Just a quick one to keep you updated on my journey with Amazon KDP.
For October, I managed to earn $4,205 in royalties. This is lower than I was expecting, last October I earned around $4,600. I believe the increase in Amazon printing costs have played a part in the lower than expected return. These printing increases have forced me to raise the prices of my books, some quite substantially, putting my books out of reach for some shoppers.
However, $4,205 is nothing to complain about, especially as I haven’t created many new books this year and have been focused on other things.
My Ad spend was higher than usual for October at $1,489. This is my 5th time going through an Amazon KDP Quarter 4, and I always aim to increase my ad spend substantially. I do this to push my books higher up the rankings so that they are better placed for when the real Christmas shopping surge happens in November and December.
This may seem like a lot of money to spend on ads but I will remind you that these are profits that have been reinvested and increased gradually over the last 4 years of publishing on Amazon.
You may also think that the ad spend for October is quite high compared to the royalties earned, and not really worth it. But I trust the process each year of increasing my ad spend in order to achieve high royalties in November and December. For context, for December 2022, I earned over $14,000 in royalties.
My best-selling book for October is a mix of Log books, Activity books, Planners, and Journals.
In the last few weeks, I have been focused on creating books and I must say, I have really missed it. Like I mentioned earlier, I haven’t published many books this year. I had to shake a bit of the design rust off in the beginning, but I am now getting into the flow and creating some nice eye-catching designs.
Hopefully, I can share some higher royalties for November to prove that the advertising strategy works.
Finally, I do not share my income reports to show off, but to show what is possible, even with a full-time job. I do not need any congratulations or praise, I just like sharing it with you, so that it helps to motivate or to keep you from quitting.
Thanks for reading, and all the best for Q4.
Ben