Authors who publish frequently have the best chance in this genre; paranormal themes and women sleuths also perform well
This month, one of the latest K-lytics reports from Alex Newton examines trends in the cozy mystery category on Amazon. The overarching mystery, thriller & suspense category is the second-highest-selling genre on Kindle (after romance); long-term search interest for the subgenre of cozy mystery on Google has doubled since 2015. On Kindle, the category exhibits excellent supply-and-demand balance between new titles and increased interest over time, meaning it’s not a saturated market. Furthermore, 70 percent of the top 40 authors are self-published. Among traditional publishers, the top performers in cozy mystery currently include Berkley, Minotaur Books, and Kensington.
Cozy mystery is a modern term for a story in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously; the crime and investigation often take place in a small, socially intimate community, and the stories feature a female protagonist and/or amateur sleuth. Examples include Miss Marple mysteries or, on TV, Murder, She Wrote.
Cozy mystery has become more competitive over time; since 2016 it’s been a mainstream genre, according to Newton’s analysis. Success requires niche marketing strategies and targeting sub-categories with high sales and less competition, such as cozies focused on craft & hobbies, cooking, or animals. There are also categories closely related to cozy mystery that perform well, such as amateur sleuth, private investigators, and women sleuths (this last one being the strongest).
Good news: pricing in the category has also increased over time. On Amazon, the most frequent price point for a cozy mystery ebook was $2.99 in 2019 and $3.99 in 2020, and this year it is $4.99. About 60 percent of the cozy market is exclusive and available in Kindle Unlimited.
The highest-selling submarket of cozy mystery is paranormal, which won’t come as a surprise if you read the last K-lytics report we featured on paranormal romance. A paranormal cozy mystery involves paranormal elements and characters, such as witches, psychics, wizards, ghosts, etc. What we’re seeing, Newton says, is the convergence of two big-picture trends: the popularity of women sleuths and paranormal themes. A top-selling author in this niche is Amanda M. Lee, who writes the Mystic Caravan Mystery series featuring Poet Parker, a Romani sleuth who is a fortuneteller in a circus.
Bottom line: Prolific authors and series rule cozy mystery. Of the current top-performing Kindle authors in the category, all of them offer series and have several dozen titles available. A few even have more than 100 titles published and have been in the game for years now. It is a high-churn genre, with very few titles selling in high quantities year after year. However, nearly 60 percent of the top-performing authors were also the top performers two years ago; authors who succeed typically release new work every year. For more in-depth information on the cozy mystery market, you can buy the K-lytics report.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
