The best books don’t always make the best gifts. That’s why it’s always good to know what most other users are giving as gifts. Amazon has a great tool for that – here is what you need to know.
How do you find the books you could give as gifts to your significant other, a family member, or a friend?
There are many well established tools for book finding (and I’m sure you’ve tested them many times already): book bestseller lists of all possible kinds, book awards, book reviews and gift lists from leading literary blogs, or book recommendations by social media influencers.
On Amazon only, you can easily find a few book recommendation tools and services:
▸ Annual and daily Top 100 book bestseller lists – these rankings list the most sold books in, respectively, the current year and current day. You can browse the lists of print books and Kindle ebooks, as well as Audible audiobooks.
▸ Best Books of the Year – these rankings list the Top 20 best books picked by Amazon editors in the most popular categories. The rankings are published twice a year (in June-July and in November-December).
▸ Amazon Charts – these weekly lists rank Top 20 books in two categories: Most Sold (based on the number of copies sold), and Most Read (based on the number of daily Kindle readers).
These tools are great if you are looking for a book you’d like to read yourself.
The problem is that not every best selling book would make a great gift. And not every book that’s a great gift would make it to a bestseller list.
You may say that there is a special Editors’ Holiday Gift Picks section that puts together the rankings curated by Amazon editors, and that these rankings are intended specifically to help you find the best book to gift.
The problem here is the same as with book reviews or book recommendations. Someone, even the most renowned authority, may just be wrong.
And here is the solution: thousands of people who have the same goal – finding the best book to give as a gift – can’t be wrong. And you can follow their way, because they are recommending the books using their wallets.
Did you know Amazon curates the lists of most gifted items in almost every major product category? It’s a lesser-know feature many Amazon customers are still not aware of, so I have decided to give it a bit more attention.
Called Amazon Gift Ideas, this special store section puts together the Top 100 most popular products ordered by customers as gifts. These rankings are updated daily. By the way, this section’s title is misleading, because it doesn’t highlight the major benefit. The section should be called “Most Gifted on Amazon”.
As you know, you can order lots of products on Amazon as a gift. When you proceed to checkout, you will find gift options under product details. When you check the “this is a gift” option, the item you buy is automatically counted into the most gifted Top 100 list in the relevant category.
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How to find most gifted books on Amazon
1. Go to Amazon Gift Ideas front page on Amazon, and from the left sidebar choose “Books” for print books or “Audible Books & Originals” for audiobooks.
2. Products in the ranking are presented the same way as in the bestseller lists, with the orange rank in the top left corner, title, author, number of reviews, and average rating. You can click on either the book cover or book details to go to the product page.
3. If you want to see books in a specific genre, find it in the left sidebar. You will see that any major genre has subgenres you can click to further specify your needs. The category structure in the lists of most gifted products is the same as in the store.
For your convenience, here are the exact links to the most gifted books on Amazon:
▸ Books – print books that were ordered as gifts by Amazon customers. The list is updated every day.
▸ Audiobooks – Audible audiobooks, and Audible Originals that were ordered as gifts on Amazon. The list is updated every day.
I guess that titles ordered as gifts directly on Audible website count into the list of most gifted audiobooks as well. Amazon and Audible platforms are highly integrated.
Make sure to bookmark these webpages in your browser to quickly access them the next time you want to buy a book or audiobook as a gift.
To bookmark any page in a browser, click on a star you should find in the search box. Alternatively, you can use a shortcut – Ctrl+D on a PC computer and Command+D on a Mac computer.
Most gifted books on Amazon – tips and facts
How to find most gifted Kindle ebooks on Amazon
As you have probably noticed, there is no Kindle ebooks category among Amazon Gift Ideas rankings.
In my opinion, it’s because of the Kindle for Groups feature, which is mainly used for corporate gifting. It lets you buy as many copies of a single Kindle ebook as you want, and send them to the recipients via email.
As a result, the list of most gifted Kindle ebooks would be populated by titles for professional development.
There are two alternative ways to find most gifted Kindle ebooks on Amazon:
1. Visit a page with Popular Gifted Kindle Books
It’s a selection of Kindle ebooks that is probably put together manually by Amazon editors, but it should be based on the actual number of orders as gifts.
The list includes between 150 and 200 books and it includes evergreen titles such as A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, or Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
2. Start browsing most gifted Amazon print books
Browse the “Books” section of Amazon Gift Ideas. If you find a title that you believe is worth giving, go to its product page and order its Kindle version (if available).
Please keep in mind that many gifted print books are image-rich and usually their Kindle editions are not available.
Here are the best genres in the most gifted books category, where you can find both print and Kindle editions:
Most gifted or bestsellers – which Amazon lists are better?
I have compared the lists of the most gifted books with bestsellers, and the conclusions are:
▸ On the top level – without going to specific genres – the lists overlap in less than 10%. It’s because the most gifted books are the ones for kids, while the bestselling titles are from various categories.
▸ When you compare “Literature & Fiction” category, between 30% and 50% of titles are present on both lists. The top 5 is occupied by the books everyone is talking about, for instance, the latest novel by Stephen King. But you don’t need any of these lists to take this book into consideration, do you?
▸ I have noticed that in categories that provide both print and Kindle editions – such as literary fiction, mysteries, biographies, or romance – the list of most gifted books are more relevant.
– The books come from recognized authors. These authors write for well-known publishers, such as Simon & Schuster or Penguin Random House.
– On the contrary, the books on the bestseller lists are offered by Amazon imprints, and come from many authors that write exclusively for Amazon.
– Also, there are lots of Kindle Unlimited titles among them. As a result you may see many best selling titles that you know nothing about.
▸ My advice is to use the lists of most gifted books instead of bestseller lists. You will find hot new releases from familiar authors much quicker.
Most gifted books and audiobooks on Amazon – tips
▸ Please keep in mind that the lists of most gifted books are refreshed every day. If you visit them today, you will see the books that have been ordered as gifts in the past 24 hours.
▸ If you want to gift a book for Christmas, you should visit the lists at the time most users are buying Christmas gifts.
▸ Make sure to bookmark the lists of the most gifted books and audiobooks on Amazon in your browser to quickly access them when the time comes. Click on a star you should find in the search box, or use a shortcut: Ctrl+D on a PC computer and Command+D on a Mac computer.
▸ If you want to find the books that were most gifted in the past, you can use an online tool called Wayback Machine. It’s a digital archive of the web and collects archived copies of web pages. For instance, if you want to buy a book for your Mom for Christmas, you can use Wayback Machine to learn which books were most gifted before Mother’s Day. Here is the archive of the page made two weeks before Mother’s Day 2022.
▸ If you start browsing Amazon from the lists of bestsellers, you can quickly jump to the most gifted items by clicking on the “Gift Ideas” tab at the top of the list. The navigation bar with bestsellers, new releases, movers & shakers, most wished for, and most gifted items is available only on the front page of Amazon Top 100 lists.
▸ The lists with most gifted products are obviously available not only for books and audiobooks. You can browse all major categories, from Amazon devices, to home appliances, games, personal care products, electronics, toys, or clothing. ⇢ Browse all categories
Most gifted books on Amazon – conclusions
I think the lists of most gifted books and audiobooks on Amazon are a very helpful but still overlooked way to find books you could give as gifts for Christmas, Mother’s Day, birthday, or wedding.
A recommendation based on other users’ gift buying choices is a way to increase the chances the book you give will not end up in the present drawer.
Keep exploring. Here are other lists and tips for modern book lovers:
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