Why Many New Authors on Amazon KDP Struggle to Make Sales (And How to Succeed)

Publishing your first ebook on Amazon KDP is exciting. You’ve spent hours researching, writing, and designing. You hit “publish” and imagine the sales rolling in. But for many new authors, that excitement quickly turns into frustration.

I know this feeling because I’ve been there. For six long months, I didn’t make a single sale. I started questioning everything: “Is Amazon KDP even worth it? Am I doing something wrong?”

It wasn’t until I stepped back to analyze my approach that I discovered the hard truth: writing a good ebook isn’t enough anymore. To succeed, you need to play by Amazon’s rules—and those rules start with keywords.

Here’s what I learned: It’s not about writing what you love. It’s about writing what readers are searching for.

Why Most New Authors Fail on Amazon KDP

Let me ask you something:

• Did you choose your ebook topic because you love it?
• Did you write about something you’re passionate about, assuming people would buy it?
  If you answered yes, that’s probably the root of the problem.

Most new authors skip keyword research and write about topics they think will sell. But Amazon doesn’t work that way anymore. With millions of ebooks on the platform, your book needs to…