It hasn’t quite been a full year since I started my KDP journey on this blog but I thought I’d do a 2024 year in review anyways. I think 9 months is enough time to get a good overview of how things are going. Below you can see what I made each month in 2024, what went right, what went wrong, what I’m going to fix in 2025 and my 2025 KDP goals.
How Much Did I Make in 2024?
In January 2024, I believe I had 1 book published and sold 2 units. By my first official income report in April, I had 7 books in my bookshelf and sold 18 units for a total of $36.64. I ended the year with 33 books published. My highest earning month was December where I had 192 sales for a total of $379.96. As far as the type of books sold, coloring books was my biggest seller with 342 sales, log books came in 2nd with 59 sales, scrapbook paper pads came in 3rd with 10 sales and journals came in 4th with 6 sales. I ended the year with a total of 421 sales and a profit of $841.76.
I also had advertising costs. I spent $109.87 on ads in 2024. I can’t figure out how to see just last year’s stats on the advertising dashboard but I have a lifetime ACOS of 19.20% which I think is pretty good. I wish I could see just the 2024 ACOS but the dashboard only lets me look back two months, year to date and then lifetime. There’s no option to select last year. Here’s a chart of my lifetime advertising stats:
2024 KDP Income: $731.89
What Went Right In 2024
- I more than doubled the amount of books in my bookshelf from the start of the year.
- My income increased every single month, even in months where I didn’t get anything published.
- I was able to create templates for coloring books and scrapbooks. I can easily get a book ready to be published in a day.
- I was able to make A+ content for some of my coloring books. I’m not sure if it is helping though. I need to add A+ content to other books to see if increases sales to those books.
- Creating goals every month is helpful even if I don’t complete all the goals.
- My advertising costs were low and my ACOS was good most months.
What Went Wrong In 2024
- Journals and logbooks just don’t sell and aren’t worth the time and effort to make. I published 3 journals in 2024 and only 1 sold. As far as logbooks go, I have 3 log books that took a lot of time to make. One sells pretty regularly, one sells once a month more or less and a third tracker has never sold. It was a pregnancy tracker that was very detailed. It was over 100 pages and each page was unique. It took me over a month to design it and publish it. I thought it would be super popular but it barely gets any views. I’m guessing that the lack of an inside preview as well as no A+ content makes people not want to buy it. Still, I’ve come to the conclusion that I should stick to coloring books, scrapbook paper pads and puzzle books. They are faster to make and sell better.
- The review times for publishing books is discouraging. I would like to publish books regularly but I’m afraid to publish books too quickly. I don’t want to get my account banned. Currently, you can only publish 3 books a day. However, it takes at least 72 hours in review before the books are actually published. If I have 3 books in review, I don’t think I can published another book until the first 3 are out of review. This always slows me down and discourages me from publishing more books. I need a better process to keep up with regularly publishing books. Does that make sense?
- I didn’t advertise outside of the US. I think I could have gotten more sales if I advertised internationally. Speaking of which, I should also start publishing books for international audiences such as coloring books in Spanish or German.
- I took too long to start adding A+ content to my books. Some of my books, particularly my logbooks, would sell better if people could see what’s inside them. I started adding A+ content at the end of the year but I should have done it as soon as I got those books published.
Looking Ahead to 2025
In my very first income report in April 2024, I said that my goal with KDP is $3,000 a month and 300 books published. That is still my goal. Can I accomplish it in 2025? I don’t know but I’m going to try. The first thing I need to do is come up with a routine to make sure I’m regularly publishing books. If I publish a book a day, I could easily get to my goal of 300 books by the end of the year. I think that is an achievable goal if I put in the effort. I also want to be publishing A+ content for each book which will take a lot of time on top of publishing books so I need to account for that. Finally, I would like to start advertising internationally as well as start publishing books for international audiences.
While this next goal isn’t a KDP thing, it is related. I would like to find other platforms to sell my books on. I don’t think any platform can beat KDP in terms of sales, traffic and profits but I want to have a backup in case something happens to my KDP account. I would hate to put all this work into designing these books, only for Amazon to ban my account. Having a backup just makes sense.
2025 Goals
- Publish 267 books for a total of 300 books in my bookshelf – Starting in March, I plan on publishing a book a day. That should easily get me to 267 books published by the end of the year.
- Add A+ content to every book in my bookshelf
- Start advertising internationally
- Publish 25 books in Spanish, 25 books in French, and 25 books in German
- Find another book seller & start selling books through them
Overall, I am extremely pleased with how 2024 went and I can’t wait to see what 2025 will bring. I’m sure I will reach all my goals in 2025 if I put in 100% effort. I’m ready to get this party started. Let’s go!
