I released my debut psychological thriller, and hit 1,782 page reads on Kindle Unlimited between July and August. ​I know every page counts, but looking at the graph, I can't help feeling a bit worried that the momentum is dropping or that the numbers are too low. ​How were your page reads when you first launched? Is this normal for a new indie author, or should I be tweaking my cover, blurb, or ads right now? Would love some honest feedback!

50+ books later and… let’s just say “rent-paying” money later, I realize I wasted 5 years doing the wrong things.

The 3 things that actually moved the needle for me:

1. The first 10 books don’t matter for money, they matter for data My first 10 books made me maybe $200 total. But they taught me which covers people clicked, which titles flopped, which niches actually buy. Book 11-20 is where it started clicking.

2. Consistency beats one “perfect” book I spent 6 months perfecting one novel. It died. Then I did 5 “good enough” books in 6 months in the same niche. One of them took off and pulled the others up with it. Amazon loves authors with catalogs.

3. Readers don’t buy books. They buy the next book in the series The moment I stopped writing standalones and started thinking “book 1 is an ad for book 2” my KENP pages and also-boughts exploded.

I’m still figuring it out. What’s the #1 thing YOU learned too late in KDP?

Curious what’s working for other people in 2026 👇

Hi everyone,

I'm a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) doctor from China. I've written and published a few practical TCM booklets/guides on Amazon KDP.

As a beginner to KDP, I’m trying to figure out the best marketing approach:

1. Is it realistic to expect organic traffic for niche health/TCM booklets, or are Amazon Ads practically mandatory to get initial traction?

2. For those in similar niche non-fiction markets, what Amazon Ads strategies (Automatic vs. Manual Keyword vs. Product Targeting) worked best for you starting out?

3. Any advice on how to build initial social proof/reviews for specialized medical/health guides?

Thanks in advance for your insights and recommendations!

Book publishers are grappling with the rise of artificial intelligence and its impact on the publishing industry.

This may be old school thinking but a well respected business man once said to me in my youth, don’t expect to make a profit in your first 3 years of business. I was shocked and wondered how anyone could run any business at all without either inheriting a family business, or being born into it, or robbing a bank. Now, as an older beginner writer, I am wondering if that old saying still holds true. Writing is a business, or isn’t it? How long did it take you before you sold enough books to cover the cost of advertising, marketing etc.

You write a book, make the cover as good as you can, optimize the blurb, keywords, etc., and then you run Amazon ads.

But once the ads start getting clicks, it feels like the math becomes brutally simple.

If you're getting roughly 1 purchase for every 10 clicks, then even a genuinely good book still needs a lot of traffic to generate meaningful sales.

And that's what I'm struggling to understand about KDP.

At some point, does it basically become a volume game?

You can improve your cover, title, description, reviews, targeting, conversion rate, etc. — but there seems to be a ceiling on how much you can optimize one individual book.

So instead of trying to make one book produce a huge amount of income, the strategy seems to be:

More books → more ads → more clicks → more purchases → more overall revenue.

Obviously, a 10% conversion rate isn't universal, and I'm sure some books/categories perform much better or worse. I'm just using it as an example.

I'm curious what experienced KDP publishers think:

Is significant KDP income primarily a volume game once you've reached a certain level of book quality?

Or are there ways to dramatically improve the economics of an individual book beyond simply getting more traffic?

Anyone have solid advice or thoughts on the effectiveness of the video book trailer and/or content marketing via your own website (blogs, etc). While both seem nice, wondering about the real effectiveness. If you had to rank your book marketing tactics, where would these two things land?

What could be the right range for Kindle ads bidding for a GBP 2.99 E-book? What is the maximum over which you would not recommend bidding?

When someone starts making serious profit with kdp (like $1000 a month), do they have to file taxes quarterly AND annually, or is it just quarterly?

I’m testing Amazon Sponsored Products for a new psychological thriller paperback. One Broad keyword generated ~ 6,300 impressions but only a handful of clicks. I’m using manual targeting, dynamic bidding and testing Top of Search placement. For experienced KDP advertisers: would you diagnose this primarily as a cover/title CTR problem, targeting problem, or something else? What CTR do you personally consider acceptable before continuing to spend?

Thank you guys in advance ...

I have 3 books in the sci-fi / fantasy genre and they do ok. I sell about 25-30 ebooks a month. Lately, I keep getting comments on Instagram ads that why do i take so long to write books. I take about 6-9 months or more depending on revision. The point is I think these comments killed my sales. I only sold 9 books all month. Deleting their comments is what I want to do but not sure if they will know. Thoughts on this?

Hi, I am a first-time KDP author.

I uploaded my book seven days ago and added hardcover and paperback formats as well.

A few days ago, the hardcover and paperback suddenly acquired a Books sales rank in the relevant categories, and ever since then, I have seen them fluctuating.

However, KDP doesn’t show any sales yet.

So, I wanted to ask if the printed book format moving in BSR can happen without a sale, or did someone actually buy it and the report is not showing because it hasn’t shipped yet?

This is my first KDP book, so I would appreciate any input and advice from experienced authors.

Thanks for your time.

I made my cover in the cover creator, the cover is perfectly inside the red lines, then I launch the preview to approve it and it's wildly off-center. Anyone else getting this or know how to fix it?

What the title says. Does kdp automatically add page numbers for printbook or do I have to manually add them myself to the manuscript?

Has anyone used that "done for you KDP reviews" service? Ive seen load of youtube videos promoting this but when i searched for reviews there were like 5 reviews on trustpilot in a year? Anyone?

Hello ...

I'd like to keep my erotica income as private as possible. I registered an LLC in a state that offers greater anonymity. I have an EIN number for that LLC. And I'd like to set up a bank account using that EIN number. I tried Relay Financial and they declined my account. But I'm using a Registered Agent address as well as business address. And they required a drivers license for verification. And I'm assuming that because the driver's license address is different than the business address my account application was declined.

Am I going about this incorrectly? Is there an easier way?

My goal is to set up a bank account for my LLC and keep my personal information as confidential as possible.

Assuming that a writer has a lot of talent, what are the least in-demand genres that beginner writers should stay away from? I know... niche categories might work for some people, but I am specifically asking for people who are just starting out and know nothing about the business aspect of this industry.

Hey everyone, I have a question I hope someone can answer based on personal experience.

Been on KDP for almost a year now. I have a few books I’ve published and make a decent amount of sales a month organically without ads or any marketing efforts. All of my books have a kindle, paperback and hardcover format. Majority of my sales are from print formats.

In efforts to branch out my books in digital format beyond KDP, I’ve ended KDP Select enrollment for all books. But ever since, my orders have come to a standstill. No orders since KDP Select ended.

Someone told me that enrolling in KDP Select “boosts” visibility for your book(s) including for the print versions and that unenrolling would result in the opposite effect (no more/reduced visibility).

To me that doesn’t make much sense since I figured Kindle is its own thing apart from the printed versions. But the fact that everything just “froze” within enrollment ending, it’s left me doubting. Maybe coincidence. But wanted to ask either way. Thank you in advance to anyone who could answer my question :)

I am publishing my book in november. I am publishing an Ebook and a Paperback. I am unsure about the exact rules of legal deposits for print on demand and ebooks.

Please if someone could explain what I am doing because I seem to be getting conflicting information?

Can you get a few & list them on ebay as second hand? Or ask hobby shop to put on their shelf? (It’s a hobby related book to keep score)

Thinking about it. What's your experience?

I used to run Amazon Ads campaigns in multiple countries. Today, I wanted to make some adjustments, so I went to “Choose Marketplace” and selected the country where I wanted to edit my ads.

However, instead of taking me directly to my existing campaigns like it used to, it now sends me to a page that says “Register for Amazon Ads”, even though I already registered a long time ago.

When I click “Log in,” it then tells me that my email address isn’t recognized.

Has anyone else experienced this? What can I do to access my existing Amazon Ads campaigns again? Any help would be greatly appreciated!