Competitiveness Score: How Do You Actually Stack Up?
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What the Competitiveness Score Measures
Most authors have a gut feeling about how competitive their category is. The Competitiveness Score replaces that gut feeling with a number — your book scored against your actual top 10 competitors across 5 weighted dimensions.
| Dimension | Weight |
|---|---|
| Review Count | 30% |
| Title Optimization | 20% |
| Description Quality | 20% |
| Price Positioning | 15% |
| Listing Completeness | 15% |
Review Count has the highest weight because it's the strongest proxy Amazon has for a book's quality and market acceptance. Everything else being equal, the book with more reviews wins. The other four dimensions are what you can improve before your review count catches up.
How to Run It
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1
Go to the Competitiveness Score tool page
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2
Enter your book's ASIN
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3
Click "Analyze Competitiveness"
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4
Wait 1–2 minutes while PublishRank scrapes and scores your top 10 competitors
Reading Your Results
Your results show three key pieces of information:
- Score out of 100 — your book's overall competitive position. A score of 65+ means you're reasonably competitive. Below 50 means significant gaps exist.
- Competitive label — a plain-English label based on your score: "Competitive," "Moderate," "Needs Work," or "Weak." This gives you a quick read before diving into the details.
- Your primary Weakness — the single dimension dragging your score down the most. This is where to start. The tool calls it out explicitly so you don't have to guess.
Previous analyses are saved in the Recent Analyses list. Re-run after you've made listing updates or accumulated more reviews to track your progress.
Acting on the Results
Each weakness maps to a specific follow-up action:
Weakness: Review Count
Run Review Threshold Predictor to get your exact review targets for Top 100, Top 10, and #1 in your category. Then focus your next 30–60 days on a review-building strategy: include a review ask at the back of your book, use Amazon's built-in "Request a Review" button in KDP, and consider building a reader list.
Weakness: Title or Description Quality
Run Listing Optimizer for detailed, field-by-field feedback. Also run Keyword Gap Map to find which phrases your competitors are using that you're not — these are the phrases to work into your updated listing.
Weakness: Price Positioning
Look at what the top 5 books in your category are charging. If you're priced significantly above the average, consider testing a lower price point for 30 days. If you're in KU, price matters less for page-read revenue but still affects direct purchase conversion.
Weakness: Listing Completeness
Some listing fields are likely empty or minimal. Run Listing Optimizer and check the individual field scores — it will show you exactly which fields are incomplete compared to your competitors.
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