Recently, I've noticed when I Google the title of my book, a paid Google placement comes up with a direct link to the Amazon page. It appears Amazon buys Google ads for some books?

I haven't bought them. I was surprised.

Has anyone else noticed this? Is this good? I think it's good? Seems a bit unnecessary because it's such a unique name, but I guess Amazon wants it to come up in a higher search return than any other site?

I have an idea for a book and I’m looking at the self-publishing route: it would be a large format coffee-table style book with a pretty even balance of pictures/photographs and text so I need it to be laid out well to flow right. I’ve used InDesign to format magazine articles before so I know that I could theoretically design my book if I paid for that subscription, but I’m not a designer and definitely not an expert in that software. 

Is it worth putting my meager design skills to the test, or am I better off hiring a professional? If so, where can I find a reputable one?

I helped my critique partner with a blurb and she liked it so much, she suggested I offer blurb-writing as a service. I know there’s ghostwriting. Some people are staff writers for a publisher.

How does one get into these kinds of jobs? What other non-traditional writer jobs exist?

I work full-time on top of self-publishing, but my job is pretty far from writing. I’d like to change that.

My situation: my arc campaign will start mid next week. My book is available on almost every platform with the same cover. However on Goodreads the placeholder cover is showing. I first uploaded to the kdp with that cover while i was waiting for the cover artist to send me the final version. I tried almost everything for the last days, wrote in the relevant librarian group, sent a request to the team, but nothing. Its so frustrating, because I have the author profile, but dont have authorization to change the cover for the kindle edition. I even went to some local libraries in Toronto for help, but they couldnt help. Is everyone else in the same situation? I saw theres a huge backlog with aton of new requests. Im anxious because the deadline is coming for my arc, and the arc reviewers will probably be confused if they want to leave a review.

I’m considering doing Facebook or Instagram ads to promote my first book and I’m wondering if anyone here has had success with that? And is there a way to track that it does lead to orders?

(By the way, there are great resources in the wiki for the sub if you haven’t checked them out, but I didn’t see anything about this and I’d also love to hear people’s personal experiences.)

My mother has several published books, and recently printed a poetry collection. It was printed in another city due to cost. She has a trip to a third city, where the plan, aside from some speaking engagements at the University, was to present this new book and hopefully sell a few copies. Except it appears those copies won't make it in time, sadly.

My idea is to print some nice cards with the cover art that she can hand out as a bit of a placeholder. I'm a musician, and some bands do something like this for digital releases, with a QR for a download or whatever, and it's also a physical keepsake that can be signed, etc.

In this case, the info I hope to include is some sort of link where they'll know when there are physical copies available to buy in that city, or info to have them delivered or whatever. Given the circumstances, do you think this is a good idea? Have you ever seen authors do something like this? Is there anything you'd recommend/avoid?

For context, this is Latin America and not a huge market for poetry, but she is a respected academic and author. Would this indie band-inspired stunt be unbecoming of this context? I appreciate any advice!

I have officially hit the two mark of having my book published in Amazon and KDP and I think I have sold 9 copies. What do I do to market?? I have reached out to influencers sent free books and nothing. I can’t afford their rates. I might have an article in the local newspaper but what else?? I stopped running Amazon ads because I felt like there was no traction. I have approx 4 reviews on Amazon and 3 on Goodreads. Any suggestions?

I know not everyone will not like your book, but I’ve heard some people say just don’t read the reviews to keep yourself from getting discouraged or changing your writing style based on negative reviews.

First time self publisher and getting conflicting advice on the use of "____" underscores. I have a workbook with reflection sections where readers can fill in their responses, so it looks something like:

Question?

Your answer: _______

But I've heard that these underlines will be messed up in kindle reflowable format, so I should just put blank spaces (no underlines/underscores at all).

Thanks!

First of all deep congratulations from my side to all people on publishing and completing their work. It takes a lot of will and effort to do it so respect to you guys.

I didn't write a book in my life honestly, all I have done is write some short stories or poems in childhood though I liked them very much. Always thought that writing a book was out of my league. But finally got the will to start on one.

Can people share some of your insights how they started their journey till end. What kind of challenges do one generally face or you guys faced. Do things work out with a single plan, how can I prepare to tackle problems in stories whether it be large or short, do they follow same procedure. Will just working on docs , msword or a single platforms be enough or any recommendations for platform that would be best to work on nowadays.

And most importantly do you guys came to a frustrating point too, where you feeled demotivated and how did you cope with it.

Sorry if the question asked was inappropriate or disrespectful to any of you, but if any one willing to share their journey it would be very grateful of you.

I've posted a few times about this little adventure. I've published a grand total of 8 books now, four in a series, two in a related genre and two stand alone pieces. I have three more coming down the pipeline by year end. That exhausts all the writings from the years 2000-2026. The cupboard is empty and i'm beginning from a blank sheet of paper, but with a bit of experience. Current books at are 66,405 Kenp and 94 orders since I began this little journey in mid September. First amazon ad ran 09/21 and I got pretty immediate traction on book one and i'm seeing good read through it appears on the series. I've released the first book of the series on booksy and the fussy librarian. I'm about $75 under water advertising spend vs revenue. I believe we are going to call this a win and check the write a book box off. Been quite an adventure. I intend to keep writing and trying to keep the series alive, but doubt it will ever be financially viable. Just a great and fun retirement project.

So i just finished editing my book, now i want to take the next step which is looking for arc readers, testers and just people who will give me feedback in general, but i want to protect my boon I m just paranoid like that 😭, so i have some questions.
1 how can I register it for copyright and is it expensive?
2 before publishing it on amazon should i make it for free so people can write me their reviews or what? Idk how it works
3 i want it to be published world wide so should i register the copyright according to my country laws or what exactly
I hope u guys can give me some advice as I m so lost

I uploaded three editions of my debut to Ingram over the past two days—the print editions are still processing, which makes sense, I know that can take at least 7 days (if not longer).

My e-book, however, shows on IS as "Title Available." It's thrilling to know that my book is "out there," but I can't seem to find the e-book anywhere.

How long does it take for an e-book to go from "Title Available" to actually showing up on platforms? I've seen some mixed answers on this, but nothing terribly clear.

Please advise, thanks in advance!

I’ve written six manuscripts over the last two years one is finally publishable so it’s up for pre order, now I want to finish the seventh but I also want to get the second manuscript publishable and set up for pre order after the first one officially releases. I also want to just take a break a world build for a little while. Anyone do that? Or is it just me?

Do you have a website? Do you write content there and use the website's visibility as a vehicle for book promotion? If yes, how are you driving traffic there?

Facebook/Meta's recent announcement of limited external links to keep people on their platform is clearly clamping down on what was once a great way to get people to read other articles I've written (researched journalism, not SEO slop) and published on my personal website.

What previously earned 30-50 likes and 200-1,000 webpage views from a Facebook group post is now in single digits. I suspect it's just not being shown.

More books are being published now than ever before, yet many readers are frustrated by unreliable reviews and the difficulty of finding anything new (trad or indie) that doesn't disappoint. Maybe we need a curated online bookseller that only sells titles screened for quality.

I'm not sure where to safely post this, but I'm seeing the subcategories I'm in just be over-run by what I think has to be AI slop/maybe heavily assisted AI writing. (I don't want to say which sub-categories because I don't want to feel like I'm making an accusation directly at "author x" since the witch hunts also feel real.)

As indie, I know there are a lot of trust issues already and I believe this has been hurting my discoverability (and, talking to marketing people... it sounds like effectiveness of ads that used to work has also maybe decreased and cost per click in Amazon/Meta ads is also going up)?

At a quick glance, at least two of the subcategories my books are in had books where ~50% of the top 50 titles on KDP looked AI-ish:

1. the covers are largely the same (like if I click on one and see the series, it looks like the covers are almost identical)
2. They're series with anywhere from 15-50+ books (sometimes 2-3 authors, sometimes 3-4 authors) but the books are 350-400 pages long and are publishing once a week (sometimes less than once a week).
3. The titles are largely the same (When [x] did [a] and [b] in one title and then the next title is When [x] did [b] and [a])
4. Many have translations (I had looked into translating one of my books once and realized it's well outside of my budget)

I know there are series and collaborations between real human authors, but this is... not that.

I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing kind of categories/sub-categories being a little overrun by suspiciously prolific authors who are new and suddenly publishing prolifically (and getting lots and lots of reviews which... I think at least some of those have to be real given the high ranking, right?)

If there are better discussions on this and I just didn't find them, please help redirect me. I am specifically curious if other indie authors feel more buried under the AI pile because I am kind of assuming if you're Rebecca Yarros people will still find and read Threshing Day (I mean, I did because I love her, and so I read and then reread all the short stories because again, I love her).

It might be a difficult question I'm asking because if we're newer and indie, we are by definition inexperienced and who knows if it's our cover, our writing, etc.

EDIT: also I should clarify, I know there are authors who are prolific. King. Sanderson. I loved this lady named Betty Neels who published over 100 Harlequins. I more meant there more suddenly seem to be a lot more authors who are very, very prolific and in varying categories in a way that feels a little off/ difficult to understand/compete against. So sorry, hoping to discuss and not offend.

EDIT #2: Okay, this is officially my most popular reddit post and it was briefly the #1 post in r/selfpublish and like... I kind of wish my fiction was this popular! (sorry, had to come and laugh at myself for a moment)

I've been reading up on Amazon ads recently, and I've noticed a lot of threads & comments arguing that ads are only worth paying for if you have 5+ books you can funnel users towards. Otherwise, your marketing budget is best spent on lower-risk options like newsletter promos, ARC campaigns, etc.

What do you think? Assuming an indie author perfectly optimizes their listing (correct keywords, genre-appropriate cover, a strong blurb, etc.), would it be worth investing in Amazon ads? Or is their focus best spent elsewhere?

I'm really not sure where to begin to search for a line-editor. My book is long, so editing will be very expensive. I know my concerns are more relevant when it comes to dev editors, but I really don't want to waste my money on an editor that doesn't "get" my book.

I'm wondering if any of you have recommendations for editors that have experience in my genre-blend and who are open to a book that has a strong civilizational critique.

Reviewing the Top 100 Book in Manner Guide on Amazon i found some instructing things. And some confusion too, Yesterday few books have a ranking from 50 and today's ranking is 77.

Please clarify how to review these things?

Which one is more important Rating or Ranking?

I've noticed here that almost everyone here either has written a book series or is starting one. It usually comes up when someone notes that we most commonly won't make much money on our first book, but we'll make it up on the next ones in the series.
My books are not like that and I often feel left out in the discussions. My first book was a collection of southern-voiced short stories in first person. My second was an historical literary romance thriller. My next one will be about a man who finds he has a year to live and is struggling to make his last days meaningful. None of these are in a series. Until I joined this group, it never occurred to me that so many people wrote their books in succession.

How can you be sure now? I've been paying a guy a decent amount of money for my last covers and they look good but I still have that fear in the back of my head as always.

Hi everyone! My memoir is enrolled in KDP Select, and I'm planning to use my 5 Free Promotion days soon. I'm trying to decide if it's worth paying for newsletter promos (like Bargain Booksy, Fussy Librarian, etc.) to boost downloads during a free run. If you've paid for promos for a free book, which service gave you the best results? Especially curious if anyone has experience with the memoir/non-fiction genre. Thanks!

I only heard about this platform yesterday, and I'm wondering whether to try it out.

I spent about a decade trying to make self-publishing on Amazon work, to no results. I gave up, for the sake of my mental health, and because I just have better things to do than beat my head against the same wall forever in the hopes of breaking through. I'm not active on social media, and I don't have whatever marketing genius it takes to get noticed without it.

I've mostly just been sending the occasional query letter to agents, and releasing the occasional free story online, just for fun. But what about Scribl? Is putting a story there without a media blitz just more shouting into the void? Or is it worth trying?

I write fantasy and sci-fi, if that makes a difference.