If you read and enjoy Lee Child’s Jack Reacher or Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X, then you’re part of the audience for vigilante justice novels—in which individuals decide to take the law into their own hands (or bend the rules to bring justice). Alex Newton at K-lytics has recently released his fifth annual report on the category’s performance in the Amazon Kindle market.
Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry is another iconic vigilante protagonist. Such figures can be found across crime, thriller, and mystery genres, as seen below. A common trope is the disillusioned police officer or CIA/FBI operative whose own organization turns against them. The term vigilante justice started to grow significantly in 1990 and has only become more popular over time (according to Google Ngram)—although the average book buyer doesn’t search for this literary term. Rather, readers look for general terms, like thriller.
Vigilante justice has low growth (in terms of title count) but high sales on Amazon Kindle. So it has retained its attractiveness for self-published authors who want to enter a hot niche. But vigilante justice books cross over many top-performing Kindle categories, some of which are exceedingly competitive, like Action & Adventure under Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense (MTS). Some of the most favorable MTS subcategories, competition-wise, include Kidnapping, Detective, Eastern European, Financial, and Legal. Of the top 100 bestselling vigilante justice novels, the most frequently applied MTS subcategory is not Vigilante Justice, but (in this order) Military, Terrorism, Assassinations, Financial, Espionage, and Pulp. Military-related books in particular have grown in popularity over the past year.
Cover cliches dominate vigilante justice novels. There are three popular cover types. The most prevalent: a dark silhouette of the protagonist, usually running away with their back to the viewer. The second: a dark figure again, but the person is facing forward, or a dark silhouette is mixed with other imagery. The third type of cover focuses on a type treatment or symbol—common with big author names like Lee Child.
Right now, some of the most popular indie authors in the category include L.T. Ryan, Diane Capri, Mark Dawson, Jack Slater, Bradley Wright, and Matt Lincoln. Of traditionally published authors, among the most popular are Lee Child, Fern Michaels, Mark Greaney, and Tom Clancy. Publishers with many successful authors in the category are Thomas & Mercer (an Amazon imprint) and Wolfpack Publishing.
Bottom line: While vigilante justice presents a significant category opportunity for authors and publishers alike, it’s necessary to market and position the books in a way that readers understand. That means using descriptive words and categories such as thriller, mystery, police or authorities, and other keywords relevant to your protagonist’s background and situation. For more insights, you can purchase the full report on vigilante justice at K-lytics.
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.
