No KDP Sales Yet? This Is Why!

First off, I personally have a little over 500 books published on Amazon at the moment and out of that 500, it’s usually not much more than 100 a month that will sell at least one copy.

Out of that 100, will be a much smaller amount selling multiple copies a month and just a fraction that may be selling hundreds per month.

I was quite lucky in that I think I had my very first sales with notebooks when I had around 12 books live, but this was back in 2019 – when the landscape was quite different.

After just a few months self publishing, I had around 200 published already and had already learnt a lot about what worked well for me and what niches I should probably be going into further.

I don’t recommend publishing a lot of books in a short space of time, because you will often be losing out on quality and that’s something I realised fairly quickly.

Of the books I published that actually started selling, I quickly went in an improved a bunch of books once I got the hang of things.

Take your time over your books and put out something you’re really proud of.

I’d also recommend ordering your own books, or getting author copies, just to double check how they are in reality.

In My Opinion – The 80/20 Rule DOES Apply For Most Low Content Publishers!

I have recently seen some people disagree with this and it’s not a hard fast rule, but in general something like 80% of the income you generate from KDP is going to come from only 20% of your entire book catalogue.

For some people, this may be a lot more – but for a majority of people that I’ve talked to that have had success with low content publishing, it’s a common recurring theme.

That’s why having both a certain level of quantity and quality will typically help you to get results in the long term.

There will be books you produce that do not make sales, this is simply a reality that you have to deal with as a low content publisher.

That said, once you have even a small number of books out there, (let’s say 10) and you’re not seeing any sales at all, you may want to ask yourself some questions.

You may also want to get some feedback from an honest friend, or perhaps someone who already has experience with publishing on line.

Time and time again, when people have asked me personally why they are not making sales – the same key factors keep cropping up again and again.

Much of the time, people think it’s down to not having the right keywords, or choosing the wrong niche.

Niche wise, I think this is a common problem – but the keywords are usually not the first issue, in my experience.

There are TWO main reasons I see time and time again and above all else.

THE TWO MAIN REASONS FOR NO OR LOW SALES:

1. Your Cover Design May Not Be Good Enough, Or Too Generic.

In most cases that I’ve seen, this is usually main culprit.

Here are some common things that can be wrong with a cover…

• The fonts don’t work/they look bad.
• The title doesn’t stand out, due to the cover design being too busy.
• The design itself is poor.
• The images/design/title are not centred on the cover.
• The cover may look OK, but is simply too much like many others out there, (a journal with flowers on for example; but nothing else to make the book unique).
• The design doesn’t match the topic, or seems out of place for the target demographic.

Take a look at your book in comparison to others in the niche that ARE selling well.

Does it fit in well, or does it not really match up to the same quality.

The problem is, we can often be a really poor judge of our own work and therefore, we may need to ask someone else to give their own opinion.

Also, we may be judging our book on ones that were published a couple of years ago or longer.

The thing is, several years ago, there wasn’t much competition and so – some relatively poorly designed books ended up selling well and getting tonnes of reviews.

Because those books do have a lot of reviews, many still continue to sell today. But that means that these days, your design needs to be BETTER than what is already there.

Especially if many of the top books in the niche you’re targeting have many reviews.

2. The Niche You’ve Chosen Is Way Too Competitive.

When you’re just starting out, you may want to go for the more narrow niches initially and get those first sales.

So often, I see people going into a super broad niche and then also creating a generic cover that doesn’t stand out at all and is either bad quality, or just not original.

Which book do you think a prospective customer will choose.…

A brand new book, with zero reviews and an inferior cover….

Or another book whose cover may only be slightly better, but which has several hundred reviews?

If you’re worried about going too narrow niche wise, another option can be to combine more than one niche together.

I’ve done this many times.

For example; the gratitude journal niche is incredibly oversaturated. But there are still gaps in the market if you want to combine that general idea with other niches as well.

You want to have a clear idea of who your customer is as a person.

What is their age, what is their occupation, what styles to they like, what sort of music do they like, what are their hobbies and interests? Do they have any problems, (for example; do they need help with time management, or goal setting?).

Build up a full picture in your mind of your ideal customer and then create something just for them. Do that with multiple characters and you’re able to create completely unique books within the same niche – but with original features.