If you’re a self-published author who has dreamed of having your book discovered and then traditionally published, you’ll want to keep reading. The conventional wisdom, among authors, is that being self-published is an impediment to getting published traditionally. In fact, the opposite is true. Successfully self-publishing your book can open up a world of publishing opportunities.
Keith Riegert, CEO of Ulysses Press, is one of traditional publishers on the lookout for proven self-published titles. “The best publishers in the world have only a 3 in 10 success rate on their published titles, so we are always looking to up those odds by finding hidden gems,” says Riegert.
The reason Riegert (and other traditional publishers) are interested in successful self-published titles is because the author already has found an audience. While that author might be new to the process of traditional publishing, he or she is not new to process publishing and marketing a book.
While Ulysses accepts unsolicited submissions, most of its titles are from what Riegert refers to as “reverse acquisitions” — where Ulysses actively searches for authors or titles in areas where data suggests there’s a strong potential audience.
As a second generation publisher (Riegert’s parents founded the press in 1983), Riegert, whose background is in computer science, is building on the foundation his parents established while incorporating title and topic discovery algorithms.
One example of Ulysses’s successful “reverse acquisition” strategy is The Growth Mindset Playbook, which was published in 2017 and has sold more than 250,000 copies. The data Ulysses gathered suggested that the growth mindset was an emerging topic with significant growth potential, prompting Ulysses to search for an author to write the book.
The publisher eventually discovered two teachers who were subject matter experts, and as the book sales prove, the data was correct. Ulysses’s reverse acquisition strategy also led to the acquisition of the self-published title Patriots by James Wesley Rawles. After being acquired by Ulysses, Patriots has sold over 135,000 copies.
While the algorithm Riegert uses is proprietary, he did share some general data points that can help a self-published title catch his attention. One key factor is the number of genuine reviews a book has. Even a title with as few as 25 genuine Amazon reviews might attract Riegert’s interest.
Genuine reviews are those from verified buyers and aren’t all posted within a short period, which could indicate review manipulation. Riegert notes that books with more than 100 genuine reviews really get his team excited. In terms of actual sales, even a few hundred copies sold over several years can indicate enough potential for a title, especially if it aligns with Ulysses’ model.
If you’re thinking about writing a book and want to determine if there’s an audience for it, Riegert has some solid advice: “Research the topic and the competition before writing the first word.” Here’s how he suggests doing that:
1. Find the Target Audience
- Use a general keyword tool to look up keywords potential readers might be searching. Reigert suggests a tool like Moz.com. We at TIPM use KWfinder.com, but they are similar.
- Search for specific Amazon specific keywords versus Moz or KWfinder which gives search volume on Google and other search engines. For searching Amazon keywords, Reigert suggests SellerApp.com. We set up a free account which has some excellent research tools. PublisherRocket is another option here.
2. Search For Competing Titles
- Go to Amazon, select the “Books” category from the drop-down menu, and search for keywords relevant to your book. Look for competitive titles with a decent Amazon sales rank and reviews. If you’re pitching a publisher or agent, Riegert recommends showing at least five strong comp titles to demonstrate your understanding of the topic and genre.
I decided to test out Riegert’s basic topical research methods. What follows is a very cursory overview. I have only done this research for the writing of this article, so you should not base any publishing decisions off it. That said, to find some trending topics, I asked ChatGPT what the hottest fiction topics are in 2025.
One trend was Climate Fiction (Cli-Fi) which are novels that explore the human impact of environmental collapse, dystopian futures, or hopeful speculative visions of ecological recovery. I knew this would be a relatively niche sub-genre, where one could get a sense of the competitive landscape.
I first went to KWfinder and searched for “climate fiction”. Below are a portion of the results:
Here we see the monthly search volume for climate fiction is 4,600 and if you were advertising your book on Google under this keyword, you’d be paying $1.06 per click (approximately). But, if you advertised under a term like “climate fiction novels” you’d only be paying $.48 per click.
Next I searched “climate fiction” on SellerApp.com, which returns search volume but from Amazon and not Google. Here is part of what I found:
While a monthly search volume of 858 isn’t huge, the cost per click to have your book show up in Amazon search results is relatively low. I’m not familiar enough with SellerApp to know how accurate the conversion rates are for any specific book, but it appears that 10% of those who search “climate fiction” buy a book.
Finally, I went to Amazon, selected the “books” section drop down and searched for “climate fiction” which produced 1,000 results.
Climate fiction appears to be a small, yet growing sub-genre. I didn’t explore other factors like how many of those are in the top 10,000 Best-Seller Rank or did I track how many new releases are coming out (would need to do this over time).
Note that the results can change depending on the search term, so “climate fiction” returns different results than “climate fiction books”.
So, if you’re about to start your publishing journey, Riegert’s “reverse acquisition” strategy is something to keep in mind.
If you’re self-published a book and think it fits into Ulysses’s wheelhouse, make sure your query letter doesn’t include, “I wrote this book because this is the book I want to read.” Riegert says that line tells him that you wrote the book for yourself and not for the public.
