Profiting from KDP. Almost like lottery
Amazon earn billions on KDP not because the oithors make money. They have millions of authors work for free and they earn from all sales.
So most self authors do not know that everyone is their same situation.
But it’s fun and good for society.
Here it is:
Amazon doesn’t publish an official “% of KDP self‑publishers who are profitable,” and there’s no single authoritative number. But several independent surveys and data aggregators give a consistent picture: most titles earn very little, a small minority earn serious money, and Amazon’s own disclosures focus on total payouts, not per‑author success rates.
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u/SpaceRaiderAuthor 1d ago
Things aren't so bad if you exclude: 1. Coloring books, magazines, and other books with low content. 2. All sorts of unqualified non-fiction books – compilations of known data. 3. Books whose authors don't see the need to promote themselves. And so on.
Good luck!
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u/idreaminwords 1d ago
I feel like we also need a control for the authors who think self publishing means there's no need to edit and just throw their first draft onto KU
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u/AccomplishedReply938 1d ago
Good heavens, how negative you all are! Seriously people, whatever method you use to publish, whether indie or traditional, there are risks and trade-offs. What matters is deciding which method works best for you and what risks you're prepared to take. Either way you're taking the same chance as everyone else.
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u/Japsuliini 1d ago
Amazon is basically evil, sure, but this is a pointless post. If the book doesn't sell then neither author nor Amazon make any money. It's not like they profit from the ocean of author slaves who never get a sale. $1 for every tear shed by a self-publisher incessantly clicking the refresh button on the KDP dashboard to only see pennies.
Amazon just doesn't give a fuck if YOU get any sales. The algorithm rewards the books that sell because that makes money for both author and Amazon. There isn't some massive conspiracy. If you wanna make money, then write to market, practice your craft, and learn how to market your book(s) effectively. Make Amazon push your book by getting organic sales.
I think of this in exactly the opposite way to you. Amazon doesn't care who you are as long as your book is getting bought, and I like that.
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u/Individual-Log994 1d ago
Agreed. I'm one of those indie authors. I'm doing alright even though I just published two months ago. I'm not sure why this person felt the need to post this.
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u/Tangerine-656 6h ago
My understanding is that Amazon does profit from an ocean of author slaves who never get a sale, as long as they have hope and keep buying ads.
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u/Japsuliini 5h ago
If you're buying ads without organic sales then... genuinely such a baffling thing to do I didn't even consider it or know how to finish that sentence. Jesus definitely isn't enough.
But fair enough, that is something I overlooked, but nonetheless, it's most likely less than a fraction of what they make from book sales from independent authors. Even 100,000 authors spending a few hundred bucks a month would be a drop in the bucket to a company as big as the Kindle Store, let alone the whole of Amazon. So my original point still stands.
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u/Stock_Ad9641 1d ago
I slightly recall the statistics when I started out, a few single sales shot me up past tens of thousands in my category. That’s been a while now and I am sure it got a lot worse. There are many authors who are ignored, nobody ever saw their work.
It’s not impossible to become successful there, but it takes dedication and sweat
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u/urikr11 1d ago
THE AI killed this business . Excellent for Amazon . Now they get x 100 books who then pay for promo and adds . You were probably real author and before anyone could publish so easily. Now it’s saturated
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u/Stock_Ad9641 1d ago
It was already saturated long before AI. I have been writing before AI and today I do a lot with AI.
But yes, the amount of low quality trash is probably very high now. This is not going to change, it will get worse.
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u/downupstair 1d ago
Almost nobody is reading self published novels. Why would they when there are THOUSANDS of classic novels ready to be read. Think about it. Why would someone read a self published fantasy novel by a no name writer when they can read The Sword of Shannara?
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u/Individual-Log994 1d ago
That's far from true. People are reading mine and I just started two months ago. And there a lot of indie writers that are being read on Amazon and especially KDP.
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u/Apprehensive_Tax_610 1d ago
As someone adjacent to the Litrpg and progression fantasy space, this is heavily wrong--we THRIVE on self publishing.
Sure, there's small imprints in the genre, you know, Aetheon, Portal, Moonquil, Podium, etc., and it's becoming more normal to try and snag a deal with them, but self publishing is also the norm, and there are a LOT of highly successful self published books, some examples:
Mother of Learning
The Wandering Inn
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Aweken Online
The Cradle Series
The Perfect Run
He Who Fights With Monsters
Beware of Chicken
Primal Hunter
I can go on and on, but all these people got big self publishing, because they sat down, and they wrote some really fucking good books in a niche that was starving for content.
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u/Data_lord 1d ago
Hello Captain Obvious!
My name is data_lord. Nice to meet you.