptive Selector Tool
Check out this article to learn more about our Premium Pricing Plans and the features that come along with them.
Now that we have discussed how Pline makes extracting web data a walk in the park, let’s dive into the use case.
We easily pulled 100 records of best-selling books from Amazon with Pline’s Browse & Capture and Multi-tab extraction feature. You can download it here:
We derived several insights from this dataset that was already ready for analysis.
Insights from analysis of the dataset
Dominance of Children’s Books
Interestingly, children’s literature occupies a significant chunk of the best sellers list.
This shows a strong demand for books aimed at younger audiences, alluring parents and educators to seek engaging content for children’s brain development.
There are categories in early learning like alphabets, size & shape, colors, sounds, countings, etc, within the children’s book category.
From the dataset we extracted using Pline, these multiple categories are combined into one as “Children’s Books” for clearer visualization after thorough analysis.
What’s more interesting is, children’s books are not just for children but also for adults. Author Katherine Rundell says, “Children’s fiction helps us adults refind things that we may not even realize we have lost”. Most adults don’t glance back as they get to adult fiction and build a sense that they should keep going in that direction, but this is far from the truth.
Children’s books are written to arm them for life, it explores hope, love, fear, and failure. It plants a belief that hope counts for something, and that bravery, justice, wit, empathy, and love always matter. This also arms adults against the necessary compromises that are involved in life and reminds them that there are and always will be hope and sustaining truths to which we can return.
The adult brain that is trained to be cut out for rational thinking and decision-making can go back to the time of innocent curiosity before the imagination got neatly trimmed when you read a children’s fictional book.
Thus, this dual appeal contributes significantly to their bestseller status.
Hillbilly Elegy and Trump
The memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by Senator JD Vance from Ohio has remained popular since 2016.
Its popularity is contributed by the raw and emotional portrayal of growing up in white working-class communities in Appalachia.
The book is a deep dive into the cultural and economic factors that contributed to Trump’s rise, essential to understanding the 2016 election and US politics.
It lets the reader draw connections to Vance’s journey from an author and commentator to a politician closely aligned with Trump and his shift towards the Republican Party.
Hillbilly Elegy remains popular even in 2024 as Trump has again risen as a presidential candidate because it addresses timeless socio-economic issues, provides political insight, and has a compelling personal story that resonates with a large audience.
Popularity of Fiction
One dominant genre that remains permanent is Fiction with sub-genres like Romance, Fantasy, Mystery, and Thriller. This is a direct reflection of the continual interest in imaginative storytelling and character-driven narratives.
Rise of Non-Fiction & Self-help
We can also witness the rise of non-fiction, especially the self-help category. From this, we can decipher that there’s a growing demand for books that offer guidance, personal development, and practical advice from experts.
The trend shows that readers are looking for ways to enhance their personal and professional lives.
Christian Literature
The category “Christian Books” also makes up a noticeable portion of the best-seller list. This proves that there is a customer segment that is interested in spiritual and religious content. It includes everything from the bible to more contemporary Christian living guides.
Popular Authors
The most popular author from the list as you can see is Sarah J. Mass, leading with the highest number of best-sellers. Her works in the fantasy genre are extremely popular and even have a dedicated fanbase.
Her ongoing series “A Court of Thorns and Roses” known best for its acronym ACOTAR currently has a chokehold on BookTok. The fandom is desperate for the 6th book. Her other popular series “Throne of Glass” is complete after 8 books and still has its place on the best-seller list.
This proves her dominance in continually captivating the readers and remains relevant among the audience.
Despite the prominent gap, Freida McFadden comes in second as the author with the most books on the bestseller list. The popularity of her books suggests that the mystery/thriller genre is preferred by readers as they are drawn to the suspense and psychological elements in engaging stories.
Following her there’s Kristin Hannah with her emotionally resonant novels that explore themes of love, loss, and resilience. Along with her, there are emerging authors like Rebecca Yarros and Coleen Hoover with their increasingly popular novels in contemporary romance competing for the fourth spot.
Key Takeaways
Pline is an AI-powered data extraction tool that helps users unlock valuable insights from the depths of Big Data.
By using its Browse & Automation feature, we easily extracted the best-seller booklist dataset from Amazon.
Let’s summarize the insights from the captivating world of genre trends.
- Amazon’s Dominance: Amazon is the undisputed leader in the book industry, accounting for over 50% of all book sales in the US.
- Children’s Books Thrive: Children’s literature is a dominant force in the bestseller list, appealing to both children and adults.
- Diverse Reader Interests: The book market caters to a wide range of interests, including fiction, non-fiction, self-help, and Christian literature.
- Author Influence: Authors like Sarah J. Maas and Freida McFadden have significant impacts on bestseller lists due to their dedicated fan bases and compelling storytelling.
Henceforth, analyzing bestseller data provides valuable insights into reader preferences and market trends.
These valuable insights can be utilized by many individuals and businesses like
- Publishers can invest in authors who are already dominating and emerging as big players in a particular genre.
- Retailers can highlight the work of top-performing authors in promotions and special displays during key sales periods.
- Finally, the authors can consider building series and sequels to cater to the demands and capitalize on the existing reader base emerging.
- And, emerging authors should strategize on building strong brand identities and engaging with their audience to foster loyalty and relevance.
