Hi Caroline, Good debunking! I've been publishing on KDP since 2019 and it is my primary source of income. So far this month I am at $7k (AUD). Am expecting to finish the month with a total of $9-10k. All profit (no ads this month, that's another story), apart from a Creative Fabrica subscription, and I have bought software to crank out puzzle books. But mostly I make my own interiors and covers. The books I sell the most of are generally those that are unique (or have a unique slant on a popular niche) and I have taken the time to research well before making them. For anyone reading this, it does work, you really need to do excellent research before you make something. But start now, because if you make books that sell, they will snowball each year and make even more sales than the year before and so on.

You can have the best product in the world but if you don't tell people about it, not many people will know to buy it. Marketing your product is essential. This may sound scary but this is what's needed.

I found writing the book the easiest part. It's the technical bits like creating a cover and formatting etc. that drives me crazy.

Love the Aussie content on KZfaq. So much more realistic and no one’s yelling at the screen with exaggerated excitement and flashy editing.

I don't publish my books to get rich or famous. If I sell a book, I feel I have already succeeded. It's simply vanity. I got a royalty notice last week, and have made $3.60 on a paperback sale. VICTORY! In my eye at least.

Hello. I heard those comments too. They didn't discourage me from publishing my work, because I'm a creative person. I enjoy creating my books. It doesn't make any sense to get discourage just, because others are not happy. This is not a get rich quick scheme. My success has always been becoming everything that I wanted to be. It's a personal goal for me. I also feel accomplished. I feel content that I did something. Most people dream of doing something. I went, and did what I dreamed of doing. Today I hear the same complains that I heard when I first published my first book. I just kept publishing my work, because my creations are different from everybody else. Since then I stopped caring about what others think. I thought if you're afraid of failure then you will never try anything new. I'm not just an author. I'm also a music composer for movies, television, commercials, and games. I'm also a photographer, artist. I create my own book covers, and art work covers for my music as well. If I listened to my fear of failure I wouldn't do anything. Being afraid of success is not an option. I just keep moving forward.

The thing that disappoints me is not many people bother to leave a review or even a star rating. Getting these things is very hard. Otherwise publishing for ones self and ordering hardcopies to give out is very rewarding.

Whatever God has for You is for You, regardless of the competition.

This was an excellent video. Finally someone explains this properly. I’ve been an illustrator for 30 years now and about ten or so, I’ve started to illustrate for self published authors and I’ve been amazed at the amount of success several of my clients got from just a couple of books. One of the books I’ve done was even licensed to become a tv series , so I loved your over saturated market comment. There’s ways to be successful as an indie author , but nobody can expect to skip the learning curve. Work pays off and persistence also does. Most these days at least 80% of my illustration work goes to independent children book authors and I can guarantee people are making money. Even last week one of my illustrated books became a number 1 best seller at Amazon and I’m starting another book for the same author next week.

Hard to believe writing is over saturated. As a person that sells powersports items on amazon I can say that oversaturation is real, but writing is so dynamic!

KDP has worked well for me, especially when ghost writing books for others. Several of my books have sold thousands of copies, but my favorite - the one I really love and published in my own name - has sold SIX total copies. I agree with everything Caroline said.

For me, KDP has been an absolute nightmare. I published a children's book and the cut on the first proof copy was off alignment. I thought maybe it was a fluke. The second one was better. Then, when I ordered my first batch of author copies, they were all damaged from what looked like a dull cutting blade, which left the edges of the books frayed and caused the ink on the full bleed page to peel and look terrible. I asked for a replacement and three weeks later I got the books...with the exact same defect. However, they were printed in a different facility. All through this process, the KDP representatives refused to address my concerns as to whether they can actually deliver a quality print to me. Instead of replacing the second defective set, they just refunded me. So here I am, an author who can't actually get non-damaged books to try to place in local bookstores. It's made me feel terribly upset. The good folks at KDP also mysteriously raised the price of my book several dollars even though I bought a barcode for a specific price. It took them a week to correct, so anyone who bought the book in that time would have paid an inflated price. Perhaps I'm just unlucky, but this whole experience has really made me raise my eyebrows.

Most markets no matter what they are, are oversaturated with junk. If you got the right stuff, you'll make it.

Nice, informative vid. I've been publishing fiction on Amazon since April 2020, started off £5 a month if I was lucky, a year on, £15 or so a month, then started using Amazon Ads, now grossing around £350 a month on a rising curve, say 60 ebooks, couple of print books, 130 or so e-books read each month online (+-36,000 page reads). Still only scratching the surface but it is encouraging. And nice to have folks starting at Book 1 in a five book series and going to read each in turn. Love it.

Hi Caroline, you’re right about everything. I started in 2014 with bilingual study guides for the US Citizenship test and was consistently number one in sales in that niche for about a year. I was making about $1,800 a month even as competition moved in. Last year KDP changed the business rules and my sales dropped by 75%. I still update and market and have tried low content books with no success. I keep studying the market and trying new things. Thanks for a great video. As a side note, I taught self publishing classes at two community colleges to help writes format their print and eBooks.

I have 7 books published through KDP and though I'm disappointed with sales, I'm glad I took the approach I did. Writing a book with the primary intent of earning money from it is antithetical to every thing I believe about the intrinsic value of writing. Despite the well informed comments from Caroline, most who earn money from Amazon have 20 or more books listed, and it's hard to see they were driven by anything other than making money. It may be idealistic, but I've always believed the purpose of writing any book is to leave the reader with a deeper and clearer understanding of the subject presented and from the reader's perspective if I spend the time needed to read a book I want to take something from that effort that adds to my life whether it's humor, knowledge, empathy or anything else that changes me for the better, if only incrementally. If I forget within a few months the contents of a book I've read, it seems to me I would've been better off spending the time exercising or going for a walk. I've had reviewers make the comment that reading one of my books helped them answer certain questions about their lives, and one of them said reading the book was in itself "a spiritual experience", so when I check and find I've sold only 5 or 6 books for the week, I remember these reviews and temper any disappointment. My very impractical approach is what I'll stay with, which is; I'd rather touch 100 people than make money from ten thousand.

The reason people say write in series is that they get more visibility because Amazon groups them all together. If you release number 6, Amazon shows the reader who happens upon it that there are 5 more, so every book in the series promotes the other books. The reason people encourage putting out a lot of books isn't so much about the number of books you have, but the fact that Amazon's algos favor new releases. Older books get buried under new releases in Amazon's search engines, so if you publish a book every 30-90 days, you get more visibility. You could have a hundred books and not get great sales, or five books getting massive sales, depending on how long ago it was that the last one was released. And it's not just low content writers who know this. Amanda M. Lee puts out a novel a month. They are mostly series novels, full length around 60k and she makes six figures a month. She used to be on the Kboard forum before most of the bigger names left and she always attributed her success to writing fast and rarely going longer than 4-6 weeks without a release. So these things aren't really lies. A lot of best selling indie authors agree with them. That isn't, of course, to say other people can't find their own way, but being extremely prolific and writing in series isn't bad advice at all.

The people are right it is much times more difficult than what many make it seem. The competition is very tough the books need to be promoted wich can cost a lot. When I see videos like this I immediately go to the description box to see what they are trying to sell. In 90% of the cases it's software or courses on how to make money online. If it was so profitable as she says there would be no need to promote or sell courses and software.

Thanks for this ❤ I was excited to get started, and of course I made the mistake of listening to a bunch of negative nancies on KZfaq... and was completely deflated. But something I noticed is that the people ragging on this business make absolutely no mention of the research they did, the marketing they did, and what efforts they put in to make their books sell. Probably because they simply published books and crossed their fingers.

Hi Caroline - I studied the system by watching a TON of YT videos on how to self publish, read a ton of ebooks, and got a great graphic design program going - I publish a lot! The MAIN 3 things, I’ve found are: Book blurb (description) AMZ “Keywords,” and an eye-catching COVER. Also enrolling your book in KDP Select - Short answer - you made a GREAT video - 🎉very important to know the “little guy” can do it - After ALMOST 90 days/25 books 8K wds/each ~ $200.00 royalties!!! But ….. HARD, HARD, WORK - treat it as a BUSINESS!!!!

You're not stuck with Amazon alone. There's several other platforms where it is easier to get some traction (attention). Plus, sometimes the giant blinks and *ahem* your KDP account gets terminated (not mentioning any names). I don't trust giants -- go wide. Amazon just happens to have the largest market share. Just remember, the same people shopping on Amazon also shop in other stores -- we all love variety. I started writing *because* of some of the bestselling garbage I read, and thought "Really? Some folks think this is good?" And that was from some top-selling name-brand authors (again, no names). Maybe some weird form of group-think, like the way Fifty Shades won the lottery. I don't put it past the trad publishers paying disinformation trolls to nay-say self-publishing in comments and forums. I guess sociopaths need jobs as well. So now I'm throwing my own garbage onto the market, trying to improve my craft, and learning how the heck marketing works. Fun.

thank you so much, I started kdp about 2 months ago, got disheartened then made 1 sale 2 weeks ago then this wee 7 in a day... and now I find this video... some really excellent insights and I have many ways to improve and move forward with confidence... thanks again

Watched this video in January when I was researching KDP and found it very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to set the record straight.

Hi there! LLOOOOVE your videos..thank u so very much! I'm a 62 yr old single gal just sitting here at 8:45am here in Pittsburgh pennsylvania. This video is so very honest but sincerely hopeful too for those ...like me ..that will push through it....with the help and encuragement like wonderful truthful mentors like you! Keep the videos coming love and wait for each one, BTW I was trying an etsy shop too and wondered how and who takes care of customer service things...like questions and returns in kdp please?

My non profit publishes art catalogues for the fine art shows that we do. We do not intend or expect to make money but to promote the exhibitions and support participating artists. Works for us

Thank you, Caroline. I published a book last June and must say my experience with anything related to internet-based sales has been disappointing. I sold five books on Apple Books and two on KDP with net earnings of less than forty bucks. Once more, I knew the people who bought the books at the Apple store. This reception does not bother me for a couple of reasons. First, while I'm no exception as a writer, I am pleased with how well sales have been in the analogue world. More importantly, I'm delighted at the reviews the book gets from strangers. I've sold copies to readers in North America, Europe and Asia. I've even had to issue a second printing to keep up with demand. So, vanity aside, my online world is the opposite, and I feel like I've wasted a lot of time on it. Second, even with free and paid services, the online experience feels like setting up a lemonade stand in the middle of a desert - plenty of perceived need (again, my vanity), just no traffic. There might be a simple click somewhere for this old guy to change all this, but it isn't easy to be caught in an algorithm organizing one's life at the end of a long lineup. Still, I persist.

My personal experience with social media marketing was that it had no effect whatever, of any kind. Some of my books sell a copy now and then, some do not, and it makes no difference whether I market them on social media or not. There is a very substantial element of luck involved in book publishing, whether you self-publish or use a traditional publisher. People just don't like to hear this. :-)

Here’s a big lie: when you join Amazon KDP select and pay for advertising Amazon actually promotes your book! Yes oversaturated is by definition when the amount of product exceeds the demand by a ten-fold. When you see your book ranked in the 100s of thousands and even millions you know that the market is oversaturated. You can’t make money if no one ever sees your book. Although it’s not an exorbitant amount that Amazon takes, they are for that reason not incentivized to help you sell your book. At least publishers have a vested interest in helping you market your book.

Good video. Another big one is that traditional or even hybrid publishers disparage self publishing as not really being an author because you haven’t received the seal of approval from a big publishing house. This is obviously false in an attempt by the publishing houses to stave off what may be their ultimate demise as their percentage of the market share continues to disintegrate in favor of independent publishing. The stigma is of course, false they just want to hold onto the power of the gatekeeper. If people buy your books, you’re a published author. It doesn’t matter how you got there.

Thanks I've been ripped off again and again. Then I published my book with KDP. Started my own publishing company. It's a series i released book one in January of 2022. It's been pretty good. I got to get better at marketing. Thanks for your help

Thank you for being sensible when a lot of others are hype.

Hi Caroline, I fully agree with all that you say. Great video. from David Newton in Sydney. PS since I began my KZfaq channel my whole book range has taken off again. Active marketing works.

Andddd ... number 5 throws me under the bus. I'm on a pension and assistance. Marketing, unless something has changed, costs money. So many of us are hurting financially and the world keeps saying, "Give me more."

I am making about100 € per month just with one book! Totally agreed with you :D

I've been in the boat of saying that the market is oversaturated for children's books. When I first started in 2015 it didn't seem like as many were publishing children's books. It was easier to get reviews too. These days it seems like so many are publishing books and reviews are much harder to come by. Some of my frustrations also come from the changing algorithms on social media. It used to be that when I posted, I got likes, comments, and such without much effort. These days it's like pulling teeth to even get a like. I have never paid for ads, so that is probably my main problem.

Hello, I am new to KDP, I have published one book, no sales, but after watching your video I think I know why! My errors. I find your content really inspiring and motivating. I will listen to what you say and I will adopt, and let’s see where this takes me. Thank you for posting these. Peace and love. Rob

Finally, a no-nonsense and logical approach to this topic. Thanks for the information.

I've self-published since 2011 and continue to do so, but I go into it with my eyes wide open, so do your research. This video is a good start. Self-publishing real books, not low content, is now pay to play and in many ways is like vanity publishing. The days of publishing literary agent rejected slush pile stories with crap covers and unedited is over without substantial investment in covers, formatting, editing, to mimic as near as possible what a trad -publisher puts out. Obviously if you have some of the skills, then the initial investment might not break the bank. The initial investment is not the end of it. To simply publish a book without an ongoing investment in marketing, your book will be invisible to readers. Amazon might boast 4 million books or over, but the majority of those books are authors who have tried and failed and moved on to other pastimes and so left alone, their books are invisible. So with this in mind, don't let the size of the Amazon catalogue put you off self-publishing. I have around ten full length books. If I pay for advertising, they sell, if I don't pay for marketing they rarely sell despite an average of over 4 star reviews. Yes, you can make money and the lucky ones do, but the odds of getting a bestseller are about the same as getting accepted by a literary agent and that's around 1% Of course, you don't have to be a bestseller to make money after your investment, but again, the odds of getting a return are low. Just be aware and the more you learn of what it takes beforehand, the better.

You are the first person to explain the 60% per book sale. I really appreciate you for being so in depth with this video. Got my sub!

I've got a manuscript being proof read and tweaked, and I'd already been considering using KDP. I had not heard anything negative but I'm glad I came upon your video anyway, it was very informative and very encouraging!

Yes, I've heard most of these lies too. I certainly have fallen into the trap of feeling like sales should have come quickly, when sadly they didn't. I think the hardest part is defining a solid marketing plan, especially when from my own experience most FB groups are full of other people who are also trying to sell/market their websites or products. Thanks for sharing!

the thing with kDP is that you have to do all the work a publisher would do your self. And the mass amount of poor writers pushes book lovers away from self published authours becouse they are less likely to have had a professional editor, or gone through many drafts to make it as good as it can get.

I had something published with a co-author by a traditional publisher a while back and we actually only get a small percentage of the WHOLESALE amount per unit, not the retail amount - so yes, MUCH less than Amazon self-publishing.

For fun I created a few lined travel journals with different theme covers last year I designed in Canva... I sold 3. That is 3 more than I thought I'd sell haha. Makes me wonder what I'd sell if I put genuine effort into it and marketing etc.

I have heard that for indy writers, you will need 20-30 books before you start doing well. I haven't had great luck with KDP, but I only have a couple books.

At first, I was put off that you are on the right side of the video. It bothered me why someone might do this. But then I realized that being off center in the video placed you in the actual center of my monitor when viewing without expanding the video to full screen. Nice.

I sold short stories to pulp magazines in the 90's which was very difficult due to the competition. They each get thousands of them a month. The point is, my stories can't be too awful because no one in the publishing industry would have ever bought them. But now I have 9 books under two names on KDP and sales have been truly pathetic. Glad I did not have high expectations because I also release a lot of music and it is just as difficult to get any traction and I had a feeling it was no different. I know an awful lot of authors on there from groups I am in and they aren't doing any better.. If you use the freebie advertising they allow you then people are all over them. But they die again after that. The markets really are flooded with Independents and most people sadly do go after the big publishing house books just like they do the recording artists. I read nothing but Indies because of that and some of these authors are as good or better yet still cannot get any traction either. It's nice to watch these pep talks focusing on the positive, but realistically, it's just not how it goes for the majority of us.

As a vivid reader, I always read a book till the end. Checking the rest of the author's books depends on quality whether in term of the plot or the writing. Each time I find a good book, I make sure to check the rest.

Thank you. That was one of the most heartfelt descriptions of the MOST IMPORTANT aspect of ANY HUMAN ENDEAVOR: Perserverance. It is natures way -whether one will accept it or notif Life owes us nothing, why would Amazon? .You’ve reminded me success lies in the doing as no of us are guaranteed to be here later foday. To people with a strong sense of perseverance, results are simply rungs in a ladder. Peace.

I never exactly set out to publish a book. But during the Pandemic I was afraid and uncertain so turned to God through prayer (despite not being religious). My eventual book came from being instructed through prayer to publish, and my editor at the time saying 'That looks like a short book...'. thus although I always had a dream of publishing a book, it happened in the most unexpected way! It's called 'Unmasking God's Truth' by Kirk Dales and is a spiritual take on the pandemic. It contains the questions I asked God each day. Each chapter was one question I asked God each day. I have 2 more planned that follow a similar format because after the first one, I started asking God different questions and eventually was led to somewhere I never imagined I would be..

A book isn't over saturated if it has a fan base already. A woman known as Denise Randall has a couple published books. No one here has heard of her, but I have and have been knowing her for 20 years. Her works aren't oversaturated because she has a fan base following and I have bought two books from her, she's even had a couple interviews on POD casts too, has her own web comic from the last I recall. She's not famous, is retired from the Navy, a teacher now, married, with a daughter going through law school right now. No one here more than likely knows her, but I know about her and she's doing fairly well to the point she's getting interviews and is steadily putting out more books to sell of her Only Half series. So therefore she's not sinking in an oversaturated market. She's doing just fine with her little fan following.

Very good presentation. I have published books through all the ways available. Presently I only use KDP for the convenience. However the primary reason is to insure present customers or future customers my products are available. They are never out of print. And I do not need to print thousands of books to fulfill one order after one printing is sold out.

Great stuff. I published three (failed) books, two on KDP (the only one that made me any money) and one by agency at the cost of more than $10K with zero income in the past two years. I am working on my two others and I do recommend KDP. My education was expensive in learning the trade but it was worth it because I know one of my next three or four upcoming books will be a bestseller. And great point Caroline, without doing something there is nothing. A farmer needs to plow the soil to get it to yield crops. Cheers.

Finding specific niches that fit your style and content is important. I saw a book called "You Suck" by Paulie Amigo and thought it was clever. There are a lot of different niches and styles. Whatever is popular already has usually been oversaturated with competitors with deep pockets.

I think it's about niching down. I have 10 low content journals on kdp that I published about 2 weeks ago. One of them has sold twice. This is my first time ever trying kdp, my cover designs are repurposed t-shirt designs from my (also new) Etsy shop. What I've noticed from both platforms is that you need to hit the algorithm. How this happens I don't know. Imho it takes niching down and luck.

Great video! As someone that has started numerous businesses you hit the nail on the head. There really is no such thing as over saturation if you are producing quality products and marketing them properly. If you do that, those products will sell. The issue I see with KDP is there are a lot of lazy people that have no real intention of producing a quality book. They produce a poor quality book, do not market the book at all, and think then wonder why it doesn't sell. The number one issue with KDP is to produce a good solid product and market it. A HUGE part of marketing is getting reviews. If you start to sell a book and it gets good reviews - Amazon will push that book. That is when things get fun. The bottom line is that many people that try KDP are looking to make money fast without putting in much time. That is almost a for sure business killer in ANY business.

From what I've heard, it seems that established, successful authors have headaches with Amazon removing reviews and things like that. I can understand that frustration, but for the majority of authors, it seems like the easiest, most streamlined way to sell to the masses.

It is terrible that Amazon only allows reviews of a book if that person has bought at least $50 fro Amazon in the past year.

Somewhat of a click bait title that I fell for. These aren't lies (deliberate and malicious falsehoods) as much as misconceptions and misunderstandings.

Let me tell you the worst... truth about KDP. I believed you and tried to create my Lulu books under the KDP platform. I've never seen such a mess ! First, they don't have all formatings, so they ask you to format in special sizes, but the they are unable to automatically calculate the cover size ! When you finally did it, they offer you a possibility to upload a PDF... which does not accept the perfect file... but without any explanation. Then you try their cover builder tool... that does NOT allow you to have a blank page on which you could put your image. You go back to the PDF loading machine, then you succeed, but the machine says: no way. When you are in their cover tool, you can not go back. When you start for the twelfth time, they force you to reformat the book ! even though it was perfectly within the standards and the right size. Anyway, I've been doing this for years but now I lost a day. Never again! PS: I knew I was going the bad way, I've alwayd hated the Amazon website... Billionnaires and "n°1" and unable to make a properly adjusted site...

Hey, oh, my gosh, I needed to hear this today! I’ve been having a bit of an existential crisis over whether or not to continue marketing my book from 2020. It’s as close to my heart as my ribs, you know? Deeply personal. It’s good for a sale or two a month, sure. Sometimes more. All of the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. But it’s become like pushing against a wall. Why keep working so hard for so little return? Perspective. I need a change in it. Thanks for gifting me with some! Cheers!

Thank you so much for taking the time to record and edit this. Great info. 🙂

It's been a nightmare for me. I have one book that did *okay* and despite the high ratings of that book no one's reading the sequel for whatever reason. So people like it but have no interest in the sequel? I have 7 books published on there and I have almost no sales. I can't afford marketing so that's not going to happen and I don't have a huge social media following so I can't market it to those people either. There's not much more I can think to do.

I have written two books on photography. The first - I was writing and my partner objected and told me I knew nothing, didn't know grammar or writing and was semi-literate etc. BTW I used to teach English! Anyway the situation got so unpleasant that I put it to one side. I returned to it some time later and slapped my notes together as a book and published. It sold but not brilliantly. I knew it was niche. A couple of years later I did a second edition, changing some of the phraseology and adding some new sections. That was also niche and both copies sell but not in vast numbers. I have done no advertising nor marketing. Last year I wrote a porn novel for fun and published the unedited version under a pseudonym. That is selling too. Not brilliantly and at $1 a copy it's not going to make me rich. The whole point is that there are books out there that I have created that I'm leaving to fate and most of which I wrote for fun. I didn't edit the last one because I was pretty sure it would not sell but it seems to be selling. I might set to and do the editing at some point. The whole point for me is in creating the book for my own pleasure. When it sells that's a bonus. I don't really care too much whether it sells. I just like being able to point to it and say "I did that".

I agree that people who have failed will generally advise others not to try, it's too hard, oversaturated etc. But equally, when someone succeeds, they tend to assume that anyone and everyone can succeed and this can also be bad advice. Luck does play a role, even when someone is convinced their success came from their own hard work and persistence.

Yep and also don’t trust the ppl on the KDP community forum either. They’re prone to lying too.

The side-hustle culture really is over-saturating Amazon KDP with low-content AI-created books. KZfaq is full of videos giving tutorials on how to do it. And Amazon literally had to impose a limit of three books a day because people were flooding the site with absolute garbage, all day every day. You're definitely going to have to do a lot of heavy marketing to break through that ocean of garbage.

I've had books "out on KDP" for 6 years now and have hardly made a dime. You won't make much of anything unless you have a publisher or a foolproof promotion plan going for you, I found out the hard way. KDP is still good for putting out practice drafts of your works and locking in your digital copyright so no one plagiarizes your stuff, but far from a guarantee of publishing riches. The words of an unsuccessful author.

Great Contant very informative. While I agree with most of it I feel the need to clarify some of the information around royalties. You are correct when you say Amazon self publishing (KDP) pays much better royalties than traditional publishing. But the 60% royalty that you mentioned is deceiving. When your book is sold on Amazon Amazon takes it 40% from the sale price of your book. That is Amazons profit. The cost for printing the book comes out of your 60%. What is left after that is your royalty/profit. It isn't 60%.

I paid over $,4,000 dollars to have my book published and after 6 months I am told Amazon rejected my book and the person handling my book says he doesn't know why.

This lady is absolutely correct. Let me add that George Orwell spent five years on a cold island writing 1984. Robert Pirsig spent 5 years in a cafe writing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And I don't know how long it took Donna Tartt to write A Secret History. First you need an excellent grounding in a language, English for example, then an imagination and life experience. Then you need to be a Sales Person or hope for a miracle from the goddess of writing (in my case). This is the gold standard. Good Luck

The truth is that Amazon takes the publishing price out automatically of the sale price. It's not costing you out of pocket. 2nd. It IS oversaturated because if you do the math of...for every person, say example 100 people make 500 to 1,000 books....well you can see how difficult it will be to a new comer to make any to little sales at all.

"There is high competition because there is high demand" is simply not true. High demand diminishes competition.

Thank you. I’m just starting the journey of an indie writer & this was motivating.

Edgar Allen Poe's works were forgotten and it took a Frenchman i think named Baldiere to bring about a rival of his works many years after Poe's death.

I think I got lucky starting on Kdp last august. I have a niche in a category, which I think helps. I was somewhat successful. I did sell over 100 books, which that was my goal. I need to refine and expand my products, and I think I might do better next year.

I was all set to begin with KDP but before I started I did an online search for user reviews. I found an abundance of 1 star reviews for KDP. Most reviewers reported that Amazon had terminated their account and were withholding the royalties. Can you tell me your thoughts on this?

Thanks for those valuable insights, my sister. As you put it yourself, "It's not as bad as we think."

Ernest Hemingway has written lots of books, some of them became all time classics and got in school programs. However, despite all that, only his smallest and last novel got Pulitzer prize.

Thanks for these practical self-publishing tips, Caroline. I've written hundreds of Christian-based articles on my website, but I look forward to putting a Bible prophecy book out there. Blessings.

I've spent 242 $ for 2 books After hard efforts - only 2 books sold in 5 months Feel regret

Thank you for the encouragement. I am self editing the 4 novels I've written. Grueling work. May actually happen, or not.

This is so helpful for new self publishers like me. Thank you so much, Caroline 💕

Baywood Press published one of my books in 2014. My royalties ended up being $80/year for a period of three years. Then nothing. I complained to a colleague about only getting $80/year, and he said, "YOU GOT $80???" He had also published with them and with a co-editor. He was only getting $20/yr. Thanks for the info.

I have had two books held in review with no explanation for months at KDP. The very same files were uploaded to Barnes and Noble and have been produced with no problems.

You of course need to have an active distribution in place for any book to move sales ---question is, where does one find one?

Amazon kdp banned on my first attempt, with no option for appeal. The horrendous crime they considered beyond redemption? I used a different email address when I first signed up with Amazon years ago which I had since switched to gmail. i mean. wtf?

Thanks for your encouraging video, Caroline! I'm getting ready to launch my first book on Amazon in a few months and am so nervous. I want my book to encourage many people, but am also hoping it will bring in a decent amount of income:) This gives me a lot of hope!

I am a little depress but I am glad I saw this video as I was interested in self publishing a book, I was only interested in 1 book. A book about my dating experiences before marriage, Though not funny at the time looking back they are funny if at not very unusual. I figured so unusual that it would be shame to loose these, I have written 13 short stories so far and I am writing it with humour and it is not a get even book. It actually makes more fun of me. My 1st story for example is This could only happen to me. Its how I go to a Film festival find a nice lady but but gets ruined by me ending up with a wife and kid, I was single at the time and these laddies I just met that night, The real funny thing is it happened a 2nd time in a different story which is in my book, I am only looking for one book. I can take criticism if its honest, I would like to ask you what is your opinion if or should I try and what way should I go?

I heard over 100k self publish every month. That's over saturated.

Really grateful to be able to self-publish on KDP

the nature of books is high consumption, relatively low cost, relatively low consideration pre purchase, relatively high dollar for value in terms of the experience - all of those factors demand that the market offer great quantity and variety. it has been so since the printing oress made mass production of books possible. now we simply have a much larger market, including nearly all languages, and a way to instantly oroduce and distribute at no incremental cost. i would expect there to be massive quntities of titles, as there always has been.

Laziness and Fear is oversaturated.

What holds me back from entering this KDP thing is that it is a very time-consuming endeavor. Not only do I have to create the exterior cover design, but I also have to put a lot of effort into filling the interior of the book, journal, or whatever it is. Even if it is a low-content book, it still requires some content to be put inside, be it a table, pictures, drawings, etc. It is not just simply "copy and paste" the same stuff onto many pages. You have to create value for a customer and by copying and pasting you aren't. That is my view of this business model.

Nice video. I haven't started my kdp journey, but I think that these lies you've debunked are totally accurate based on business in general. (Comment written by Joanna, not my dog Snoopy 😅😅)

Thank you for this. I just finished watching the most self-center couple didn't believe anything they said.

I'm a self-published author of both printed and ebook types. As I am also a screenwriter a producer friend connected me to a literary agent to help me get my books published by a major publishing house. Then the wheels fell off. The publishing house in London, which was very big, found out that I had already self-published on Amazon. They went from talking about a $.5 million contract to completely rejecting the book. This of course shocked both my agent and me. The publishing house said it was an already published book and they therefore would not touch it. I explained numerous times that the only reason I self-published was so that I could examine the finished item for mistakes and any pockets of bad writing. They wouldn't budge. Self-publish yourself and your book is commercially dead.

"EARNINGS DISCLAIMER: This video is for educational purposes only. There is no guarantee that you will earn money using the techniques and ideas in this video." This statement tells me a lot. What you don't qualify is what per cent of self publishers on Amazon actually make enough money to make it worth their while. 1%? 2%? 5%? I would be interested to know. I recently self published but intentionally stayed away of Amazon and similar places. I market and sell my book on my own. I keep all the money! It is working very well so far on my little niche, first attempt.

You are correct on all points, love your channel and your information is always on point.

Hey thanks for your video Really help me alot with my doubts. I just published my first book which was released on the 26th of January. I am completely lost on the KDP and Amazon process and I was not given any information from my editor about how this process of publishing is supposed to be. I felt my editor was just getting me to trust her so she can get paid, but I felt she was not sincerely trying to look out for wellbeing. Anyways, your video has helped me to have more confidence in KDP.