Is the KDP Coloring Book Market Saturated? Amazon’s Top 100, Counted

Oct 30, 2026 · Rey Midas · Counted from Amazon’s bestseller list that day

The generic shelf is crowded, but the market is not closed. We counted Amazon’s top 100 Coloring Books for Grown-Ups on October 30, 2026. Six names hold half of the coloring titles, and the median one has 1,416 ratings. A new, general “adult coloring book” is unlikely to beat that. Yet a book published on August 28 sits at #20 with 19 ratings, and it isn’t alone.

Most answers we found to this question come from vendor blogs, and they quote numbers we couldn’t trace. So here is the list itself, including what it can’t tell you. Disclosure: we sell a coloring book generator, so weigh our conclusion with that in mind. The counts are there for you to check.

Have a niche in mind? Draw a free sample page (about 15 seconds, no signup) or make the full book for $9.99.

What the top 100 looks like

Listed in the category	100
Title names coloring, color by number or similar	76
Held by six names	38 of 76 (Coco Wyo alone has 14)
Median ratings	1,416
Under 500 ratings	22 of 74 showing a count
Under 100 ratings	7 of 74
Median price shown	$9.99 (32 at exactly $9.99, 18 below, 26 above)
Title says bold, easy, simple, large print, cozy, cute or hygge	35 of 76
Seasonal (Halloween or spooky, fall or autumn, winter, Christmas)	17 of 76

Amazon.com, read once on October 30, 2026; the list changes hourly and prices are what Amazon displayed that day. The 76 is a keyword count of titles, so it includes a few activity books that name coloring. It leaves out sticker-by-number kits and books filed here for no clear reason, such as a Dickens audiobook and a chicken cookbook.

Two things stand out. The category is concentrated: Coco Wyo, Jade Summer, New Seasons, Jeanett Veronica, Vivi Tinta and Pixelcolorist Books fill 38 of 76 places. And it is not as deep as it sounds: the #1 book ranked #81 in all of Amazon Books, #20 ranked #1,025, #50 ranked #2,495 and #100 ranked #4,475. Being in this top 100 takes real sales, though far fewer than a top-100 spot in all of Books.

We are not converting those ranks into copies sold. Rank calculators disagree with each other widely, and Amazon publishes no sales per book.

The new books that got in

These six coloring books were published in 2026 and have under 100 ratings:

Rank	Book	Published	Ratings	Price	Pages
#20	New 2026 Christmas Adult Coloring Book	Aug 28, 2026	19	$5.99	102
#61	Cozy Girl Fall Coloring Book	Jun 10, 2026	47	$9.99	86
#67	Squishy Cuties: Bold & Easy Coloring Book	Aug 9, 2026	8	$9.99	109
#69	Cozy Christmas: Cute & Cozy Coloring Book	Jun 25, 2026	43	$8.99	95
#80	Mindfulness: Line Tracing for Relaxation	Jun 30, 2026	66	$9.99	88
#86	Still & Slow: Monochrome Coloring Book	Apr 16, 2026	51	$24.90	77

Read this table carefully, because it flatters new sellers in two ways.

Four of the six have a head start. Jeanett Veronica, Amelia Green, Vivi Tinta and Still & Slow each have other books on this list, so their new titles arrive to readers who already know them. Only #20 and #67 come from authors with no other book in the top 100.
Rank is not profit. At $5.99, the #20 book earns about $0.16 per Amazon.com sale if $5.99 is its list price and it is a standard 8.5 × 11″ black-ink book (50% of $5.99 minus $2.84 printing). The same book at $9.99 would earn $3.15. It may be buying its rank with its margin; we can’t see its reasons from the outside.

Incumbents keep publishing too. Coco Wyo’s Spooky Girl (August 22, 2026) and Jade Summer’s Spooky Places (July 31, 2026) were already on the list with 150 and 122 ratings.

What the list says to do

Don’t publish a general adult coloring book. Titles like 100 Flowers and 100 Amazing Patterns carry 17,536 and 18,497 ratings. You can’t catch those.
Pick a style people ask for by name. 35 of 76 titles use those style words. Being one of them isn’t enough; add a specific audience or subject, such as large print for seniors.
Or leave the crowd. Still & Slow sells 35 monochrome illustrations for $24.90 at #18, and anatomy study books hold #11 and #22. Those buyers aren’t shopping for a cheap relaxing book.
Publish a season early. Christmas titles were already ranking in October, and the one at #20 went up in August. A Christmas book started now is late for those, though not useless: we counted that shelf too. For next year, start in August.
Plan a series, not a pile. KDP allows 2 new titles per format per week. Most of Coco Wyo’s 14 places carry a series name, and that is the one advantage here you can copy.
Price at $9.99 unless you have a reason. It is the most common price here and the point where the royalty rate rises.

Test your niche: draw a free sample page

One click draws a real line-art page in about 15 seconds. Change the theme or style if you like. Free, no signup.

Bold & Easy page drawn by the generator: a puppy with a ball — Real output: “puppy”

Know what you want already? Make the full book (10–30 pages + cover, $9.99) →

How to check your own niche in ten minutes

Category lists hide the real question, which is whether your theme has room. This is our rule of thumb, not a measured threshold:

Search your exact theme on Amazon, in Books, and skip the sponsored results.
Read the ratings on the first ten books. Mostly in the thousands means you need a narrower theme. Several under about 300 means a new book has a chance of being seen.
Open the three lowest-rated books that still rank well and check the publication dates. A date in the past year shows new books get through.
Read their one-star reviews. Complaints about thin paper can’t be fixed on KDP, but “too detailed”, “repetitive pages” and “misleading cover” can be.
Write your difference in one sentence. If it is only “mine is also cute”, pick another theme.

What this list can’t tell you

A bestseller list shows only the winners. It says nothing about how many books sell zero copies, and that number is the one you most want. Amazon doesn’t publish it. You will see claims such as “80% of coloring books sell under 10 copies a month” and “over 100,000 titles”. They may be right, but we couldn’t trace either to a dataset, so we aren’t repeating them as fact.

Plan as if your first book may sell very little. At $9.99 each sale earns $3.15, so ten copies a month is $31.50. If you are hoping to replace a salary from one book, this isn’t that. If you can make a book for about $10 and learn from it, four sales at $9.99 pay back a $10 cost.

Test a niche for $9.99

The Coloring Book Machine turns a one-line theme into a print-ready 8.5 × 11″ KDP interior PDF plus a cover: up to 30 designs with blank backs, about 60 pages. One limit to know: of the 19 listed coloring titles whose pages we opened, 17 run 74–110 pages and two run 209, so a 30-design book is shorter than all of them. No subscription.

Make my coloring book →

Questions

Is the KDP coloring book market saturated in 2026?

The top of the generic shelf is crowded, but the market is not closed. In Amazon’s top 100 Coloring Books for Grown-Ups on October 30, 2026, half of the 76 coloring titles came from six names and the median one had 1,416 ratings. But 7 listings had under 100 ratings, including a book published August 28, 2026 at #20 with 19 ratings.

Is it too late to start selling coloring books on Amazon?

No, the list still lets new books in, but that does not promise they earn. New titles reach the category’s top 100, usually with a clear style or season. For scale, #100 in this category ranked #4,475 in all of Amazon Books that day.

How many coloring books are on Amazon?

Amazon does not publish that number. Blogs quote figures such as 100,000 titles, but we could not trace one to a dataset, so we don’t rely on any of them. Counting the books in the niche you plan to enter tells you more.

What percentage of KDP coloring books make money?

Nobody outside Amazon can say, because Amazon does not publish sales per book. A bestseller list only shows the winners. Assume a new book can sell nothing, and keep the cost of making it low enough that a few sales cover it.

What kind of coloring books sell best right now?

On this list, cozy and easy books: 35 of the 76 coloring titles use words such as bold, easy, simple, large print, cozy, cute or hygge. Seasonal books were 17 of 76 in late October. That snapshot is from one day and leans toward the season.

How many coloring books can I publish on KDP per week?

KDP’s help page allows up to 2 new titles per book format each week, and the limit resets Sunday at 12:00 AM UTC. Two paperbacks a week is more than enough to build a series, so quality per title matters more than volume.

What price should a new coloring book use?

$9.99 is the most common price on the list and the point where KDP’s royalty rate goes from 50% to 60%. An 8.5 × 11" black-ink book of 24–110 pages earns $3.15 per Amazon.com sale at $9.99, and about $0.16 at $5.99.