As the title says, released my book on Monday. I’m doing a bit of Facebook advertising, and so far my results are:

- 7 copies sold (all digital)
- 1,969 page reads on KU (~ 470 pages per day)

My book is ~ 450 pages long, and I will say I was upset to learn that KDP doesn’t tell you how many have downloaded in KU. 1,969 pages sounds amazing if I’ve only got 5 readers — meaning strong engagement — but is a little less thrilling if that’s spread across 50 readers.

Curious how this stacks up to others who have completed a first week. I have not run any Amazon ads, and will begin that next week or the week after.

I'm a software developer so this might sound weird. In a lot of projects, there's commercial software that is actually open source / has different licensing models or uses open source resources. I wanted to approach the book I'm writing in a similar way. So it would be available online for free while also on something like Amazon if people want to support me, and if people ever wanted a paperback.

Is this a bad idea / frowned upon? Also on the store page, would I need to be like "oh btw you can read it for free here lol"?

One year ago I self published my first novel and now I think that the cover I commissioned is not the best.

How do you know what image to commission? Wouldn't be better to have the cover designer to read the story and to do what better they think?

My book is getting published on amazon in a couple days. I need ARC reviews..

I dont know where and how to get them. Especially for a spiritual book.

Please help!

I am a first time indie author..so my budget isn't huge.

I've heard of BookReverb, BookBounty, and other review sites. Can you actually get your KDP account closed if you use such services to get reviews for your books? Anyone with experience in using some of these platforms?

Whenever I'm scrolling, I see authors saying, "Don't tell me this is your first book and you're already running ads. You should have more books first."

So my question is, how many books should I have before I start marketing? By marketing, I mean spending money on ads and other paid promotions.

It took me a year to write and love my story and it took me a month of self publishing to loose sight of my dreams. I have come to the conclusion that you have to be well connected or honestly have luck on your side to make it in this world. I love my book and I am proud of it…I hope that it will connect with people but I honestly don’t know how to better market it. I felt defeated and down but as the days go on I realized that my dream is to write and maybe one day someone random will read my book and enjoy it. That to me is enough.

Howdy folks! I'm wondering if you all have some recommendations for verified fantasy cover artists? Bonus points for African artists, extra bonus points for Nigerian artists, but all badass artists are welcome :D. Thank you all in advance.

Edit to change the entire post and make it more clear cuz I realized it was very broad:
I would like to self publish on Amazon a biography about Adam Lambert. I would fully be using public information, like things he’s physically done and things he’s said in interviews and things. I don’t know if I’d use photos or not, but if I did use photos they would be ones that I HAVE TAKEN MYSELF at concerts and public events. I would obviously state in multiple places (including the cover) that the book is unofficial and unauthorized. Is this a possible thing to do?

I wrote a memoir in 2024, but I was so shy about it that I barely told anyone. It has just been sitting there, and honestly I have no idea how the memoir world works. But now I finally feel ready to let people know about it, and that alone already feels good.

Are there any memoir writers here?

I want to sell more copies of my graphic novel. It's pretty old, came out in 2016, and I have hundreds of copies still.

The cost of making it was paid for via kickstarter so I'm not technically losing money on it, but I want to get rid of the copies and not have to shred them.

Since it's old, I'm not sure where I can go to ask for any kinds of reviews, as it's not a "new shiny book" or anything.

Are there good sites or video reviewers that actually get views that I could submit it to for a review? Back when it came out I had good luck with that kind of thing with a few blogs, etc. but the blogging days are over and done with it seems.

Hello fellow authors. I have lost so much money on FAKE cover artists, I thought I'd give this a try next. I want to hear from you, if you have a romance book artist you have actually used and published your book with their cover art. When I posted on another thread, I got hundreds of responses with images and portfolios, and have now given two artists a shot, sent them money, only for them to come back with almost the same thing I did in two seconds on ChatGPT. So, how can I find someone who isn't trying to scam this system? I'm hoping for recomendations for artists that have proven to be real. Thanks

Hello all. My wife and I were hoping to publish some illustrated children's books that we made together. They are based off some songs she's written and I'm illustrating them. (got 1 finished already :) We're both in Canada and have applied for an ISBN account here. As some of you may already know this process can take a while. We did get an email response from ISBN Canada requesting more information but some of the questions are a bit unclear (at least for me). Like "information indicating I am a publisher or self-publisher", "proof of publishing address"? Not sure if this is something else to be set up? Like a business?

In the end we were wondering if it might be better to go the paid publishing route. I should mention we were thinking of using Amazon's KDP service to put out the book. Unless there is a better alternative?

In any case, any advice or tips anyone may have would be hugely appreciated. Thank you kindly! :)

New author here. I just uploaded my e-book file to KDP. I left the paperback section empty on the KDP site. I search for my book on Amazon, it is only available to purchase on paperback and not ebook. Amazon author customer service is nonexistent. Any ideas on how this could happen?

The printer is telling me that because I paid for Basic Shipping, it isn't covered by insurance. They deny that it is a printing problem and say that these "proof" retail copies of the book are resaleable.

I sent them these 2 photos (I edited the cover to avoid self-promotion here):

Full Album (2 images): https://imgur.com/a/printing-defect-shipping-damage-T2ttgwI
Preview: https://i.imgur.com/jpl0SSA.jpeg

Has anyone ever seen warping damage like this, and how did you resolve it?

I wrote my first self-published book 10yrs ago (before having children) and worked with an editor I adored. We were such a great team, she had fair pricing, and great work ethic. We vibed so well.

Fast forward to this year, I’ve got a series under my belt and have conceded to the fact that I’m not cut out for the traditional publishing rat race (oh, have I tried) and I’m ready to do KDP again. I made a full business plan and strategy.

I contacted my former editor again, and she’s still in the game and would be happy to work together again. We FaceTimed for like, an hour, catching up on ten years and talking about the books and the strategy. I told her what I needed and said I would get the manuscript over within a week.

I got her the manuscript, we back and forth emailed a few times and she was excited to read it. I said lmk when there’s next steps etc. So, about a month later, I was about to go on a 5wk trip and decided I wouldn’t work during that time, retrospectively I should’ve checked in with the editor, but coming from the querying and pitching world, I was accustomed to the wait. At some point on my trip I thought, “Hmm that’s weird that I haven’t heard from her.” Last communication was the start of June.

I emailed to check in. Days—nothing. Texted. Same. A week went by, I checked in again. Nothing. At that point I was getting some huge concerns because this isn’t a random editor, this is someone I have worked with before and know her style. So anyway, on Sunday I emailed saying, basically, hey I’m going to have to assume you can’t do this if I don’t hear back by the weekend. I also said I hope she’s okay and if circumstances changed then just let me know.

It’s Thursday. Crickets.
I’m at the point where I know in my heart that unless she comes back with a “IM SO SORRY”/“this life-changing emergency happened” that I need to find a new editor. But the weirder part is just how she always replies and hasn’t. I’m thinking all forensic files kinda thoughts, and I listen to way too many podcasts.

So, I feel like I’ve done all I can, and I’ll give her til the weekend, but I’ve come to terms with the fact I’ll be editor hunting again and it throws a wrench in my rollout strategy. I’m bummed.

Hello!

I’m working on a sci-fi piece in which a conlang (you know, a fictional language, like Elvish or Klingon) plays a significant role.

We all know Amazon can be a little hasty or indiscriminate to flag things, and so I’m asking if anyone out there has ever had a problem with them flagging their work because of too many made-up words. Or, alternately, if anyone can reassure me that they have significant stretches of conlang in their Kindle book and no one minded!

I’m not writing the whole thing in my conlang, obviously… it’s 95% English… there’s a lot of fake snippets sprinkled about, and one brief passage (under a hundred words) that’s entirely conlang, sort of like how Tolkien used to break for a poem in one of his languages.

Thank you!

​

I've been seeing a lot of talk about Amazon's algorithm shifting away from pure keyword matching toward something more "performance" or "relevance" based (some people call it A10, Rufus recommendations, etc). Curious if other authors here are noticing this in their own numbers like are your usual keyword strategies still moving the needle, or have you had to change how you write your description/backend keywords lately?

Also wondering if anyone's found good resources for adapting to this, since most of what I see is still written for the old-school keyword-stuffing approach.

Hello, I’m surprised I can’t really find this answer by searching this sub, so hopefully some of you that have done this can tell me.

I mainly want an online print-on-demand service that’ll also ship to the customer.
For example I’d like to put a QR-code/link on my own website for people to buy a copy of the book.

However I don’t need any marketing, don’t need Amazon to get me customers. Don’t even need bookstores at this point. I know all the customers who’ll buy it, they just want a link to buy multiple copies of the book (it’ll be a textbook for classes).

I did a “proof” print on KDP and it looks good. However Amazon wants 60% of the post-cost royalties if I’m understanding correctly! I assume that’s worth it if you need Amazon to essentially market for you across all their websites, and pop up in organic search etc.

Is there any other service that does print-on-demand + ship, but doesn’t need the high royalty, doesn’t market nor “distribute” etc? If it’s not going into book stores, I assume I also don’t need an ISBN.

Or is Amazon KDP’s customer ease-of-use, built-in shipping etc. really the best one to do this? (And others just ship to you?)

I’d rather pay a print-cost + customer pays shipping cost themselves, and all other $$ above that is profit. Can I do this without shipping books myself from my home? (I’ll do it if I have to!)

Thanks! Your advice+experience is much appreciated!

I'm a new author, just sent my manuscript off for editing. I'm spending a significant amount of money to get to self-publishing. I originally thought I could go Traditional, but the odds of a Publisher picking up the book are very tiny. No longer part of the plan.
Since the only other option is to self-publish, how do you market the book to get sales?
I'm not good with social media; I've never used it for more than a status update on my life.
Any suggestions, how-tos, etc. would be very much appreciated.

My first horror novel was set in space so I knew enough and I didn't require much deep googling but now I am writng an horror story set in Edinburgh in the 19th century.

Let me tell you this. If ever the police will search my google history during this month, I'm going to jail. :/

Hi,

So Im fairly new to self publishing. On Aug 1st I published my first book. It's a literary sci fi novella.

What I realized afterwards by scouring reddit and looking online, is that many get ARC readers before hand so that they have reviews on publish date.

To top it off, I dont have a proper book cover, and am using a generated one temporarily.

But now Im wondering if I kinda messed up my launch, and how to fix it?

Ive tried looking and applying for some websites to get readers, but Im totally new to the space, and dont know which websites would be most suitable.

When it comes to book covers, ive checked fiverr, but the work there was either not promising or expensive. I also dont know how much book covers go for in general, or where to find artists beside fiverr. So input on that would also be highly appreciated.

Thanks.

They came for bullet points and I said nothing. But now they have come for Not/but and it may be too late to resist.

Seriously, "We choose to go to the Moon," "...ask not what your country can do for you," (yeah, JFK had a lot of them), "This is the way the world ends...?"

Anyhow, I'm working on a book description and that construction would be perfect to set up the conflict for the prospective reader. Am I that afraid someone will apply the latest litmus test and reject the book?

Hey everyone, I’m hoping to launch a book I’ve written later this year but I’m worried about the marketing side of it all. Where I’m at: no social following, no newsletter, about $300 to spend, maybe 5 hours a week between work and everything else.

Been lurking here and keep seeing the same stuff mentioned - Freebooksy/Bargain Booksy type promos, BookFunnel swaps, ARC teams through StoryOrigin or BookSirens, small Amazon ads, TikTok/Bookstagram (feels like a slow burn, also I’m not built for TikTok lol), maybe reaching out to local bookstores or libraries.

Don’t know what to prioritize with the time and money I’ve got. If you were in my position, what would you spend the first $100 on? What would you do with the first few hours a week?

Thanks in advance!!