Since making this video (a long time ago!), I've created several Best-Selling Courses on Udemy.com. To check out these courses, simply use either of the links below: Udemy Profile: www.udemy.com/user/romney-nelson/ SkillShare: www.skillshare.com/r/profile/Romney-Nelson/92486955 Thinkific (Get Access to All Courses for $15.00 for the first 2 months - (Coupon Code: bundle-super-special)
Your transparency is absolutely amazing and motivated me to get off my lazy behind and go full in into the Self Publishing business .. Thanks so much !
That is very, very kind of you. I really hope you can continue to take action. By viewing the video, that's an excellent start. Begin with some small goals in month one and build on your momentum from there. All the best, Romney
Fantastic to hear. Well done! One of these courses on Udemy could also assist if you were interested? You can find them under this profile link: www.udemy.com/user/romney-nelson/
You are so right with this advice. I am 4 months in and on exactly the same path. Follow this advice and you will see a difference but you have to be self disciplined.
@@globalselfpublishing This last week I have worked from 8am until 2am the following morning all week! Obviously this level of work cannot continue but my point is work hard at the start and remember it’s a long term goal. I am very mindful of the Amazon and Google algorithms that take time to kick in. I have spreadsheets for every strategy I adopt and do comparisons. However there is no substitute for a great cover and manuscript. Every time I feel like giving up or just lounging around doing nothing, I watch a video like yours to give me a kick. Thank you for your time and effort.
Thank you for sharing this! I use Notebook for goals (To do list) so once i turn off my computer before i sleep i can always look back and check my goals. But i like having a spreadsheet too! looks very organize and clean.
Hi Romney, thank you for all the great information you provide. I didn't publish through Amazon KDP. I published with a different publisher. Is this information still applicable?
Thank you so much for this video - it's so motivating seeing your progress and your helpful tips! I haven't made any sales yet but it's only been a month since I started publishing and thank you for your reassurance as well. I will continue to improve my knowledge and strategy then hopefully my first sale will be just around the corner :)
Spot on Sophie! One of the key reasons I made this video was to reassure people that we are all on unique KDP publishing journeys and it could take 2 days to sell a book or 6 months, but the more you learn the lessons of your mistakes, keep evolving, adapting and improving on niche research, cover design, marketing etc and the sales will come.
Keep going Danjuma! We are all on different journeys and as frustrating as it can be, book sales can take time as you learn more from your initial mistakes and improve along your journey. It could be your next book or even a book you create in January 2022 that could be your break-out book but you will never know unless you keep trying and never give up.
Thanks for the video, Sir. Feels good to know that I'm not alone in the eagerness to see sales of my books. I appreciate that I should do more research on my niche and book cover, coupled with the other things. God bless you.
Hi Sandra. They are a combination of organic sales and sales initially generated through Ads but then subsequently become organic as your books gain traction.
Thank you! I felt quite discouraged with the amount of work I was putting in for the lack of results. One of the biggest mindset challenges we have with KDP is that we could be spending all this time creating books with no guarantee they will sell. Remember, launching your book should be considered as the 80% mark, the remaining 20% is your marketing once the book does goes live. Most people fail at that final 20% point and just hope that people will see their book amongst the millions of other books out there.
I am just about to upload my first book as a first time author I have created a self help book that has been ghostwritten for me I also have invested into marketing which will generate leads to my website I am hoping for a good sales return but I know will take time, very helpful video
Hello Romney :) When expanding our books in other markets (UK and CANADA). What is the ideal way to do that? 1) Did you target the amazon ad campaigns on those specific markets separately? 2) Or did you publish your books targeting those markets from the beginning? (because most of the time people keep USA as the primary market) Thank you.
Hi Damian. I usually keep USA as the primary market unless there was something very specific about the book that made it applicable to that market. EG, If it was a gift book for Mum (UK and Australia) rather then Mom (US and Canada). I then just target my Amazon Ads in that particular market place and the ranking will improve and will be seen by Customers.
KDP doesn't charge you any more but if you want your book to get traction in other markets, you may need to get it translated into the respective language.
Thank you for your honesty in your videos about your own KDP journey. I have been publishing on KDP since the end of July and only 4 books sold to people i know via my Facebook page. Very similar to your own experience, I also discovered that I haven't been 'niching' down enough. Also that I feel the same disappointment at the lack of sales that you did. I feel i create attractive books (I have a background in design) but also the niche research can seem tricky and daunting. I have a day job but would like to build up a business for the future so will be watching the other videos that you mentioned.
Such great comments and reflections on your journey so far Denise. Yes, there are very similar parallels to my own journey and the first 3-6 months can be super challenging. It’s at this time that you learn the most about your ability to push on when there is a huge amount of doubt building up. The niche research is so important and it takes some time and plenty of mistakes to master. I’m still learning each day too. Thanks again for watching and all the very best. Regards, Romney
Love your videos, learning so much... A quick question... I looked at pubby website you recommended, can you put low content books on there as well, or do they have to be proper books... thanks again for the great advice and videos
Thanks so much Tony. Good question. Yes, you can place Low Content books on Pubby but they have to be really high quality otherwise you risk poor reviews. I haven’t used Pubby for a few months now but it can be an option to consider for reviews. As always, just ensure it’s suitable for your circumstances and you do your research to make sure it will be a good strategy for your book launch.
I'm unable to answer that question as there are so many elements at play. Advertising is just one of the many ingredients that you need to consider if you want to become successful with KDP. Think of it this way. How will anyone find your books if you don't market them? The choice is always yours and only you can decide what you would like to do and how successful you wish to be at KDP.
How long did it take you to get over 300 books published on KDP? I have been at this since August and I’ve only got about 13 books completed. Now, most of mine are Preschool workbooks and a few coloring books. Do I need to just stick with no content books??
Hi Tia. It's always difficult, but don't be focussed on the quantity, just the quality. I was guilty of creating too many books in the beginning just so I could build my portfolio and hoped that one stuck and became a best seller! 70% of my earlier books so between 0 - 3 copies and have never sold again. My portfolio has built up over almost 2 years but to give you some perspective, I think I've created approx 30 books in 2021 and have found they collectively sell more than the previous 300! I did learn a lot though from my previous book failures so i kind of needed to make those mistakes to get to where I am now. Hope that helps.
Once you create your book and load it to Amazon KDP, they take care of everything else! This includes the printing of the book, postage and delivery, customer service, processing payments etc. as the creator, you receive a royalty payment with a split share of 60/40 (author gets 60%) after printing costs are factored in. It’s an amazing business model!
I’ve created 3 niche videos over the past 6 weeks that would be great ideas to start with so watch those first. I have another niche video coming out very soon so that will also give you some great ideas.
3 months in, and after one book was taken offline by kdp, then ok'd to publish, they terminated my account over the book they said was ok after review. I have had no joy in trying to reason with them. I despise KDP now
When you talk about marketing in different countries do you mean with amazon ads? And does that mean when creating a campaign on amazon you should put it through UK Or Canada instead of the US?
Yes Jay, that is correct. I started off creating an Amazon Ads account in both those countries and just started slowly (low budget) but found that my $$ went so much further as the competition is so much less and now. I am just so happy that I did diversify to other market places.
One question : Do you republish the same book again for the second time in other market in the main selling market drop down ? Let's say first published was Us market , second republished same book be UK or Canada market .
@@globalselfpublishing what I meant was incase if we want to target UK as main market as said by you in this video , other market may seem less saturated than the US market. Here, should we reupload same 2nd book and choose UK market ?
No, just continue to choose All Markets and don’t upload a 2nd time as this may be against Amazon Terms of Service. I just run some Amazon Ads to that book in the particular market eg. UK to give it a nice boost and help it’s ranking.
In my experience , sales ads on amazon are bought, so the more you spend per click the more they post your ads! I didn't make but $13.00 and I spent $169 on ads. For 3 months. I feel it's a scam.just my opinion tho!
I completely understand your frustration and as I mentioned in my video, Amazon Ads weren’t the only method I’ve used to promote my books, in fact some of the free methods I’ve used have been better than the Ads!
Once you get reviews and better ranking then stop ads (that's what experts say)- or lower the bid. What some folks don't mention is it's best if you have some platform or followers in an area- say fishing/outdoors then create something you have a ready made market. THe latter is my opinion watching online stuff. Otherwise there is nothing that differentiates you. Also the quality really needs to be good- and avoid saturated area. So there are a lot of areas to look into and check.
Thank you for sharing your experience. But may I ask, do I need to send physical copies of the book that I'll be publishing in KDP? Or will Amazon print it out for me?
KDP is a Print on Demand (POD) service. Once you load your book to KDP, they do everything else for you including the printing, distribution, customer service and pay you a royalty every 60 days for any sales after they take their 40% cut of the royalty after all associated costs.
Hey can you telme what does this mean when there is just 4 results or less for any book means when i put some keywords in search bar the results are this number keyword, but the books their showying are selling very good is it possible to have profit in this way can we go for that
It’s hard to tell without knowing your keywords. If it is a long- tail keyword then it’s possible that a very small amount of results will show. This could also indicate that customers are not searching for these particular books using the keyword you are using. If you have other software like Publisher Rocket, you could also use that as a 2nd reference point to determine if it’s worth going further with that particular keyword.
Since making this video (a long time ago!), I've created several Best-Selling Courses on Udemy.com. To check out these courses, simply use either of the links below:
Udemy Profile: www.udemy.com/user/romney-nelson/
SkillShare: www.skillshare.com/r/profile/Romney-Nelson/92486955
Thinkific (Get Access to All Courses for $15.00 for the first 2 months - (Coupon Code: bundle-super-special)
Love this video man. Thanks
Thank you. Appreciate the feedback!
Your transparency is absolutely amazing and motivated me to get off my lazy behind and go full in into the Self Publishing business .. Thanks so much !
That is very, very kind of you. I really hope you can continue to take action. By viewing the video, that's an excellent start. Begin with some small goals in month one and build on your momentum from there. All the best, Romney
Thank you for this inspirational video. This is my second month on KDP and challenging but your video has encouraged and inspired me.
Fantastic to hear. Well done!
One of these courses on Udemy could also assist if you were interested? You can find them under this profile link:
www.udemy.com/user/romney-nelson/
Awsome video I love that series you just earned a new sub🌸👍
Thank you very much Nora!
You are so right with this advice. I am 4 months in and on exactly the same path. Follow this advice and you will see a difference but you have to be self disciplined.
Very well articulated and thank you very much for you feedback. Yes, keep on persisting, stay true to your values and you will make it!
@@globalselfpublishing This last week I have worked from 8am until 2am the following morning all week! Obviously this level of work cannot continue but my point is work hard at the start and remember it’s a long term goal. I am very mindful of the Amazon and Google algorithms that take time to kick in. I have spreadsheets for every strategy I adopt and do comparisons. However there is no substitute for a great cover and manuscript. Every time I feel like giving up or just lounging around doing nothing, I watch a video like yours to give me a kick. Thank you for your time and effort.
There's an extreme value in making "mistakes" when you're starting to do something new..
Absolutely agree. It’s the challenges and mistakes that make us stronger!
Thank you! This is the most realistic video on KDP I've seen. Thank you for all your hard work and for sharing it with us.
Thank you so much Donna. I really appreciate your feedback. Thank you for watching my channel. Regards, Romney
Thank you for sharing this!
I use Notebook for goals (To do list) so once i turn off my computer before i sleep i can always look back and check my goals.
But i like having a spreadsheet too! looks very organize and clean.
Fantastic! glad it was helpful. Thanks for the feedback.
Hi Romney, thank you for all the great information you provide. I didn't publish through Amazon KDP. I published with a different publisher. Is this information still applicable?
Yes because I wanted to outline that most expect instant results from publishing but it can take 12 months+ to begin to get traction!
Thank you so much for this video - it's so motivating seeing your progress and your helpful tips! I haven't made any sales yet but it's only been a month since I started publishing and thank you for your reassurance as well. I will continue to improve my knowledge and strategy then hopefully my first sale will be just around the corner :)
Spot on Sophie! One of the key reasons I made this video was to reassure people that we are all on unique KDP publishing journeys and it could take 2 days to sell a book or 6 months, but the more you learn the lessons of your mistakes, keep evolving, adapting and improving on niche research, cover design, marketing etc and the sales will come.
Hello Romney.
In this video you mentioned about course where you share with your book launch strategy. How can i join to that course?
Hi Abbosxon, that’s my Publishing Accelerator course. It can be accessed by visiting www.publishing-accelerator.thinkific.com
Thank you
You're welcome
Great video - packed with quality content. Thank you.
Thanks very much Bernadette. Much appreciated. 😀
Thank you for this informative video!
Thank you!
very encouraging thank you for this video..
this is my fifth month also hav'ent had much sales but i'm still learning how to run ads
Keep going Danjuma! We are all on different journeys and as frustrating as it can be, book sales can take time as you learn more from your initial mistakes and improve along your journey. It could be your next book or even a book you create in January 2022 that could be your break-out book but you will never know unless you keep trying and never give up.
Thanks for the video, Sir. Feels good to know that I'm not alone in the eagerness to see sales of my books. I appreciate that I should do more research on my niche and book cover, coupled with the other things. God bless you.
Thank you for your honest video. Are these all organic sales?
Hi Sandra. They are a combination of organic sales and sales initially generated through Ads but then subsequently become organic as your books gain traction.
This is encouraging I'm just over 3 months in and seeing roughly same sales as you so far. Great info as always
Thank you! I felt quite discouraged with the amount of work I was putting in for the lack of results. One of the biggest mindset challenges we have with KDP is that we could be spending all this time creating books with no guarantee they will sell. Remember, launching your book should be considered as the 80% mark, the remaining 20% is your marketing once the book does goes live. Most people fail at that final 20% point and just hope that people will see their book amongst the millions of other books out there.
I am just about to upload my first book as a first time author I have created a self help book that has been ghostwritten for me I also have invested into marketing which will generate leads to my website I am hoping for a good sales return but I know will take time, very helpful video
Thank you and all the very best with your new book. So exciting!
Hello Romney :)
When expanding our books in other markets (UK and CANADA). What is the ideal way to do that?
1) Did you target the amazon ad campaigns on those specific markets separately?
2) Or did you publish your books targeting those markets from the beginning? (because most of the time people keep USA as the primary market)
Thank you.
Hi Damian. I usually keep USA as the primary market unless there was something very specific about the book that made it applicable to that market. EG, If it was a gift book for Mum (UK and Australia) rather then Mom (US and Canada). I then just target my Amazon Ads in that particular market place and the ranking will improve and will be seen by Customers.
@@globalselfpublishing Now I understand. Thank you :)
Awesome video!
Thank you for the free templates!
Thanks Brian, very happy to help. Kind Regards, Romney
Does it cost to expand to diffrent Markets?
KDP doesn't charge you any more but if you want your book to get traction in other markets, you may need to get it translated into the respective language.
Fantastic information! Thank you for your work 😊
Thank you. My pleasure!
so glad i stumbled across. Im about to release my first book next month!
Fantastic and best of luck with your new book!!
Great video! I'm looking forward to your courses!!
Thanks Britney! I plan to start creating these lessons in December and January 2022.
Thank you for your honesty in your videos about your own KDP journey. I have been publishing on KDP since the end of July and only 4 books sold to people i know via my Facebook page. Very similar to your own experience, I also discovered that I haven't been 'niching' down enough. Also that I feel the same disappointment at the lack of sales that you did. I feel i create attractive books (I have a background in design) but also the niche research can seem tricky and daunting. I have a day job but would like to build up a business for the future so will be watching the other videos that you mentioned.
Such great comments and reflections on your journey so far Denise. Yes, there are very similar parallels to my own journey and the first 3-6 months can be super challenging. It’s at this time that you learn the most about your ability to push on when there is a huge amount of doubt building up. The niche research is so important and it takes some time and plenty of mistakes to master. I’m still learning each day too. Thanks again for watching and all the very best. Regards, Romney
Awesome video thanks, making the transition from RUclips narration and writing horror fiction to KDP 😨
Fantastic! Glad the video was helpful. Best of luck with your transition to KDP!
Love your videos, learning so much... A quick question... I looked at pubby website you recommended, can you put low content books on there as well, or do they have to be proper books... thanks again for the great advice and videos
Thanks so much Tony. Good question. Yes, you can place Low Content books on Pubby but they have to be really high quality otherwise you risk poor reviews. I haven’t used Pubby for a few months now but it can be an option to consider for reviews. As always, just ensure it’s suitable for your circumstances and you do your research to make sure it will be a good strategy for your book launch.
I don't want to advertise will I still be successful?
I'm unable to answer that question as there are so many elements at play. Advertising is just one of the many ingredients that you need to consider if you want to become successful with KDP. Think of it this way. How will anyone find your books if you don't market them? The choice is always yours and only you can decide what you would like to do and how successful you wish to be at KDP.
How long did it take you to get over 300 books published on KDP? I have been at this since August and I’ve only got about 13 books completed. Now, most of mine are Preschool workbooks and a few coloring books. Do I need to just stick with no content books??
Hi Tia. It's always difficult, but don't be focussed on the quantity, just the quality. I was guilty of creating too many books in the beginning just so I could build my portfolio and hoped that one stuck and became a best seller! 70% of my earlier books so between 0 - 3 copies and have never sold again. My portfolio has built up over almost 2 years but to give you some perspective, I think I've created approx 30 books in 2021 and have found they collectively sell more than the previous 300! I did learn a lot though from my previous book failures so i kind of needed to make those mistakes to get to where I am now. Hope that helps.
so once someone buys your KDP,, how do they receive it? do they download
it and put it together themselves? Do we send it?? how does that work?
Once you create your book and load it to Amazon KDP, they take care of everything else! This includes the printing of the book, postage and delivery, customer service, processing payments etc. as the creator, you receive a royalty payment with a split share of 60/40 (author gets 60%) after printing costs are factored in. It’s an amazing business model!
could you suggest a good nich to work on it? I really want to get my first sell . plz boss
I’ve created 3 niche videos over the past 6 weeks that would be great ideas to start with so watch those first. I have another niche video coming out very soon so that will also give you some great ideas.
3 months in, and after one book was taken offline by kdp, then ok'd to publish, they terminated my account over the book they said was ok after review.
I have had no joy in trying to reason with them.
I despise KDP now
I’m really sorry to hear that. 🙁
When you talk about marketing in different countries do you mean with amazon ads? And does that mean when creating a campaign on amazon you should put it through UK Or Canada instead of the US?
Yes Jay, that is correct. I started off creating an Amazon Ads account in both those countries and just started slowly (low budget) but found that my $$ went so much further as the competition is so much less and now. I am just so happy that I did diversify to other market places.
@@globalselfpublishing Thank you I will give it a try.
One question : Do you republish the same book again for the second time in other market in the main selling market drop down ? Let's say first published was Us market , second republished same book be UK or Canada market .
When you load your book to KDP, just select ‘ALL Markets’ and your book will be placed and made available in all markets including US, UK and Canada.
@@globalselfpublishing what I meant was incase if we want to target UK as main market as said by you in this video , other market may seem less saturated than the US market. Here, should we reupload same 2nd book and choose UK market ?
No, just continue to choose All Markets and don’t upload a 2nd time as this may be against Amazon Terms of Service. I just run some Amazon Ads to that book in the particular market eg. UK to give it a nice boost and help it’s ranking.
@@globalselfpublishing thank you got it👍
In my experience , sales ads on amazon are bought, so the more you spend per click the more they post your ads! I didn't make but $13.00 and I spent $169 on ads. For 3 months. I feel it's a scam.just my opinion tho!
I completely understand your frustration and as I mentioned in my video, Amazon Ads weren’t the only method I’ve used to promote my books, in fact some of the free methods I’ve used have been better than the Ads!
Once you get reviews and better ranking then stop ads (that's what experts say)- or lower the bid. What some folks don't mention is it's best if you have some platform or followers in an area- say fishing/outdoors then create something you have a ready made market. THe latter is my opinion watching online stuff. Otherwise there is nothing that differentiates you. Also the quality really needs to be good- and avoid saturated area. So there are a lot of areas to look into and check.
Thank you for sharing your experience. But may I ask, do I need to send physical copies of the book that I'll be publishing in KDP? Or will Amazon print it out for me?
amazon is gonna print out for you, but it's gonna take a cut from your price when you get a sale
KDP is a Print on Demand (POD) service. Once you load your book to KDP, they do everything else for you including the printing, distribution, customer service and pay you a royalty every 60 days for any sales after they take their 40% cut of the royalty after all associated costs.
Thank you guys so much.
Hey can you telme what does this mean when there is just 4 results or less for any book means when i put some keywords in search bar the results are this number keyword, but the books their showying are selling very good is it possible to have profit in this way can we go for that
It’s hard to tell without knowing your keywords. If it is a long- tail keyword then it’s possible that a very small amount of results will show. This could also indicate that customers are not searching for these particular books using the keyword you are using. If you have other software like Publisher Rocket, you could also use that as a 2nd reference point to determine if it’s worth going further with that particular keyword.
شكرا لك 🤍