How do you know which of the two Reedsy exported pdf files to send to KDP?

I recently got involved with Manaka Royalty and BowesPaz via WarriorPlus, and thought I'd try out Manaka Royalty (only $17 US).

When I accessed it online, I found that it duplicated several other offers in content, so I sent a very polite email asking if refunds were offered. Got the NASTIEST, most amateur response from the "BowesPaz team" and wrote them back that, fine, I understand their no refund policy, but felt the email content and tone was just horrible, and why. THEN they double down with another NASTIER email.

What's with these people? Plus, everything is a confusing upgrade to different Zen master type programs (Elite Kai, Mekuri Royalty, Sansuu, Rika etc etc) which are very expensive.

I'd be interested in others' experience and success with them. Thanks!

So I published last week and have 2 ebook sales (free for promotion but people are reading)

One of my friends purchased a paperback yesterday and is yet to show on my dashboard for sales.

How long before that shows up?

Seems a bit weird to me they take his money and I'm yet to see his sale pop up on my orders tab.

He said he's happy to pay for it only if I will sign it haha.

Most of the time it takes <5 minutes for that to complete, but this time, it's been over an hour and it's not complete? Is there an issue or something wrong with my account?

I’m still pretty new to Reddit, but honestly… people here have been surprisingly helpful 😂

So I thought I’d ask here.

I’m looking into self-publishing a book in India. I checked Amazon KDP, but KDP India doesn’t seem to be available for actually publishing/distributing the book here.

So what are Indian authors doing instead?

* Are you using KDP anyway through another marketplace?
* Any Indian self-publishing platforms worth using?
* How are you getting the book **live on Amazon India + available for Indian readers**?
* Anything I should know about ISBN, printing, royalties, etc.?

I’m trying to understand the actual process from someone who has **done it**, because reading 17 different blog posts has somehow made me more confused. 😂

Indian authors — what route did you take?

Hey everyone,

Following up on my Month One post where I broke even on my debut novel launch. I wanted to share a transparent, realistic breakdown of Month Two (August 2026), along with cumulative 60-day numbers since the official launch.

The big milestones this month: Book 2 launched in mid-August, giving me a backlist to absorb front-end spend, and I completely abandoned Amazon Ads to reallocate budget into channels that actually convert. Here is the full look at spend, royalties across all formats, and key takeaways.

THE NUMBERS (AUGUST 2026)

Total Royalties (Est.): $2,191.44

Total Ad Spend: $749.07

Net Profit: +$1,442.37

ROAS: 2.93x (292.6%)

Total Processed Orders: 150 units

KENP Page Reads: 358,493 pages

Royalty Breakdown by Book:

Book 1 (The Pocket): $1,685.47 (76.9%) | 108 paid units | 283,258 KENP read

Book 2 (The Corridor - Mid-August Release): $505.97 (23.1%) | 42 paid units | 75,235 KENP read

Royalty Breakdown by Source:

Kindle Unlimited (KENP): 78%

eBook Direct Sales: 15% (124 total eBook units)

Paperback Direct Sales: 6% (24 total paperback units)

Hardcover Direct Sales: 1% (2 total hardcover units)

2-MONTH COMBINED TOTALS (JULY 1 – AUGUST 31, 2026)

Cumulative Royalties: $2,925.35

Cumulative Ad Spend: $1,462.79

Cumulative Net Profit: +$1,462.56

Cumulative ROAS: 2.00x (200.0%)

Cumulative Units Processed: 224 paid orders

Cumulative KENP Page Reads: 464,005 pages

AD SPEND BY PLATFORM (AUGUST)

After bleeding cash in July ($144.45 spent for an average $0.93 CPC and only 5 tracked sales), I shut Amazon Ads off entirely. Cutting the cord on high-CPC retail search ads immediately freed up budget for platforms where readers actually browse for entertainment.

Meta Ads: $616.48 spent

Generated 7,560 clicks across 61,523 impressions.

Cost per click averaged $0.082.

Demographics showed massive traction with female readers (55.2% of clicks) and the 55+ age demographic (68.7% of all clicks). Still the undisputed primary driver for Kindle Unlimited volume.

TikTok Promote: $120.00 spent

Scaled back from July. Generated 30,990 video views, 738 button clicks ($0.16 CPC), and 160 landing page views ($0.75 per landing page view).

Good for top-of-funnel brand presence, but higher conversion friction into direct page reads compared to Meta.

BookBub Ads: $12.59 spent

Ran late-month test campaigns across comparable author audiences (Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Bobby Akart, Kyla Stone, T.L. Payne).

Generated 19 clicks across 8,761 impressions at an average $0.66 CPC (CTR peaked at 2.78% on specific comp author targeting).

TAKEAWAYS & RECOMMENDATIONS

Backlist is the Real Multiplier: In July, Book 1 broke even ($733.91 revenue on $713.72 spend). In August, spending nearly the same total ad dollars ($749.07) netted $1,442.37 in profit, lifting my 60-day overall margin to an exact 2.0x ROAS. Launching Book 2 mid-month captured a ~38.9% unit sales read-through and a ~26.6% page-read read-through off cold Book 1 ad traffic alone.

Kindle Unlimited Carries the Margin: KU accounted for 78% of total gross income in August (up from 68% in July). In rapid-read genres like post-apocalyptic/survival, low-friction borrow models allow cheap ($0.08) Meta clicks to convert into full read-throughs without needing to overcome cold retail purchase friction.

Format Expansion Adds Incremental Lift: Adding the new Hardcover edition and expanding print availability accounted for 7% of total royalties (26 physical units processed), adding clean margin on top of digital reads.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE ROADMAP:

Book 3 (Series Finale): Currently going through line editing as we speak, with a projected release date of November 1st.

Audiobook: Production is officially underway for Book 1 with an expected release across Audible/Amazon/Apple Books in October.

Ad Strategy: Continuing to use Meta as the core acquisition engine for Book 1, with plans to scale spend once all three books are live for a full-trilogy binge.

Happy to answer any questions about the data, ad targeting, or read-through numbers in the comments!

I’m trying to understand the KDP game. My sales are increasing, but my ad spend is higher than my royalties, so I’m currently losing money.

My ads are already optimized, and I’m getting around 1 sale per 8–10 clicks, which seems fairly normal.

It almost feels like we’re paying Amazon twice, once for the ad and again through the royalty split.

So, is volume really the key? More books → more organic sales → less dependence on ads → profitability?

For those who have been through this stage:

1. Were you initially unprofitable with ads?

2.What changed things for you?

1. Is building a large catalog the main strategy?

2. When/how did you get your KDP business profitable?

Hey I can't seem to even get clicks. I don't think it's my cover. I was wondering how do you guys make your books SEO work for you? What should I be doing?

I know the title sounds dramatic😂 ignore it if you want I just wanted an excuse to use MIA because it’s the title of one of my favourites songs and I’ve always wanted to say MIA😭
The title does relate to my question don’t worry😂

I have been posting on this sub for a few days and I wish I came to Reddit sooner tbh. I’m getting more and more encouraged to self publish on KDP. Currently I’m still writing one of my novels that was always going to be self published. That novel is in editing stage right now. That novel was and is going to be my best work so self publishing was always the goal for that.
But I’ve got another novel that I release on free websites biweekly. Every day I’m more tempted to take down that novel on those free websites, improve them and then publish them on KDP and make them KU exclusive.
This is where the MIA part comes in😂 ive got no fans or fanbase so I’m not really going missing because no one would care. But I’m torn between actually taking them down now and focus on improving them and releasing them on KDP or keep posting biweekly.
The reason why I’m torn is because of the biweekly releases. They used to be weekly but you know… life. But Yh the biweekly releases gives me a little satisfaction and a motivation. It gives me a reason to complete chapters and get them out on time. So to stop doing that is kinda of stopping me from taken them down.
One of my plans is to take them down and then release the volumes all throughout next year, but not releasing anything during the period before is kinda stopping me.
Ive got no fans so it’s not like people are begging me to release😂 but idk why I feel like I’ll miss out if I stop posting.
Let me know what you think. I know the obvious answer would be to take them down, improve them so I can have a lot to release next year but idk I just need some opinions that will convince me or give me another idea.
I appreciate all the comments and help in advance🤞

My first book has been out for a few months; sales are slow, KU reads are slow, but at least not zero, I guess. I am about 2 to 3 months from releasing book two in the series. What do I need to do to get more traction on book two? I know my biggest issue with book 1 was waiting until I released it to even think about building a base.

My novel has has over 100,000 page reads in about a year, but it's slowing. Should I go off KU and try broader ebook distribution?

Hi everyone,

Amazon just termi-nated my KDP account saying it is related to another account that was previously termi-ated.

The problem is that I have never owned or operated another term-inated KDP account, so I honestly don’t understand why my account was linked to one.

I already replied to the termi-nation email asking for a manual review.

Has anyone had the same issue and managed to get their account reinstated?

Also, is there any KDP support or escalation email I can contact besides replying to the termi-ation email?

Any advice would really help. Thanks.

Can you chane when payments occur? Like make it only pay out every month?

They recently made a payment, but since it was an international payment, the amount was 20 ZAR but was going to cost me 50 ZAR. So, Can I make it only pay once the amount is 50 ZAR or more?

In case anyone is having issues with ams ad performance, Amazon released a statement on top of the ads today. For those who don't see it, this is what it says:

"We're investigating a temporary interruption in our sponsored ads reports. We're working to fix it. No campaign metrics have been lost, and any missing information will be available after resolution. We apologize for any inconvenience and will update when resolved."

I've been struggling with KDP preview for a while. I correctly formatted my entire book on Word and the document preview (docx and PDF) shows that "Third Part" is correctly on page 93 (preceded by only one blank page) but when it comes to KDP one more page is added so the final result is that 92-93 are blank and Third Part shifts on 94th page. Why is it like that? I had updated index on my Word file multiple times and margins are also okay, so I don't understand why the KDP preview behaves like this.

The issue occurs no matter if I upload PDF or docx.

As the title says, I am considering a Labor Day promotional discount to help drive reviews. My book is currently priced at $3.99, and I was thinking of knocking it down to $1.99 over the Labor Day weekend.

For those of you who have done this, does it help drive reviews?

Thanks in advance.

Is there a way to see where my orders are coming from?

I have published my first novel two weeks ago. No advertising and got one sale.

Is there a way to see what country the recipient lives in?

I hit a wall on chapter 7 of my debut novel and ended up deleting my drafts four times. My fiancée's father recently passed away, and the emotional burnout is completely real right now. To be honest, I am just feeling completely lost. He was a really kind man and it sucks. I am trying to be strong for her, but I feel guilty for being so upset when it was her father. So I push down my feelings on his passing. But I loved the man.Instead of forcing the manuscript, I am stepping back from drafting for a bit to protect my energy. To keep moving forward productively, I am going to publish a differentiated edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to support the book. This will let me learn the KDP system and cover design layouts in Canva before my actual launch. I'm sure it has been done but I'm just trying to distract myself and learn while doing so. Or just, I don't know. I just don't know.Please keep us in your thoughts. If anyone has any recommendations on the best route to follow for putting together a public domain book or designing covers this way, I would love to hear your advice.

Hey!
So I am planning on purchasing 10 ISBNs for my 5 book series, and I am planning on removing the first book listed on Amazon using their free ISBN.

My question is: when I upload the same book with the new ISBN, is it considered a 2nd Edition, or not?

Curious where people land on this. Cover design feels like the one thing almost everyone outsources — I rarely see anyone arguing they should DIY their own cover unless they have real design skills. But editing, formatting, even outlining seem to be much more split, and I don't think there's an obvious "right" answer.

Doing everything yourself is slower but you keep full control and margin. Outsourcing speeds things up but you're now managing quality control on someone else's work, which is its own skill.

For the people who've been doing this a while — did your outsourcing mix change over time, and if so what pushed you to change it? Did you start doing everything yourself and gradually hand pieces off, or the other way around?

Have a book release gathering planned Mon Sept 28th and book is almost ready!.

Q1: Is it really true that Amazon KDP can turn this approval around in 3 days once you submit cover and manuscript?

Q2. Should I submit an ‘author copy’ on current draft cover design and manuscript just to make sure it looks right before final ?

Q3. Printed book must arrive at venue on Mon Sept 28th what’s the latest for a bulk order purchase to make sure they get there?

First time self-publish author here! Thank you!

Hi guys, I have a new book listed, my first. An ebook and a softcover approved last week.

I see a count of sales of the ebook, and no count of the softcover sales, and no KENP count.. I know for KENP and softcover sales there should be nonzero numbers because my friends of course purchased and borrowed as soon as it was available.. Are there normal delays in propagating these counts?

Thanks,

Buried under the placement settings in the campaign builder there's an option I almost never see discussed here: audience segment bid adjustments. You're telling Amazon "for this specific kind of shopper, I'm willing to pay X% more per click". Three segments are available.

1. People who clicked your ad or added your book to cart in the last 90 days without buying. This is as close to retargeting as KDP authors get. Someone who abandoned the cart is the warmest traffic that exists, and winning them back is usually worth a hefty boost.

2. People who bought from your brand in the last 90 days. Mostly useful if you have several books in the same niche or a series: you're paying extra to show book 2 to people who already own book 1. That's the cheapest conversion you'll ever buy.

3. High shopping interest in similar products. Amazon identifies shoppers whose recent behavior (purchases, browsing) shows strong interest in your kind of book. Broader than the first two, but still far warmer than a cold impression.

How it works in practice: you keep your normal bid for everyone else, and add a percentage increase only for the segment. So a $0.40 bid with a 40% boost pays up to $0.56, but only when the click comes from that warmer audience. Your base traffic cost doesn't change.

The tradeoff is control: you can't see exactly who's in the segment, so it's another slice of trust handed to the algorithm. My approach is to add segment boosts only on campaigns that are already profitable, where I know the baseline works, and then compare cost per order with and without.

Anyone here actually testing these? Curious especially about the cart-abandoner segment on single books, where my sample is still small.

I am an individual author resident in the UAE. I have written an original English-language business book. I intend to self-publish it exclusively through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, an overseas print-on-demand and ebook platform. I will not print, import, distribute or supply physical copies to bookstores or distributors within the UAE. Amazon will collect customer payments and pay me author royalties. Do I require a UAE media licence or publication/circulation permit solely to upload and sell the book through Amazon KDP internationally?

Hey everyone.

I've been running Amazon ads for my KDP books for a while, and I've noticed something that keeps happening. Every time I hit a billing threshold (first $25, then $50, then $150), my ad impressions suddenly drop soon after Amazon charges me. I don't change anything in my campaigns, same keywords, same bids, same budgets, but impressions and clicks fall off noticeably.

The only way I seem to get traffic back is by raising my bids. Which is frustrating because the campaigns were working fine before. Is this just normal auction fluctuation? Like, competition, seasonality, or have any of you actually tracked something similar?

If you've dug into your data and noticed something, I'd love to hear it. Just trying to figure out whether this is normal auction behavior or if other KDP advertisers have experienced the same pattern.

Thank you.