Once you have a short list of 3 to 5 travel guide ideas that get your creative juices flowing, it’s time to check out the marketplace to see which ones are the most viable.

It’s highly likely the travel book you want to write has competition in the marketplace, and this is where your theme and angle can put a new spin on the location you want to write about.

Even if you are self-publishing your book and incurring minimal costs, you still need to research the marketplace and see how much competition there is for your idea, because writing a guidebook takes time and effort and you want to make sure there’s a market for it.

It’s uncommon to come up with a book concept that is entirely new and unique. Even if you want to write a guide about an extensively covered location like Paris or New York, you could come up with an approach that ensures your travel guide offers something that your competition doesn’t.

We’re living in a world of information overload, so niche books that zero in on a specific area of interest are the way forward and your key to success.

Could your proposed travel guide fill a gap in the marketplace?

To find out, compare your ideas to existing books in your category and evaluate the pros and cons of the competition. Based on this comparison you can determine if you can do a better job with your topic than authors of existing books.

This information will give you all you need to assess whether you should tweak or change the direction of your travel guide concept, and make it stand out in its niche.

You can search iBooks and Kobo for your competition, but I usually just focus on Amazon. It’s the most prominent player in the self-publishing arena, and currently outsells all the other online book retailers combined. So to keep things simple, confine your research to Amazon.

You have three options for completing your research:

1. Manually research Amazon yourself.
2. Use Kindle Research software to automate part of the process.
3. Hire a freelance professional to conduct research on your behalf.

If this is your first book and you’re on a budget your best bet is to manually research Amazon yourself, and here’s a step-by-step approach:

Finding your eBook competition on Amazon

Here’s step by step instructions for finding your eBook competition on Amazon.

Use one of the key Amazon territories (for example, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com.au) to research your competition. I recommend looking at your home Amazon territory but also look at the other core target markets because each Amazon territory organizes its books and categories slightly differently.

There are many different ways to explore your competition, and you can end up disappearing down a rabbit hole of information and getting lost, so it’s important to put your customer head on and use Amazon organically as if you were searching for a travel guide to purchase. 

Your goal is to locate 5 to 10 books in direct competition to your concept, and do a deep-dive competitive research into each of the ideas on your short list.

How to Search for your eBook Competition

Choose your favorite topic from your short list of ideas to research Amazon, and use the following steps to find books that you consider are in direct competition to you and are worth doing a competitive analysis on.

1. Navigate to Amazon.
2. Change the search category to Kindle Store.
3. Type your book topic keywords into the search box, for example: Thailand budget travel, and review the search results.
4. If the results aren’t relevant, try changing your search terms or the sort order. The default sort filter is relevance, but you can try sorting the results by publication date so the most recent publications are at the top of the list.
5. Scan the search results to find titles that seem the most comparable to your own, based on their covers and book titles.
6. Click on the book cover or description to visit this book’s Amazon sales page.

How to Complete an Initial Analysis

Once you’re on the book’s Amazon sales page, click on Read More to review the book’s description. This section is the main storefront for a book, but some indie authors don’t realize the potential of this page for reaching readers, so you may run into instances where the description is scant or minimal.

Next, click on the Look Inside feature to read the introductory sections and review the table of contents (if available).

This description and Look Inside information should be sufficient to assess whether the book is your competition and warrants an in-depth competitive analysis or whether you should search for another book.

How to Search For Another Book

Click on the Amazon Category listed on this sales page (in the Product Details after the Best Seller Rank), which will take you to the related category page displaying a list of books.

You can also click on any of the books appearing in one of the following sections on this sales page:

• Customers who bought this item also bought
• Sponsored products related to this item (authors have paid for this placement)
• Alternatively, you can navigate back to the search results page and continue down the list of books based on your initial search.

Keep assessing books until you find ones to complete a competitive analysis on.

How to Complete a Competitive Analysis

Complete your competitive analysis by reviewing each of the following sections and data elements found on the book’s sales page, and make notes to refer back to. 

1. Book Title
2. Cover Image
3. Look Inside Feature
4. Author Credentials
5. Book Description
6. Number of Reviews and Average Review Rating
7. Publication Versions and Price Point
8. Number of Pages
9. Publication Date
10. Publisher
11. Amazon Best Sellers Rank
12. Category and Ranking
13. Positive and Negative Reviews
14. Personal Impressions

The information you gather will not only be helpful during this planning stage, but will also be a useful reference during your ebook production and promotion stage.

To assist you with your Competitive Analysis you can use the LIST OF PROMPTS I’ve created that will trigger your thought process during your research.

Read more articles in my How to Write a Travel Guide Series

I’m putting the finishing touches on my How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Series, which details a step by step approach for writing and producing your own travel guide. It’s part of a four-part series aimed at helping travel bloggers achieve passive income based on their passions and existing content.

Each month I host a monthly free prize draw and give away a travel writing e-book to the lucky winner. Sign up to join my mailing list to participate.