Using Amazon as a Research Tool

By Melissa Luttmann

One of my favorite tools for researching the historical fiction market is Amazon.com. Yes, I realize that many authors find some of their business practices questionable…but of all the sites selling books on the Internet, Amazon has by far the largest selection. If you know how to handle its search functions, you can get an excellent idea about what books publishers are putting out. Amazon’s advanced search allows you to sort books by publication date, reader age, publisher, and more, and when you look specifically at historical fiction books, you can organize them by what part of the world they cover. That tool is especially useful when you want to know whether the publisher you’re interested publishes any novels set outside the United States.

What I find especially handy about Amazon, though, is its “Look Inside” function, which allows you to view the covers, first pages, and back matter of most recently published books. Of course it’s preferable to read entire books, but if you’re just beginning to research publishers (or if you’re trying to decide whether to buy a book!), this tool is quite useful. By examining the tone of the first few pages and seeing what back matter, if any, the book has, you can often find a given publisher’s approach to historical fiction. Is it very close to nonfiction, or more of a just-tell-a-good-story approach? The same goes for nonfiction: does the publisher handle only reference type books, or are they more narrative in nature?

Whether you actually buy books from Amazon, of course, is a personal choice, but I’d highly recommend getting to know the site for research purposes. You might be surprised at the wealth of information you discover.

Regardless of where you purchase your books, do you ever use Amazon for research? Do you find it handy to be able to look inside books online to get an idea of a publisher’s style?

Melissa Luttmann is Associate Editor for Young Adult History/Historical Fiction at Wonders & Marvels.

The Chicken or the Egg

Madame du Coudray

The Year of the Emperor

http://historywithatwist.blogspot.com Vicky Alvear Shecter

If my comment shows up twice, I apologize. For whatever reason, my first attempt disappeared! Anyway, Melissa, this is fascinating. I’ve only occasionally used Amazon to check competing titles, but it never occurred to me to use the Advanced Research functions you described. Always good to learn something new!
http://theviewfromsarisworld.blogspot.com/2010/07/dracula-in-love-must-read-for-everyone.html sari

I have not done this, but I have used Google Books a lot in my research. Like Amazon you can look and read from the book, in fact I would say you can see more. What I like about using this type of service for research is how much it saves me from buying useless book. I used to buy and borrow loads of books for one subject. Being able to view books gives me a better idea of what I may be getting into.
Good luck with all of your research.
http://www.planetpeschel.com Bill Peschel

Like sari, I used Google Books during the writing of “Writers Gone Wild.” It acted like a savant reference librarian, capable of bringing up books I never knew existed, while sometimes appearing befuddled by the simplest requests. When I was researching John Milton’s involuntary resurrection, GB gave me a contemporary account filled with wonderful details, like how much one person charged for a peek at his bones.

I could even use it in a random way, plugging in search terms like “Hemingway scandal” just to see what popped up.
Marie Johansen

I have been a huge Amazon fan since they began and I DO use them all of the time – both for researching historical fiction for various time periods, for searching for all of an author’s works, and for new suggestions. I also use Amazon for buying books- or perhaps I should say hoarding. I have become used to relatively “instant” gratification vis the Prime program too! I do also enjoy using their preview pages . I think that Barnes & Noble is making a good effort to be user helpful too these days I think, but Amazon still has an edge IMHO.
Tiffany Middleton

I use Amazon all the time for research. I use it as you describe, but I also use it to learn about new authors for subjects about which I would otherwise be unsure of where to start. I realize that only certain folks are actually published, and that sometimes authors are not actually experts on their topic, so this is by no means my exclusive trick for learning about experts on a topic, but it’s often a good starting point for me.