Christian Book Finder Podcast

Quick answer: Christian Author Demand Lab is the research app I’ve built for Christian indie authors. It pulls live data from Amazon, Google, and short-form video so you can check if readers actually want your topic, see how many daily sales it takes to rank in a category, look under the hood of a bestseller, and shape your title before you write chapter one. Access comes with a paid Christian Book Finder subscription.

Many authors spend months, or even years, writing a book only to learn an unsettling reality: not as many were as interested as they thought.

This happens to indie authors every single day. Their writing is fine, they just went into the market blind, before anyone checked whether a buying audience existed, or whether the big publishing houses already owned the topic.

That’s a lot of hours to bet on a hunch. So I built a tool that checks the hunch first. Here’s what each part of Demand Lab does, in roughly the order you’d use it.

Checking for readers before you write a single chapter

The Validate Demand tool tells you whether people are searching for your topic right now.

It pulls from three places at once. Amazon shows you buying intent, meaning people with their wallets out. Google shows curiosity, the folks typing in a problem and hoping somebody wrote a book about it. YouTube Shorts and TikTok show momentum, the topics people are talking about this month that may not have hit the bookstore yet.

You get a trend line for your topic. If it slopes up, interest is growing. You can also split the line out by channel if you want to see which platform is doing the most.

Then the tool scores your topic on three 0–100 scales. Demand is how much interest exists overall, where 0 means almost nobody is looking and 100 is peak demand. Competition is how crowded the shelf already is. Momentum is whether the topic is gaining steam or fading out.

Read those scores together. A high demand score sitting next to a high competition score means readers want it, but so does every other author — you’ll need a sharper angle to get noticed.

That’s where the related topics and reader struggles come in. The tool lists both under your results, and clicking any one of them runs a fresh search on it. So a broad idea like “prayer” can narrow down, a click at a time, to the specific problem a specific reader is trying to solve.

Validate Demand at a glance:

* Sources — Amazon, Google, YouTube Shorts, TikTok

* Demand score — 0 to 100, overall reader interest

* Competition score — 0 to 100, how crowded the topic is

* Momentum score — 0 to 100, rising or fading

* Related topics and struggles — one click runs a new search

How many sales it takes to rank in a category

Category Search shows you the actual sales numbers behind an Amazon category, so you can pick ones you have a real shot at.

A lot of authors will pick categories by how they sound. “Ministry & Evangelism” sounds right for a church outreach book, so in it goes. But ranking in a category is a numbers game, and Category Search puts the numbers in front of you.

For any category you open, you’ll see four things. The estimated daily sales it takes to hit #1. The estimated daily sales it takes to land in the top 10. The share of top books that come from traditional publishers. And the share of top books enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.

The #1 and #10 numbers tell you how hard the climb is. If the #10 spot needs more sales a day than you can realistically drive at launch, that category will bury you, no matter how well it fits the book.

The publisher percentage tells you who you’re up against. When most of the top books come from big houses, you’re competing with their marketing budgets and bookstore deals. That’s your cue to look for a tighter subcategory.

The KU percentage tells you how readers in that category buy. A high number means they’re reading through their subscription, and you get paid by page reads. That should shape your price and whether you enroll in KDP Select.

One more thing: your category picks sit on the left, and matching keywords for KDP’s backend boxes sit on the right. So your categories and keywords point Amazon in the same direction from day one.

Category Search at a glance:

* #1 daily sales — estimated sales a day to top the category

* #10 daily sales — estimated sales a day for a top-10 spot

* Publisher % — share of top books from traditional houses

* KU % — share of top books in Kindle Unlimited

* Keyword pairing — backend keywords matched to your categories

Seeing the search terms behind a bestseller

Reverse ASIN Search shows you which Amazon searches a competing book shows up for.

First you need the book’s ASIN (or ISBN). You’ll find it in the product details section of the Amazon page. Or look at the book’s web address — it’s the string of letters and numbers right after /dp/.

Paste that in, and the tool pulls up the search terms the book ranks for. Try it on a proven bestseller like The Awe of God and you’ll see what shoppers type in to find it.

Each search term comes with three numbers. A competition score from 0 (easy to rank for) to 100 (good luck). An estimate of how many people search that exact phrase on Amazon every month. And the estimated average monthly earnings of the top books in those results.

The last number is the one I’d watch. A search term with decent monthly searches, a moderate competition score, and healthy average earnings is a term worth building your book around.

Now, I will say, Demand Lab is a research tool. It won’t guarantee you sales, and it won’t guarantee you a category ranking. What it does is raise your odds, because you’re making decisions off live Amazon data instead of a gut feeling.

Reverse ASIN Search at a glance:

* Finding the ASIN — product details, or the code after /dp/ in the URL

* Competition score — 0 to 100, how hard the term is to rank for

* Searches per month — estimated Amazon searches for that exact phrase

* Average sales — estimated monthly earnings of top books for that term

Finding your angle and the words buyers type

Demand Scout helps you find the angle the bestsellers missed, and Keyword Lab turns that angle into a title and keywords Amazon can use.

A book has to win twice to sell. Amazon’s search has to surface it, and then a real person has to click on it. These two tools handle one win each.

Demand Scout lays out the bestsellers for your topic side by side: Best Sellers Rank, estimated monthly royalties, page count, and list price. Then hit Analyze Competitive Advantage. It compares your book idea against the current leaders and points out the gaps none of them are covering. You can pick one of the suggested angles or type in your own, and the tool shapes it into a clear spot in the market for your book.

Once you know your angle, Keyword Lab fills in the seven backend keyword slots KDP gives you. It finds the phrases real buyers are typing, then writes title and subtitle options built around those phrases.

The keywords are for Amazon’s algorithm, so your book shows up in the right searches. The title and subtitle are for the human scrolling past, so they know in two seconds what your book does for them. You need both.

Positioning tools at a glance:

* Demand Scout — compares bestsellers by BSR, royalties, page count, and price

* Analyze Competitive Advantage — finds gaps between your idea and the leaders

* Keyword Lab — fills all 7 KDP backend keyword slots

* Title and subtitle options — built from what buyers actually search

Launch timing and formatting, off your plate

Two more tools handle the parts of launching that have nothing to do with writing and everything to do with getting stuck.

The Launch Calendar is a VIP feature. It reads the research reports you’ve saved and suggests publication dates that fit your genre, with plans for both a standard launch and a pre-launch. Alongside it, Find My Best Launch Day and Find My Best Promo Window walk you through a few questions, then tell you when to release and when to run your price drops and promos. Your first few weeks set the tone with Amazon, so timing matters m…

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.christianbookfinder.com/subscribe

This conversation also appears on Adrian Warnock’s Christian Podcast where you can find an edited transcript. It also inspired a short article a short article on some of the themes of the discussion.

https://adrianwarnock.substack.com/p/becoming-a-christian-writer-with

Twelve Steps to Becoming a Successful Published Author https://www.patheos.com/blogs/adrianwarnock/2026/09/twelve-steps-to-becoming-a-successful-published-author/

Read the article, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/adrianwarnock/2026/09/twelve-steps-to-becoming-a-successful-published-author/

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.christianbookfinder.com/subscribe

Watch the video or read the transcript: https://www.christianbookfinder.com/p/the-atheist-conversion-manual-with

Thank God Atheists Do Not Live By Their Worldview Terrible things would happen if they did. Read a short article which explores the themes in this conversation:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/adrianwarnock/2026/09/thank-god-atheists-do-not-live-by-their-worldview/

Get ahold of the book this episode was talking about: The Atheist Conversion Manual: 17 Cases that Destroy Secular Religion, Prove God, and Show You the Way to Eternal Life https://link.amazon/B0bUuRSq5

This episode also appears in Adrian Warnock’s Christian Podcast

https://adrianwarnock.substack.com/podcast

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.christianbookfinder.com/subscribe

Christian authors will get an idea, sit down, write for months, and then find out — after the book is done — that nobody was searching for it.

That’s backwards. And it’s the exact problem the Christian Author Demand Lab was built to fix.

It took four months to put together. We created a dashboard with six tool cards, each one built to answer a different question about your book idea before you commit to writing it.

Validate Demand — Type in a topic — say, Christian parenting — and it pulls trend data from Google, Amazon, and short-form video (YouTube Shorts and TikTok) into one graph. You can view all three combined or break them apart to see each source on its own. It hands you a demand score from zero to 100, plus similar topics worth checking and real results from Google Books and Amazon.

Category Search solves a problem every KDP author runs into. Amazon only gives you three categories to choose from, and picking the wrong one buries your book. This tool drills down through Amazon’s category tree and shows exactly how many sales it takes to hit number one — or the top ten — at each level. Here’s the trick: a broad category like Children’s Books, Religions might need 215 sales to rank first. Narrow it down to something like Children’s Books, Religions, Christianity, Baptism, Noah’s Ark, and that number can drop to 34. A much easier climb.

Demand Scout takes that same idea and applies it to your competition. Say you’ve written a book for a category that’s packed with established titles. This tool pulls real Amazon listings and shows you sales history, pricing, age, and estimated monthly sales for each one — so you can find the pocket where demand is high but competition is thin.

Keyword Lab works the same angle for the seven backend keywords Amazon lets you set on KDP. Enter a term and it surfaces related keywords along with estimated monthly searches, competitor count, monthly earnings, and a competition score.

Angle Finder might be the most interesting one. Type in your book idea, and it reads the actual reviews left on competing books — pulling out the specific things readers wish those books had done differently. Then it hands you three positioning angles your book could take instead, so you’re not writing straight into a wall of established competition.

Two more tools are on the way: Reverse ASIN Search and a Manuscript Formatter, both currently in development.

This isn’t a subscription. It’s a one-time payment, and starting this week, there’s a six-week series — every Saturday — going deep on one tool at a time. Questions can come straight through Substack DMs.

Writing a book is hard enough without guessing at whether anyone wants to read it. Now you don’t have to. Purchase link below. One time payment of $79.99. No subscriptions. Lifetime updates.

VIPs get the tool for free. Interested in upgrading? Click here

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.christianbookfinder.com/subscribe

How has the church almost lost the relational sense of knowing Jesus that was so common in previous generations? And what can be done to reclaim this? This was the subject of a conversation between Christian Book Finder’s Dr Adrian Warnock and one of our VIP authors, Gary York .

Listen on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Please like, rate, review and follow.

Watch the video on Substack: https://www.christianbookfinder.com/p/pod-christ-in-you-experiencing-intimacy

Read an article exploring the themes from this interview: Ten Reasons Christians Don’t Know Jesus Like in the Past

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/adrianwarnock/2026/08/ten-reasons-christians-dont-know-jesus-like-in-the-past/

This episode originally appeared in the Adrian Warnock Christian Podcast

Books discussed in this episode

Christ in You: https://www.christianbookfinder.com/p/christ-in-you-experiencing-intimacy

Raised with Christ: https://www.christianbookfinder.com/p/raised-with-christ-how-the-resurrection

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.christianbookfinder.com/subscribe

Despite reports of the demise of publishing in general, and Christian publishing in particular, book making is a $100 billion per year global industry. So there is still a huge demand for books. Religious books make up $13.9 billion of that, with the majority of those being Christian.

What can we all do to help readers find our books?

* Submit your books to Christian Book Finder

* Read our books.

* Restack our books or tweet about them

* Review our books.

* Recommend our books.

* Buy our books as gifts for others. I

Read more at https://www.christianbookfinder.com/p/what-can-you-do-to-help-christian

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.christianbookfinder.com/subscribe