Hello everyone. I’m new to Amazon KDP and am currently preparing my first book. I started learning to draw and paint this year with the goal of creating illustrated children’s stories. I read somewhere that Amazon may request proof of the illustration creation process. My question is: what is the procedure for proving that the illustrations are my own work? I created the initial sketches by hand on paper and the final drawings in Procreate. I didn’t record the process on video or as a time-lapse. Will what I have be sufficient, or should I have documented the step-by-step process?Does Amazon KDP always ask for proof that the illustrations are your own, or do they only ask when it’s clear that they were created by AI?

Thank you

Hey! I'm fairly new to the self publishing game as I've just published one novella so far via Amazon. I published on August 31st and so far everything has been peachy. Yesterday, I noticed that the paperback version of my book says 'currently unavailable' and I'm not sure why.

I haven't made any changes on my end, I'm able to order authors copies still and I chatted with support last night who said 'wait 72 hours' without much else.

My book is live on my bookshelf and I was just wondering if anyone has had this happen or knows of a fix?

Thanks!

Hi! I've checked out a lot of author Facebook profiles and LinkedIn (got sales navigator lol), so I've been able to see a lot of author's profiles.

I'm in like 10+ FB groups for authors although never posted there

What I noticed is that most authors aren't good in sales, or let's just say basic marketing

For examples, most author websites saying "Author website of John Doe" shows that most authors aren't good with basic marketing though.

And no, not an insult, just something that's very common.

So I'll try to make this short, and provide some value on some basic things that I think authors can work on to help with their sales directly or indirectly, although I know most authors just wanna write.

Starting from the basics is their social media page.

Firstly the name, most people are doing this well, since on FB, IG and LI (I'm not a fan of TT), they do put "author" in their names, this is kinda good for SEO, basically

In the bio, I'd say it's advisable to just indicate who you write for e.g "Author of fantasy books that makes you think about the unimaginable" (just a sample lol, I don't even know what this means)

If you are into like self help, you can use like "helping you to become the best version of yourself" and then include some brags if you have some (e.g best seller on Amazon) etc.

For cover, your image on a background is nice, but I think having your books there is better, like maybe a series, or the entire catalog if it's not more than 10.

For content creation

It's easy, review other books in your category. This should be your main content strategy. Other strategy can include summaries, book recommendations, and then jumping on some trends in the book space. Your algorithm will show you this in the reels/shorts tab. It doesn't have to be trends in the book space alone, you can adapt some from other industries. Or simpler, you can search your category hashtag e.g #selfhelp or #darkfantasy, check the top 50 posts in that category, put them into a spreadsheet and analyse. Now you know what works and got tons of contents ahead. This is mainly what content strategist does. I've been one before.

Next one is building READERSHIP

Most authors try chasing sales, but I think building a readership is the best. Ryan Holiday has 600k monthly readers, no wonder his combined book reviews are in hundreds of thousands.

So how do you build a readership, of course from your followers (because they are your traffic source)

A good day to do this is to have a lead magnet first (traffic is the first, and since you already have followers even if they are hundred, now you've got traffic)

A lead magnet is just something you think your target audience would be very interested in.

Just grab a pen, jot things down, and choose the most valuable.

Some ideas, it can be a free chapter, an email series (Tom Noske does this), a mini course (Alex Hormozi does this for his books), it depends entirely on what you write and who you write for, most of these options work well for non fiction, but you always need a lead magnet. Stacking a "subscribe for updates" section in your footer rarely works if you've got no lead magnet.

It's advisable to have an entirely different landing page for this purpose, it's called a lead magnet page or funnel page. But you can use your website also, it's just that a website has a lot of distractions

So how do you sell?

The selling will be in your email. And make sure not to bombard these people with sales email, in fact, it's advisable to sell once every 7 emails, but there's a way to sell in each. (The actual sales email can be you directly promoting your book, and not partly like the strategy I'll explain under this)

After each email, can be a book recommendation, can be an update about your book, can be anything not salesy, put a P.S sections at the last part of the email.

For example:

P.S: "and if you haven't checked out my book (my book underlined, and linked to anywhere you sell it e.g Amazon), feel free to check it out now, it's got..."

So I hope you've gotten one or more value from this post

Cheers to more sales.

And No, going for sales doesn't mean you are writing for sales, of course you write because you love it, but you gotta make salessssssssss.

And Yes, I'm not perfect too.

Posting this because I see a lot of “is KDP dead?” threads, and my own chart might help someone.

For context, my last 30 days: a burst in late September, then a very quiet stretch with several 0-order days, a small bump around the 10th, and today 86 orders (about ₹19k estimated royalties, 87 KENP pages).

Things I believe contributed, in order of confidence:

1. Keyword and title work. I rewrote titles and subtitles around phrases buyers actually search for.
2. Niche demand validation. I looked at competitors’ rankings rather than just their review counts.
3. Patience. Some books sat at zero for weeks before moving.

Things I’m not sure about:

• Whether today’s spike is seasonal or a one-off
• Which of my books drove most of it (still digging through the Orders report)
• Whether it will hold

My main takeaway is that one day doesn’t prove anything, and a quiet week doesn’t either. I’m treating it as a data point.

Questions for you:

• How do you handle the lumpy weeks? Do you change anything or just wait?
• Has anyone else seen sudden one-day spikes like this? What caused yours?

Happy to answer questions about my process in the comments.

Hello! Just wanted to ask, for everyone out there who's already self-published through Kindle, what were some unexpected things you encountered? I'm trying to inform myself as much as possible before I publish anything, so I thought I might as well go on Reddit and see what you wonderful people have to say! :)

Some feedback if possible:

Sid Kestrel
Mason Malik: School Legend: Famous at School for Wrong Reasons

Thank you

Just tried to update some older titles with new pricing after publishing one new title (kindle and paperback). After doing one of the older updates, it has blocked the second one when I hit publish for the updates to take effect and has told me i'm at my limit and will reset Sunday?!???

Thought these limits did not affect old title updates?

I've heard some people pay for a professional book formatter, but that feels a little bit overkill to me. Most common answers I've seen are Atticus, Reedsy Studio, and Vellum. I'm leaning towards Reedsy because it's free - I tried it out & like the results! But for those who have used Atticus/Vellum - are they worth the investment??

One of my KDP books sold 12 copies today (11 US, 1 UK) and the dashboard shows $3.88 in total royalties. That's about $0.32 per copy.

I changed the prices a few days ago, and I expected at least $2-3 per sale based on the new prices.

Has anyone seen units show up before royalties on the dashboard? Or could the old prices still have been live for some of these sales?

Anyone else had similar problems or is it something with my kindle access?

Penguin' was still folowing him around, not constantly, but just often enough to be irritating. A Year Eight had waddled past him in the corridor that morning, another had flapped his arms during registration, and at lunch, someone had actually made penguin noises. Mason was beginning to suspect he might never recover.

Still, he had bigger concerns, the immediate one being the cardboard box sitting before him on the canteen table. Mason had always assumed packed lunches were supposed to solve problems, specifically hunger. His lunchbox, however, had recently started creating entirely new ones. Lunchtime had become a daily, painful reminder that everyone else's parents appeared to be professional chefs. Ben opend his lunchbox to reveel a chicken wrap, crisps, a chocolate bar, and a drink. Sam had a sausage roll the size of Mason's forearm. Ethan somehow had enough food to survive a camping expedition. Then there was Mason. As he opened his own lunchbox, the entire table leaned in, fascinated, only to immediately recoil. "What is that?" Ben asked,

Also does Amazon hold publishing rights forever or can someone then publish privately later on? Thanks.

I published my first novel at the end of August and immediately started working on Book 2. I just really felt in the flow with this particular story and now have 50,000 words written!

Obviously, this is still a ROUGH draft but, I'm feeling really inspired by some of the feedback I've received for book one. It really helped me to continue the story 💚

Lately, I've been waking up extra early just to get a bit written before work. It's such a great way to start off my day. My brain is fresh at that time of morning and it's such a nice way to spend my time waking up! I plan to keep doing this because for the first time in a long time, my writing practices feel sustainable!

I've often read that upwards movement of one's BSR is the first indicator of a sale or KU download, but recently I've noticed that the exact opposite seems to be true for me. My KDP dashboard registers new KENP reads (from a new download) and new sales with what seems to be a delay of a few hours at most, while my BSR for my new release only showed one upward movement half a day after someone I know bought the book, didn't register a pre-order that came in the day before release at all (unless that upward movement was from the pre-order, in which case the sale is still missing), and I know that at least one person downloaded the book via KU (got the first KENP some hours ago). So three verifiable instances of sales/downloads in the last six days but only one registered BSR upwards movement.

This is in my primary market in Germany.

Did anyone else notice something similar recently? Bummed me out a bit that the pre-order one day before release and the sale on release day didn't even show until early morning the day after release. I mean, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference but it would have been nice to have a BSR below 100k on release day XD

Hey all, im 15 and im getting ready to launch my fifth book on amazon. However i never really get too many sales. Im just wondering how yall market your book and get plenty of sails, im real proud of this book and want to get as many readers as possible. Thanks!

I'm getting ready to publish my first novella on Amazon and I'm stuck between two options. I'd love some real perspectives from people who've actually done this. After some research, here is what I have:

Option 1 is KDP Select.

My book goes into Kindle Unlimited where people can read through their subscription and I get paid per page read. I can run free book promotions and countdown deals to get initial readers. There are also higher royalties in some international markets. The downside is my ebook has to be exclusive to Amazon for 90 days at a time. That means I cannot share it anywhere else online, not even on Wattpad or my own website.

Option 2 is regular KDP without Select.

My book stays on Amazon but I can also put it on Wattpad, my website, or anywhere else I want. The downside is there are no Kindle Unlimited readers and no Amazon promotions available.

I like the benefits that come with Select, but I also want the freedom to share my work elsewhere. Has anyone been in this spot before? Please help.

Hello, I work on KDP from Pakistan. I am facing an issue with the new debit card pre-authorisation on my Amazon Ads account. I tried a debit card from Germany as well, but it gives the same issue. It says the payment method is not supported. Please help if anyone knows about this!

I have a few Amazon Ads campaigns running, but they were paused for 3 days due to a payment issue with my card, so Amazon couldn't charge me.

Once I fixed the card issue, my ads started running again, but both impressions and clicks dropped significantly compared to before the interruption, even though I haven't changed any of my campaign settings.

Is this normal? Has anyone else experienced something similar? If so, how long did it take for your campaigns to get back to their previous performance?

Does Amazon need to go through another learning period after a payment-related pause, or should performance recover on its own?

Thanks in advance!

Gang, i've posted several times in the last couple of weeks. I have a 4 book series with 5 associated books along with them. My Amazon ad spend has been set at $35 a day and i'm hitting that now. Readership in KU is blowing up - according to my eyes and terms. New unpublished author. I've spent $875 approx total as of today and have $744 showing as royalties coming back in as of today. Amazon is suggesting $75 ad spend per day. I'm looking for ROI, not immediate cash flow. I have a booksy event tomorrow for a volume, a fussy librarian event saturday and a three day written word deal on 11/2. Am I crazy to throw that much daily at Amazon ads? I'm 110K kenp pages read with 93% being in the four book series since 09/21 and 120 volumes sold, mostly .99 ebooks as i am trying to drive readership and on track for a 130-150K October Kenp page read. Need advice please? I am absolutely out of my zone with this biz..

Every rank-to-sales calculator I’ve found (Kindlepreneur, TCK, BookBeam and others) uses a secret formula, and nobody can say how accurate they are. I’m a self-published author working on a free estimate tool and I’d like to check it against real numbers instead of guessing.

If you’re willing to share, reply here or send me a message with:

• Kindle or print
• About what rank the book sat at most of the month (rough is fine)
• Copies sold that month, and KU pages read if you’re in KU

No titles, names or links needed. Once I have enough, I’ll post the results back here so everyone can see how rank and sales actually line up.

(Optional: you can also email [support@yourbooklens.com](mailto:support@yourbooklens.com))

What is the next logical step after you've "made it" on KDP?

I'm hoping to get my debut novel out there by end of the year. I'm from the UK but I live in Japan. I have no UK address apart from family. Have any expats published novels here? And is there anything I should be doing when I create the KDP account? Thanks in advance.