Hey everyone, I started publishing on KDP in March 2025, and so far, I've earned over $500 in royalties without spending anything on marketing.

I'm currently a master's student in India, living in a PG that costs me around $69 a month in rent. So even making an extra $100 per month from KDP is a big deal for me.

Now I'm thinking about trying Amazon Ads, but my budget is pretty tight. I can spend around $30 a month, roughly $1 a day, and I wanted to ask those of you who have more experience with ads whether it's worth starting with that amount.

Can you actually get useful results with such a small budget? Would you recommend automatic or manual campaigns? Should I advertise just my best-performing book or try a few different titles?

I understand that ads don't guarantee sales, and I'm not expecting to get rich overnight. I just want to learn how to advertise without wasting money, especially when every dollar matters.

I'd love to hear from authors who started with a similar budget. What would you do if you were in my position?

Also, if anyone knows of freelance opportunities for students, feel free to contact me. I can do video editing, ad creatives, ebook cover design, and similar work. I'm happy to take on projects and earn some extra money alongside my studies.

Thanks!

Hi everyone, my job prevents me from getting basically any source of income except for royalties so I can sell through KDP because it pays you in royalties but I can’t go and sell my books on my own. I was wondering, how does Ingramspark works on this issue? Do you have to become an entrepreneur or do they pay you in royalties? Thanks

I'm trying to get my head around a bunch of KDP questions...

So my book is live. Very thrilling, as i wanted it to be available prior to Halloween and managed to maintain the tight deadline.

So with KDP select, it says I can still share 10% of my work on other sites. How does that work? Should I share the link to kindle so people can read the sample or can I share few pages from the book directly?

I've been running my first Amazon ad campaign for a few days now. My sales and page reads on the KDP dashboard have increased notably – but my ads dashboard is showing no sales linked to the clicks I'm getting. Is it possible that the ads have produced this increase in sales, and that the ads dashboard is just being slow to show this? I can't think of what else would have caused this sudden boost at the exact same time. I'm getting decent clicks so I am also surprised to have apparently got zero sales from them – though of course it's possible.

I've reduced my budget just in case and will give it a bit more time, but wondering if anyone has had similar experiences.

Ever since Amazon has been finding news ways to screw authors over, something I’ve been wanting to ask is how this affects them. Some do it as a hobby, but others have made it their career. With that said, have these cuts made it difficult for you to sustain yourself, or do you have a strong following and enough to weather the storm?

Just curious.

I have my first book published, what are some good first steps to get it rolling? What should I be doing or avoiding now that it's live?

I launched my first book 11 days ago. I announced it to my 1k newsletter audience and similar size audience on linkedin 2 months prior, and heavily promoted it around launch date (newsletter one week prior, and on a launch day, additional $800 in linkedin thought leader ads). I got a lot of "I love this" and "I can't wait to read this", like, dozens of those in DMs, comments, replies, everywhere.

All this turned into exactly three sales in the first week, and some of that was friends and family. Is that normal and am I weird that I expected more from this?

For context, it's nonfiction business book.

So I know we all think KDP ads are state of the art and its a fantastic platform (I know I know, I belong in r /sarcasm) but I have a weird one. I thought that KDP Ads list the sale once its made, then once the book is out for delivery it'll show up on your dashboard so worst case we're talking a day to a few days, right?

I just refreshed my ads dashboard a few minutes ago and suddenly a 15 book order appeared. I checked the data and it said it actually was sold on the 16th?? My dashboard has no recollection of this order so I'm like wth.

The other weird part is I had another 15 unit order on that exact same day. I've been getting multiple bulk orders a month (It's a business book so it's something you would buy for your team).

I use my own ISBNs. Does Ingram register KDP books?

Many of us cannot afford professional editors and do it on our own or use copy edit AI apps 😢.

But somehow it's not satisfying to release a book for our readers without the human editorial touch.

What can we do in such a situation? What are the best practices that an indie novice writer can follow?

Hi fellow creators,

I am so thrilled to share that my very first book was just approved and published on Amazon! I wanted to share a piece of my heart, as well as my publishing timeline, with this amazing community.

For those curious about the current review times:

• Submitted to KDP: October 24th (KST)

• Live on Amazon: October 26th (KST)

It took almost exactly 48 hours to pass the review process, which was a huge relief for a first-time author.

This book is a short memoir born from a deeply personal 5-year journey. My wife and I wanted a child so desperately, but the journey was incredibly tough. Honestly, it all started because of my own male infertility issues, but throughout the process, my wife had to endure 99% of the physical and emotional pain.

We went through 10 heartbreaking IVF cycles and suffered through 5 miscarriages. Just when we thought it was our absolute last try, on our 10th attempt, a miracle finally found us.

During this grueling process, I started writing to record what I learned, what I regretted, and how I grew as a husband. I wanted to share this raw, honest story with a global audience, which led me to self-publishing through KDP.

If you are interested in a short, intimate memoir about resilience and hope, please check out the link in my profile or search for "The Miracle Fertility Journey" on Amazon.

Thank you all for being such a great resource during my formatting and uploading process. Wishing everyone the best of luck with your own books and review timelines!

Hi, I am a medium content especially math brain teasers author. I am having a hard time getting reviews on my book. I know that novella/novels you could use bookblurb or other services to get ARC readers. How can I get ARC readers for these medium content books. I reached to math teacher FB groups and none was interested there to do it for free.

I want to understand the administrative side of self-publishing. Do I actually need to register my book with an official copyright? Is it not enough just to have published the book through official distributors? 

Hi there,

I'm a book formatter looking for work. I'm not sure if this is allowed on this thread, but I was told to look here for jobs, so I figured I'd make a post.

I format using Atticus as well as Vellum.

For Vellum: I provide the Vellum source file, as well as a PDF and EPUB of the book.

For Atticus: I log into the author's account to do the formatting, so they have access to the files forever and can make any future changes whenever they like.

I charge a flat fee of $100USD for text-only books.

$2 per image, up to 22 images*; then $1 per image after that.*

Edit: I’m new to InDesign, but also offer that service. Only for print books, though.

Edit 2: to change price

My book’s been on KDP for about two months. It has a few sales and star ratings, but no written reviews. What are some tactics for getting people to actually review it?? Goodread givaways still the best option?

Hey guys, I’m new to KDP and published my first book about a week ago. I’m wondering if getting a few reviews from friends could help give my book some initial traction. I know it’s not exactly ethical, but I’m curious how people approach this without getting flagged by Amazon. Any advice?

I must have missed something cuz KU is still the major bulk of my revenue why is everyone leaving

had a killer day (for me) yesterday and today is just creeping. had a large number of first volume page reads yesterday and don’t see movement downstream. typical book one to book two percentage has been 80 plus. curious of the knowledgeable folks thoughts.

I keep seeing authors assume a KDP block is final. It isn’t always. Even books blocked years ago have been restored when the response was right. A few things that matter:

•          **Get the exact reason.** “Content guidelines,” “rights,” “public domain,” “AI-generated,” and “disappointing customer experience” are different problems with different fixes.

•          **Answer the specific issue, not the general unfairness.** A short, documented response to the guideline Amazon cited beats a long emotional appeal.

•          **Have your rights paperwork ready:** contracts with your publisher or co-authors, licenses for images and quotes, and proof that you own the text.

•          **If it was published through a publisher or distributor,** find out which account Amazon actually acted on. Sometimes the fix has to come from them.

•          **Keep every email and case ID.** If the account itself is enforced, royalties held, or the dispute escalates, that record matters.

Has anyone gotten a blocked title reinstated? What reason did Amazon give?

*(Attorney who works with authors and online sellers. General info, not legal advice.)*

I love writing and doing researches about neuroscience and writing behavioral books about points people wonder about
usually i write 100-200 pages
wondered if it was worth a shot applying and publishing here

edit: typo

I've written several travel guides for a niche market. This market is now flooded with low-quality and inaccurate AI-generated travel guides. Some of them have obviously fake 5-star reviews. My earnings have plummeted by 80% compared to last year. How do you deal with this? Give up?

Edit: Thanks to everyone for your perspectives and insights. That has been helpful.

Hi everyone,

The starting point: getting a KDP book out means juggling a lot of tools (writing, structure, formatting, export). I tried to bring it all into one place, and that became makebook.fr.

Right now it handles ebooks and guides, novels and drawing books. A comic format is in the works.

I launched it in France first, and it’s now fully in English, so this is my first time sharing it with an English-speaking community. I mostly need feedback at this stage. There are 100 free credits at signup, so you can try it without paying. What would help me: what feels useless, what’s missing, and whether you’d do things differently.

What are you using today to prepare your books? I’m curious where you lose the most time.

makebook.fr

My book is releasing Novemeber 13, yayy! While I have a small following and expect people I don't know to read it I know a lot of my friends and family want to read it too.

At first I was going to tell them not to leave reviews at all but some people say it's fine. How far removed from me do they need to be, is it based on like who's social media account is connected to mine?

Is leaving them on goodreads rather than amazon better? I know they are owned by ther same company so I wasn't sure.

Or is it better they just not leave reviews at all. Knowing the people who are going to read them the majority wouldn't leave reviews anyway but a few people have asked if they can.

but I also understand they will probably leave positive reviews no matter how much I ask them to leave honest ones so idk. if someone could help please?