KDP Income Report December 2022

So, that’s it!!! Q4 2022 is done and it’s time again for another KDP income report.

I still can’t quite believe we are in 2023 and yet, when I look back – I did SO much in 2022. It just feels like it’s flown by at the same time.

In any case, if you’d like to compare how I did last December 2021, you can check out that blog post and video here.

This Q4 turned out to be great and it seems that many other people have also experienced a great Q4….. December in particular.

So, December turned out to be my best month so far too.

Although, I know that some people often get 50-60% higher sales even than in November and significantly higher than a regular month and that’s not what has happened to me in December so far, since I started KDP.

December has always been the highest month of the year for me, but most of my books aren’t really gift related specifically and I also don’t have many activity books or colouring books so, I tend to not have such a massive peak in December – in comparison to some.

As for the type of books I’m selling — it’s mainly a mix of undated planners, journals and log books and some notebooks.

What Was Different About This December?

This month, my usual best seller became my second best seller and was taken over by a book that made $200 last December – and made $2000 this December.

This was a book I did create to rival the best seller but it didn’t seem to impact my best sellers sales at all.

Last year that book made nearly $2000 and this year it almost made that again.

I think this highlights how it’s a good idea to create more than one book in a niche.

Especially when each book is tagetting a different subset in the same niche.

So, for example; this newer book was much more likely to be purchased for girls and the original book was probably more appealing to boys.

Therefore, while both books target the same niche in general – the buyers are different.

If you don’t try and appeal to different buyers in your successful niches then, you’re definitely going to be leaving money on the table.

There were a couple of other books that did better this year, rather than last year.

One was a book that I started advertising in Canada and took off.

Another one took off in the US and somewhat in Australia over Q4 and sold nearly 400 copies in December.

Unfortunately, this book had a really small royalty in Australia, so I’m going to need to raise the price a little on that one I think.

I really am not sure how this happened either. The book had always sold fairly frequently but it was one that seemed to really ramp up in sales in the second half of this year.

KDP INCOME REPORT – December 2022:

I was really pleased to reach over $10,000 in December. This is the first time I’ve ever reached over $10,000 in a month online and so, this is a big milestone for me.

The strange thing was, most of the days were really similar!!!

There were so many days around the $400 mark and unlike previous years, no particular days that really stood out from the rest.

In previous years, I would tend to have one day before Christmas were I had a spike in sales. This year, it was just very similar throughout the entire month!!

December 2021 Income By Comparison:

By comparison, you can see that I made around $2000 more this December.

But last December had far more lower days and the odd peak. However, both the highest and lowest days were very similar.

December 2022 AD Spend:

I’m not going to put the Ad spend graphics here because you can see all the details in the video version of the income report if you’d like to.

However, surprisingly, I spent LESS on Ads in December, than I did in November!!

However, it was very similar overall.

Ads went really well. Especially in Canada and I even had a book take off there in Canada and was able to advertise a book in an extremely oversaturated niche.

In total I spent around $654 on Ads and that is also including the 20% VAT that I pay.

If you’re interested in the tools I use – not just for KDP – but for everything online, then you can find that info in my tools section of this blog.

It was great…. BUT … Could it have been even better?

This was my best month so far and I’m really grateful for that.

I’m also really happy to make over $10,000 in a month because that has been a goal of mine for a long while.

So, while I’m really pleased with this result – I think it’s also important to consider what could have improved this.

• I could have made more books – and more books specifically for Q4.

A lot of my books aren’t gift related and I’ve wanted to create more books that could be, but in the end 2022 wasn’t that productive as far as MAKING new books.

I definitely would like to up the amount of books I’m creating in 2023.

• I could have ran more Ads.

I had some great campaigns running this December – but I probably could have experimented with more in time for Q4.

• I could have created more A+ Content.

Most of my books still do not have A+ content and while these are all books that have the look inside feature still… There will still be other competitors that DO have A+ content and I’m sure they are going to have the edge over the ones that don’t.

Do make sure that you create A+ content for all your low content books going forward because, the look inside feature will not be available for new low content books..

• I could have created more books in hardcover.

I could have created a hardcover option for many of my books, but I just haven’t got around to it and that’s the thing… I really have to make time and prioritise some of these tasks, or else they just end up being those tasks on the bottom of a to-do list that never actually gets done.

I find I typically do this quite a lot with tasks I don’t want to do. Creating hardcovers is quite a dull task for books that are already created and so, I think I’ve partially put it off for that reason.

• I could have created some activity books.

I spent 2022 intending to create some activity books…. But didn’t get around to it… They could have been some decent sellers over Q4.

• I could have created some medium/higher content kids books.

I’ve wanted to create some kids story/picture books for a long time now and it had been on my list for the whole of 2022.

Again, these could have made some good sales over Q4.

I Did Learn Some Valuable Lessons!

I definitely learnt plenty this Q4 that I can take with me into 2023 and also into the next Q4.

However, I’m not going to talk about it in THIS post, because I plan to dedicate a whole post to some lessons that I learned during the Q4 months.

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