First customers in KDP publishing
Your first customers are readers willing to leave a review. Build the team while the book is still in production: twenty to fifty people (communities you belong to, also-read reviewers with active profiles, friends and family used sparingly), each contacted with a no-strings free-copy ask in writing. Launch week runs the classic sequence: low ebook price, KDP Select free days and countdown deals, the team posting into the traffic, then a raise to full price. The informal threshold for advertising seriously is around fifteen reviews. Never pay, swap, or coerce reviews: Amazon suspends accounts over it. The scripts and the rules are in first readers, first reviews; the arithmetic behind the outreach is the first-ten method.
Pricing in KDP publishing
Price inside the 70 percent band, $2.99 to $12.99 on Amazon.com since July 2026. A $4.99 ebook earns about $3.43 a sale; $13.99 falls to the 35 percent rate and about $4.90; and at $12.99 versus $13.00 the take drops from about $9.03 to about $4.55. Paperbacks pay 50 or 60 percent of list minus printing: a 300-page black-and-white paperback at $9.99 earns $1.39, and one cent of price can cost a dollar of royalty at the 50 percent cliff. Kindle Unlimited pays roughly $0.004 to $0.005 a page. Set every price with the live calculator, never by feel. The royalty lesson owns the numbers; the pricing method owns the floor.
Rules in KDP publishing
The rent on the world's biggest bookstore is compliance. No trademarked terms in titles or keywords, no scraped or copied content, no mimic covers, no review manipulation. KDP capped uploads in 2023 and now allows ten title creations per book format per week, with AI-generated content disclosure required. A content notice typically gives five business days: reply the same day, polite, stating exactly what was wrong and what you changed. Taxes: royalties are self-employment income, a 1099 arrives once they pass ten dollars in a year, Schedule C reporting applies, and self-employment tax at 15.3 percent kicks in past $400 net. Copyright is automatic; the free ISBN works only on Amazon's channel. Taught in the paperwork lesson and how books and accounts die, inside the legal setup framework.
Money in KDP publishing
Amazon pays roughly sixty days after the month the royalties were earned: March's sales land near the end of May. Ad spend is real-time while royalties echo back two months, so your honest year-one ad budget is money you can float for ninety days. First-quarter income is usually near zero: one low-content operator published about $100 of royalties across the first three months; one honest midcase sold 11,000 copies in a year and kept roughly $3,000 after ads and production. A publishing-industry estimate puts median author income at about $12,749 for authors treating it as a business; treat that as a ceiling-shaped survey number, not a promise. What the money looks like and ads on a small budget own the rest, on the money system.
First hire in KDP publishing
The course hires no one: covers, editing, and audiobook narration are commissioned per book, and the employee decision routes to the first-hire module.
One lane, one researched book, ninety days to a written verdict: the full course.