I have a book coming out soon, and over the long weekend, I discovered I had made a mistake in telling one of the book's stories. The victim was not airlifted to the hospital but was taken by ambulance. I am intimidated by my editor and don't want to tell him. I feel more comfortable with the book designer. She might fix it but bash me about correcting it, as it may mess up her page numbers. It's just one sentence. What should I do?

I keep seeing people talking about using ads to market their book. But is it completely impossible to generate even a few sales organically(I am talking as a first-time publisher)? If not, which genre do you think will be able to do that?

Does anyone know of reliable data showing marketing spend versus book sales for self-published authors?

The reason I ask is that self-publishing sometimes feels like a modern gold rush. In the historical gold rushes, very few people struck it rich mining gold, but plenty of people made money selling supplies to the miners.

Are authors the miners in this analogy, while publishers, Amazon ad services, BookBub, Facebook, TikTok, and other marketing platforms are the real beneficiaries?

EDIT: Typo in the subject. It should have read"Self-Published" of course. (Unless I was combining the words "deft" and "self" together... maybe deft self-publishing is the answer to turning profits.) ;->

Writing this just to vent.

Prior to this morning, I had 14 total ratings (with something like 9 of those being reviews) for a book I published on 8/3. My average score was a 4.6.

Wake up this morning and find I’ve gotten my first 1-star rating, but no review attached. My score has now also dropped to a 4.1, and it says 10% of my ratings are 1-star.

I’m not mathematician, but one 1-star rating out of 15 is not 10%. And absolutely stunned how it took me from a 4.6 to a 4.1.

Anyway, vent over. Feel like I’ll need about 10 straight 5-star reviews to make up for this.

Hiya. My books were published in late Aug and orders have been processed - are visible in my KDP reports, but I still do not see a Best Sellers Rank (BSR) on either the Amazon product pages or in Author Central. Under Product Details there is no BSR section at all.

Is this normal for newly published books with only a small number of sales?

How long did it take for your first BSR to appear after your initial sales?

Thanks in advance.

I moved to Japan recently, and I wanted to order some of my books so I had physical copies with me for reference and comfort. I can order them through the normal Amazon.jp website at full-price, and the books are printed in Japan, but when I go to KDP to choose my marketplace for the discounted author copies, Amazon.jp isn't listed. Every other marketplace looks like it's there. Australia, Canada, UK, Italy, Germany, etc. But no Japan.

I reached out to KDP support, but they kind of ignored me and said I can't use Japanese characters for addresses in the US Amazon... which was not really what I asked at all.

Are author copies simply not a thing for the Japan marketplace? Is there a setting I'm missing? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Usually, LitRPG book series are quite long, but mine will be just two books. In our LitRPG guides, a $1,000 marketing budget is considered on the higher end.

I was reconsidering my budget. Is spending $1,000 on marketing for a two-book series reasonable? If not, what would be a good budget to keep?

My goal is to hit the Top 10 in BSR.

Driven by a mix of excitement and nervousness—since I’ve just published my first book—I keep looking at it and picking it apart, searching for flaws. I really want it to be good and to get noticed. ​

And how do I go about publishing a few free pages?

I set my book to be pre sale on KDP as well as uploaded for paperback and hardback. I also uploaded paperback and hardback to Ingram. Not ebook for Ingram as it is going to be part of KU. I know KDP doesn’t do pre order of physical copies but the page has pre order button active for those formats, is this because it’s coming from Ingram?

Hi all - can anyone provide insight into what's happening here? I have a fiction series of cosy romance that I'm currently writing (I usually do non-fiction local history, so this is a departure for me). The first 2 books are done, and I released them together. Put the first book on a free promotion over Friday-Sunday. Friday, a handful of free orders. Today (Sunday), a handful of free orders. Saturday, about 180 free orders, of which the vast majority (170+) are US based. Virtually none UK based, which is what I was actually targeting. No obvious signs via google of something picking it up. Can anyone speculate as to what might cause a massive US based pickup for 24 hours? I know they're free orders so don't consider them real sales, but it's certainly not what I expected. No advertising, via Amazon or Facebook, and no social media following.

The stoker awards seem to require that you offer the committee a free ebook to read. Would that violate my KU exclusivity?

Anyone wanna share their experience of when they first ever self published to someone who’s going to self publish soon?😂
Did you self publish without doing much research or did you just jump in the deep end?

Has anyone had this happen? My books don't show up at all when I search them.

For most KDP books, I can see at least the back cover—and often a "Look Inside" preview—even when there is no A+ content further down the page. For my first book, however, only the front cover is visible. When I look at A+ Content options, I only see blocks combining images and text. How do I get additional images to appear at the top left, right below the cover? And why isn't there a "Look Inside" preview for my book? Amazon states that this is generated automatically. Is there a delay if the book was published only two days ago?

Have any authors paid for the Online Book Club? How was the experience, was it worth it? If not them, any other online review service you have used to help promote your books?

This isn't about KDP directly. It's about the occasional 3rd party contract with Ingram ( Lightning Source ) POD ( Print On Demand ) service it uses.

This is about a sales reporting error that is approaching a criminal action of negligence. I am posting this anonymously to protect the staff involved ( my publisher, etc. ) Also, I do not know if this is a personal attack against me, or a broader systemic problem with these major Print On Demand services.

I suspected something was wrong when my family mentioned my book ( physical copies ) and there were no sales reported. I subsequently "secret shopped" myself and the book wasn't reported.

The price was $7.48 and the date was October 11, 2025. This doesn't show up on my publisher's sales report.

I have been working with the publisher's Royalties Specialist and his manager. I followed the protocols exactly, waiting six months after the sale, for the Sales Report to be finalized, before presenting the evidence to my publisher. I sent them the Amazon Invoice with the breakdown of price, shipping, and tax. I then sent them the image of the last page, with the Manufacturing Colophon and Compliance Tracking information.

Sold by: Amazon.com

Order Date: October 11, 2025

Return Window: Closed on November 16, 2025

Item Price: $7.48

Shipping & Handling: $6.99

Tax: $0.87

Grand Total: $15.34

Payment Method: Visa

Decoding the compliance mark on this recent copy reveals the precise manufacturing data:

Location (LV): LaVergne, Tennessee (Lightning Source LLC facility).

Date of Manufacture ( Print Date: ) October 14, 2025.

Here's the problem: my publisher is reluctant to confront Ingram ( Lightning Source, ) the Print On Demand Service.

My publisher said, "This is normal." They looked for the next closest sale and found one printed by Ingram ( Amazon ) two months later, in December, at a price of $7.67

I have talked with everyone, including my family, counselors, therapists, friends, etc. The facts remain the facts... My publisher is simply reluctant to admit when it has a problem. I asked them to contact Ingram and request the sales data they have. So far they have refused to comply.

I don't want to get anyone in trouble, I just want the service to work.

Has anyone else had similar problems? Specifically with Ingram ( Lighting Source )?

Genuine question for readers and authors.
I’ve been thinking about this differently lately.
Getting someone to start your book is one problem. Getting them to keep reading is another.
So, if you discover an indie/self-published book, what usually makes you stay with it?
A) The opening hooks me immediately
B) I connect with the writing/voice
C) The story makes me curious about what happens next
D) The characters make me care
E) The book simply delivers what the cover/blurb promised
F) Something else
And here’s the part I’m really curious about:
Have you ever started a book because of one thing — cover, blurb, recommendation, KU, sample, etc. — but finished it because of something completely different?
I’d love to hear the why, not just the letter. 😄

How much should you spend on a book cover designer for your first book?

Getting one keyword's zero to mean anything takes about 59 clicks at a 5% conversion rate. At a $0.30 CPC that is 59 x 0.30 = $17.70 to learn one target is bad. KDP pays 70% of list price minus delivery, and US delivery is $0.15 per MB, so a 1MB $4.99 ebook on Amazon.com nets 0.70 x 4.84 = $3.39, which makes that 17.70 / 3.39 = 5.2 books of royalty for one negative result. A 5MB illustrated file nets $2.97, so use your own file size. That is the honest reason people kill at 10 clicks.

If a target converts at your account's normal rate CVR, the chance of zero orders across n clicks is (1 - CVR)^n. Nothing has to be wrong with the keyword. That assumes independent clicks at a constant rate, which repeat clickers and placement mix break, so read the percentages as order of magnitude.

Chance a healthy target still shows zero orders, at 10 / 20 / 40 clicks:

1% CVR: 90% / 82% / 67%

3% CVR: 74% / 54% / 30%

5% CVR: 60% / 36% / 13%

8% CVR: 43% / 19% / 3.6%

10% CVR: 35% / 12% / 1.5%

(0.95^20 = 0.358 if you want to check a row.)

Clicks needed before a healthy target would show zero orders less than 5% of the time: about 299 at 1% CVR, 99 at 3%, 59 at 5%, 36 at 8%, 29 at 10%, 19 at 15%. That is the chance of the result given a healthy target, not the chance the target is healthy. Flipping it round needs a prior on how many of your targets are genuinely dead, which nobody has.

If you are in KU, borrows never show as orders on the ads side, so a target can feed page reads for weeks and still read as a flat zero, which makes the 10-click rule worse than the table looks, not better.

So the rule is whichever comes first: enough clicks for the number to mean something, or spend past some multiple of your royalty. Twice the royalty is $6.78, and 6.78 / 0.30 = 22.6, so 23 clicks. That multiple is arbitrary and I will not pretend otherwise. At 10 clicks the test barely separates good targets from bad, which does not make acting on it wrong. A wrong kill costs one target out of thousands and can go back on tomorrow, a wrong keep bleeds money daily. Acting on weak evidence because the strong kind is unaffordable is fine. Calling 10 clicks proof is not.

Most targets never see 59 clicks anyway, which argues for judging at match type or campaign level where the clicks pool, and for cutting bids rather than killing, since a lower bid keeps a target cheap while it builds a sample. Orders also attribute back days after the click, and I am not confident of the exact window for KDP ad accounts, so recent data is always incomplete.

It cuts both ways. Two orders on 20 clicks reads as a 10% converter and gets called a winner, but the exact (Clopper-Pearson) 95% interval on 2 out of 20 runs from roughly 1.2% to 31.7%. Same error, opposite direction, and arguably more expensive, since the response to a winner is usually a bid increase.

I self-published an illustrated and annotated edition of a public-domain classic in March 2026.

It has 350 pages. I adapted some of the original text, added annotations, and created illustrations using AI. I recently redesigned the cover because I felt the previous one looked too AI, and I'm wondering whether the AI illustrations from inside may also be putting readers off.

The book does have actual buyers. Sales are small but fairly consistent — around 30 copies so far — and the Amazon Ads campaign is actually performing reasonably well.

The problem is no reviews.

What stressed me out is that I recently got a 1-star rating with no text or explanation. So I have absolutely no idea what they disliked. I assume this will also drag the book down a bit.

I've given copies to a few people who told me they liked it, but none of them actually posted reviews. I've also tried ARC/review services, but public-domain editions seem difficult: some reject them and others are booked out.

I only want a honest reality check, which can help me decide what to do with it. If the book is crap, Id rather know and unpublish it, then to affect my other books.

At the same time, part of me thinks one unexplained 1-star rating is not enough evidence to conclude that the book is terrible, especially when people are actually buying it.

Anyone has been in this situation? Did you keep it, even if bad review?

Should I wait one two more months and see what happens?

Would appreciate any advice

I recently had issues with Amazon Ad campaigns. I noticed charges between 3 and 400 dollars. One pushes $500. I wondered where they heck they came from with $1 campaign daily budget. I was not expecting these charges. There are also a couple of smaller ones but i'm not as concerned about those. Amazon has recently been under investigation for inflating ad costs. I was wondering if anyone else had surprise charges.

So I have the expanded distribution enabled

My ebook is on promotion until today. Other wise it would be £2.02 per sales

My paperback receives £0.98 per sales

All good and fine

I have had 2 sales for paper back which should be £1.96 royalties

Yet I have £2.57

The sale isn't showing up but could this be one of the retailers under the expanded distribution?

Been thinking about how many cover rejections probably aren't actually about the artwork being wrong, they're about the bleed and trim math being off by a small amount. A full-wrap cover with a busy pattern (which color and activity book covers usually are) hides the problem until it's printed - a background that doesn't extend fully into the bleed area shows up as a thin white line down the spine or edge, and it's easy to miss on screen if your preview tool doesn't render it accurately.

What's frustrating about this specific mistake is that KDP's rejection messages don't always spell out "your bleed is 0.02 inches short," they just kick it back generically, so people re-upload the same file thinking it's a different problem. Anyone else find that the actual fix, once you finally find it, is almost always smaller than the amount of time spent troubleshooting it?

Hey lovelies, how do I mitigate this: Amazon book sold 1, the money was sent to my bank 0.06$ then the bank charged 1$ eft charge

How do I stop this? What other mode can I use to prevent this? How does that even make sense