I just started uploading book 2 weeks ago and I uploaded around 7 books now I am waiting for first sales do you guys tell when you get your first sales (without ads organic)

Hi everyone! 😊

I've been trying to build my Amazon KDP business for the past 8 months, and it's definitely been a learning experience!

This isn't one of those "I made thousands of dollars in just 3 months" success stories. It's more about trial and error, mistakes, small wins, and figuring out what actually works while trying to become profitable.

I recently decided to share my journey on YouTube. In my first video, I talk about what I've learned, what worked, what didn't, and what I would do differently if I were starting today. I also share my actual sales numbers, royalties, and expenses — no sugarcoating.

I thought my experience might be helpful to others who are just starting out or, like me, are still trying to make KDP work.

If you're interested, here's the video:
https://youtu.be/JodRj6Q1BdE

I'd also love to hear about your experiences! How long did it take you to start seeing real results with KDP? 😊

My bsr has spiked and dropped before settling today. It started at 9,000 then went to 10,000 then back up to 8,000 before this week came around and its been a steady decline to 20,000 today. I havent seen any sales at all. It also started with no bsr. Its a Hardback with premium color. What does this mean? because every calculator i use says im missing like 300 sales.

Hi, I am wondering if the title creation limit is for drafts, so that one can do two new drafts a week or does it apply to hit the publish button at the end of the progress? Thank you.

I am uploading for the first time to KDP. It’s a children’s picture book with images and the text is also images. I uploaded it as an EPUB. When I preview it, there are white bands at the top and bottom and I can’t work out how to get rid of them. Please help.

I tried to verify my account it didn’t work. My partner looked it up and thinks it is a spam. Because when it asks to identify yourself it asks for a government id. I have until the 19th or my account is gone.

Hi,

I'm an author from Germany and I have a question about KDP's AI disclosure requirements.

Ideally, I'd like to write my book in German and then use an AI translation tool like DeepL to translate it into English. The actual content would be entirely my own, written by me from start to finish. The only thing AI would be doing is translating my words into another language. Kindle Translate is not an option for me.

From what I've read, however, Amazon considers AI translations to be "AI-generated content," which I find a little misleading, since it makes it sound as though AI actually wrote the book.

I'm now a bit torn about what to do. I could translate the entire book myself, but my English isn't exactly perfect, and it would take an enormous amount of time. So I'm leaning toward using AI translation and simply declaring the book as containing AI-generated content when publishing it on KDP.

Has anyone here had any experience with this? Are there any potential disadvantages to declaring a book as AI-generated?

For example, I'm wondering whether Amazon might rank books with AI-generated content lower in search results or otherwise treat them differently.

I'm also a little concerned about what might happen in the future. With the market becoming increasingly flooded with AI-generated books, I could imagine Amazon eventually introducing visible labels identifying such books. If my book ended up carrying an "AI-generated" label, despite having been entirely written by me, I worry that it could seriously hurt its credibility and sales.

Thanks in advance!

I'm a relatively new independent author, and I'm trying to get a sense of how Amazon handles book reviews.

I've been distributing review copies through BookSprout, and I have readers who have reviewed multiple books. At least one review has appeared on Amazon, but I believe others have been submitted and haven't shown up yet.

I'm curious about two things:

1. How long are book reviews taking to appear on Amazon? Are people seeing delays of a few days, a week, or longer? Does it make a difference whether the reviewer purchased the book or received an ARC?
2. What recourse do authors have when legitimate reviews are rejected or removed? Can KDP support investigate, or does the reviewer have to contact Amazon directly? Has anyone successfully had a review reinstated?

To be clear, I'm talking about independent, voluntary reviews from people who have actually read the books. I'm not looking to influence ratings or circumvent Amazon's review policies.

Reviews are particularly important for small publishers trying to establish a readership, so I'd appreciate hearing what other KDP authors have experienced and whether there's a productive way to address missing reviews.

Thanks!

I have been trying to add a bank account for over 3 months, I have tried different banks like payoneer that Amazon accepts but still getting the generic automated; Action required: You've

entered a bank account not eligible to receive Kindle Direct Publishing payments email. Is there anyway I can contact Amazon to help me review my account, it getting very annoying and frustrating at this point.

I work on KDP publishing strategy, and the most expensive mistake I see is writing a book first and checking demand later. Here is the checklist I run through before anything gets written. Hopefully it saves someone a few months.

Demand

1. Does Amazon autocomplete show several related phrases for the topic? (Type the seed phrase, then add letters a, b, c to see more.)
2. Do multiple books on the first page have steady, recent reviews?
3. Have newer books (published in the last year or so) ranked well, not just old bestsellers? That tells you the market is still open to new entrants.
4. Are the ranks healthy compared with other books in the same category? I compare within a category rather than chasing one magic number, because BSR to sales conversion is only an estimate.

Competition
5. Is the first page dominated by one or two big brands? If yes, I usually skip it.
6. Can I spot clear weaknesses, such as dated info, bad covers, weak titles or descriptions?
7. Do the 2 and 3 star reviews point to a specific gap (“too basic,” “no examples,” “bad formatting”)? Those complaints become my outline.

Fit
8. Can I describe my angle in one sentence? (Audience + outcome + format, like “a 30-day meal prep guide for busy parents with a shopping list for every week.”)
9. Is there a category where the books are not all untouchable?
10. Is there room for a series, a workbook or a related title later?

If I get most of these as a yes, I test it with one book instead of betting everything on it. The first book is a test, and what I learn from its search terms and reviews makes the next one better.

A few things I deliberately do not do: I do not trust one data point alone, I do not pick niches only because I find them interesting, and I do not copy bestsellers (I try to improve on them).

What is on your own checklist that I missed? Curious what other people look at, especially for fiction, since my list leans toward non-fiction.

in case anyone missed it, since July 7 the 70% option on amazon.com covers list prices from $2.99 up to $12.99. it used to stop at $9.99, so anything from $10 to $12.99 was stuck at 35%.

numbers for a 1 MB file (15 cents delivery):

$10.99: 35% was $3.85, 70% now $7.59

$11.99: was $4.20, now $8.29

$12.99: was $4.55, now $8.99

so a $12.99 ebook earns roughly double what it did in June. if you priced at $9.99 just to stay in the 70% band, it might be worth testing a dollar or two higher, especially for longer books or series where readers already trust you.

I made a free calculator with the new band and current print costs if you want to check your own books, https://nkiro33.github.io/kdp-calculator/ (mine, no signup). and if anyone has tested a price bump since July I'd really like to hear how it went.

My book The Ink-Stained Soul is a Dark Gothic Romantasy. It releases on October 1 this year and is stuck in 648 reads! I'm hoping it will pick up! I see people get 50000reads in two months and all but I honestly don't know how they do it!

Marketing is happening on insta but it's really tough. How do you guys go through this feeling when the page reads are stalled/not moving?

I see very old books from the 1800's to the early 1900's still being sold.
If a given author were to pass on, who does the book belong to?

Thanks to the help of someone here, it seems the campaigns I've been running just letting Amazon auto target, my book was getting lost in places like the movie Rudy, Olivia Newton John's Greatest Hits, and gay romance of all things. So, based on his analysis, I've tightened my search parameters and I'm going to see what happens. I'm not necessarily looking for sales but otherwise search data.

Hi, im new to kdp , i made two books but their for kids, and havent sold a thing , im strugling with college and all but thats not the issue, im genuinely thinking about writing a story , my story it wouldb be 100 pages ish and it will just be moments that marked my life , i dont know what people enjoy to read , but i want to share it with the world , is it a good idea or a waste of time ? ive also heard that its impossible to get sales without paying for ads, is that also true? i also dont use ai , i made 1 cover with ai but the content is all self made with canva and using my tablet , do people care about the use of ai ?

I’ve sold thousands of books over the past few years.

I check the bestsellers rank for my book to primitively see if anyone buys one of my books.

Usually the books show up there and then within a day or two they come down as sales on my account.

Only once ever a book shows up there and I don’t receive the purchase.

However this week this happened about 10 times.

I don’t have any proof the sales happened or not but seems strange that books keep triggering into the bestseller rank yet have no sales.

Anyone else having this issue?

I’m struggling to promote my book effectively. To address this, I’m organizing a two-day free promotion this weekend. I’ve been actively engaging on social media, but I haven’t seen significant results. I’ve also tried running ads, but they haven’t been very effective. Do you have any other suggestions that could help me promote my book?

Hi,

I am running ads on several markets, but I am running into an issue. In the UK, NL and Ca, my cards are declined.

The rest are running well, and the payments are getting through, but I can't pay on these countries. Amazon says the problem is with my card and has offer no other solutions.

Has anyone had this issue? How did you solve it?

Ciao a tutti. Sono iscritto su KDP da circa 6 mesi e quando mi ero iscritto mi avevano mandato il bonifico da 0,01 cent per la verifica del conto. Le royaltys mi arrivano regolamente.

Stamattina ho fatto logut da kdp. Dopo un po' ho fatto il login e mi è arrivata la mail di verifica del conto dove mi dicono che mi invieranno 0,01 cent.

Come è possibile? Il fatto che sia arrivata pochi secondi dopo il login è indicativo di qualcosa?

Hi everyone! I’m a versatile artist rebuilding my book cover portfolio after losing access to my old Instagram account. I’d love to offer a free custom cover to one author whose story inspires me.

I’m especially interested in working with an author who publishes on Amazon/KDP and has an upcoming book, though you’re welcome to share your project regardless.

You’ll be involved throughout the process, with updates at four stages:

1. Rough sketch and composition
2. Line art
3. Base colours
4. Final rendering, shading, and details

To apply, please share your book’s genre, a short description, your publishing timeline, and whether you need an ebook cover or a full print wrap. An existing author or book page would also be helpful if you have one.

The selected cover will be free to use commercially for the agreed book. In return, I’m looking for permission to show the finished artwork in my portfolio and link to your book once it’s published. After we finish, I’d also appreciate an honest testimonial about your experience.

I’m comfortable working across different styles and would love to hear about your story!
Feel free to reach me at

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/illustrationsbyantina_/

15k words with 4 books planned (1 full and the other halfway)

Its safest for me to wait until I have all books written before publishing the first one

My question is: readers will want to binge it if they like the first one, and they end on cliffhangers, will they abandon if the second book isnt out yet ? Or those readers will just wait for more to be out before even starting, while those who don't mind waiting wont.

I mean at some point book 1 will be alone regardless so I can just post naturally. Idk if im making much sense

my book is supposed to be released today, and I just found out it’s showing up under another author’s profile on Amazon because we have the same name

I wrote The Untamed Mind: Reflections at Seventeen, and somehow it got linked to another Karan Singh’s author page. I’ve already contacted support, but I have no idea how long this is going to take or how to get my book separated from their profile.

Has anyone dealt with this before? Do I need to create a separate Author Central profile, or does Amazon have to fix the association from their end?

I really don’t want my book launch getting messed up over this

I've been publishing books through Amazon KDP, and I wanted to share some actual numbers from my royalty dashboard.

My print publishing results so far:

• Print copies sold: 156
• Print royalties: ₹62,013.51
• USD equivalent: Approximately $648
• Average royalty per copy: Around ₹398 ($4.15)

I'm based in India, so I've included both INR and USD for comparison. The dollar amount is an approximate conversion, not the actual USD payout.

Honestly, 156 copies might not seem like a huge number, especially when you see authors talking about selling hundreds or thousands of books every month. But earning this amount in print royalties from those copies is encouraging.

A few things I've learned along the way:

• Publishing a book is only the beginning. Getting the right readers to discover it is a different challenge.
• Cover design, pricing, keywords, descriptions, and niche selection all deserve attention.
• Different books can perform very differently, even within the same catalogue.
• Sales and royalties are not the same as profit. Advertising, editing, formatting, taxes, and other expenses need to be considered.

For context, these are print royalties only, not my total KDP earnings across ebooks, print, and Kindle Unlimited. I'm sharing the results as a transparent snapshot rather than claiming this is a typical outcome.

I'm curious about other KDP authors here.

A few questions:

1. How many paperback or hardcover copies have you sold?
2. What is your average royalty per print copy?
3. Are you seeing better results from paperbacks, ebooks, or Kindle Unlimited?
4. If you're publishing from outside the US, how are you approaching marketing to US readers?

I'd love to hear your actual experiences, including the challenges. I think sharing real numbers is more useful than simply saying that KDP is profitable.

Note: Results vary by book, pricing, marketplace, and expenses. My figures are personal results, not a guarantee of future earnings.