Companion to the lessons "What the money actually looks like" and "Amazon ads on a small budget"
The 60-day lag, always in view: royalties are paid monthly, roughly sixty days after the month earned. March's sales arrive near the end of May; April's arrive in June. Ad spend is real-time while royalties lag, so budget for a ninety-day float. Record each month twice: once when earned, once when paid.
1. Per-Title Royalties and Page Reads (month earned: )
Title
Units sold
Royalty per sale
Sales royalty
KU pages read
Page-read total
Month total
Deposit lands (earnings month + 2)
Total
KU reference: pages pay roughly $0.004–$0.005 each (2025 monthly rates), max 3,000 pages counted per customer per title. A 300-page full read earns about $1.20 to $1.50.
2. Ad Spend by Campaign (same month)
Campaign (auto / manual keyword / manual product)
Daily budget
Spend
Ad sales
ACOS
Judgment
Total
3. Month-to-Date ACOS vs Break-Even
Line
Value
Rule
Break-even ACOS (royalty ÷ list price)
Worked example from the course: $5.56 royalty on $12.97 = about 43%
Month-to-date actual ACOS (spend ÷ ad sales)
Under break-even: ads add profit. Over: buying revenue at a loss
Verdict for the month
Winner keyword: at least 2 sales at ACOS under break-even; move to its own campaign with raised budget, pause losers
Patience rules: leave new campaigns untouched one to two weeks, roughly $50 of spend before judging. Starter structure: auto plus manual keyword plus manual product, floor bids in the twenty-to-forty-cent range, daily budgets in the fifteen-to-thirty-dollar range operators teach. First-month ad budget of $100 to $300 is tuition money; most of it will not come back.