#005 - How Much Can You Earn With Amazon KDP in 2026? [Realistically]

Everybody has a different starting situation when they begin to publish books on Amazon KDP. That's why it's complicated to say how much realistically is “normal” to earn with self-publishing. Tim and I (Andrey) are extreme examples. Our situations are not normal, so we can speak from our perspective, but never be fully objective. Nevertheless, we know at least 100 publishers from all around the world, spoke with them, and have, in our opinion, a good feeling about what is possible with KDP. That's why we thought this might be an interesting video for you all. Enjoy.

 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to this new episode. Today we will talk about how much publishers on Amazon KTP actually earn. My name is Andre Bernhard. I've earned over half a million in the last two years, and that's a huge number, a number that we can of course always mention in these videos as something that shows that we know what we're doing, that we're experts or whatever. But now we want to talk about the actual numbers because most publishers earn way less than what we or other people proclaim on YouTube. And I think it's an important topic to give some perspective what's actually real and what are really big numbers you hear on YouTube and how to get them into the right context. Today with me is again Tim.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Nice to be here. Maybe to also mention my numbers as always. We're also gonna get a little bit into the difference from gross royalties, net profits, because um I'm heavily scaling at the moment, and that reflects in my net profits for some months. However, some months are also strong net profit-wise. Yeah, and background.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, what's exactly what's your background when you started with KDP? Because I had before a marketing agency for three years. I know how social media works, how Facebook ads work, how how marketing copy works, how you create a product and position it. So I had all this background, and of course, when I start with KDP, I can use everything I learned before that to have like a head start. And at the same time, I started full time, that's also an advantage. Most people can't do that. They start with one or two hours a day, some maybe three to four hours a day, and then more on the weekends, maybe, but they don't have too much time, so it's a different kind of getting started than rehead.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Yeah, I think for me it's very similar. I came from a design and marketing background. Also had experience with ads. I had a lot of experience with design, also when it comes to AI design, that was a big factor in saving cost and also production speed, etc. Yeah, I think this background factor was super important for us. And there are also a lot of other people who I think for us, we also came in with a business mindset. We want to make this a business and we are here to earn money. Of course, we also are here to make the reader happy. That's I think the most important part when you want to come in to make money. But there are a lot of people just coming into publishing without that mindset and don't know what's necessary for that, maybe. They just see it primarily as a thing they do for fun or like a side hustle between next to their main business, and there's nothing wrong with that. So but I think that mindset also was a big part in our journey and the speed of our journeys.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

A second income, they want to earn $500 to maybe one, two thousand dollars. That's why the average numbers of self-publishers are also not that high because they publish one or two books, and that's then it. A lot of self-publishers also do it as a hobby because they always wanted to write a book and then they publish it and then make a little bit of money and no money at all. So all of these factors drive down the average what publishers earn. But a lot of publishers want to treat it as a business and start it as a make money opportunity. And there are also multiple camps. There is one camp that only is focused on the money, jump on hype trains and want to make a quick buck, then the book is successful for half a year and makes a lot and then it falls down. Or it doesn't even make something and they just make shit book, they think they can make a little bit of money, but it didn't work at all because they didn't pay attention to how it's done. So that's like the money only, I don't care at all about the reader. And I think the ideal path is when you know that you're a business, you are aiming to make money, but also with an ethical background and the focus on the reader and the satisfaction of the reader.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I think what's also really important is the long-term vision and the long-term mindset for KDP. And I think a lot of those people who come in with the with the business mindset and see the opportunity, they might lack the willpower, the consistency to really continue doing it. I know from your journey, like the first four months or so, were almost zero profits or longer.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

In general, KDP is a slow business. Yeah. If you have an agency and you sell a service, you get one client, he pays you $2,000 and you earn $2,000. KDP doesn't work like that. KDP put in a lot of work in the beginning, and maybe after half a year, a year, sometimes three years, you put only in work, you get nothing in return, but then you have these books online that potentially can sell for five to ten or even more years. And that's the beauty of KDP, that it's long term as passive as a real business can get. Of course, it's not fully passive into manage ads and stuff, but it's still it feels like a cheat code because all the income I now earn from my publishing, I don't work a lot for that. So maybe work one or two hours a week to sustain these books that are now producing tens of thousands of dollars every month for me. And that's only possible because you put in the work in the beginning. And for some people it's faster, for us, it was really fast. For me, the first six months I earned no profit at all. So I only put in, but I don't put in too much. I put in $200 in the first month, then I think three, four hundred again, the same. It was always below a thousand dollars for the first half a year each month. It's a lot of money for a lot of people, and you don't need to put in that much. But some people like you put in way more in the beginning and some put in less, like a hundred dollars a month, and then they slowly scale, but they need to reinvest everything when if they want to scale. And then it could take three years, but after these three years, you're on a very unique and privileged point. But to get to this point, most people, as you said, don't have the consistency to reach that.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Also takes some balls, I would say. It needs a lot of confidence to stay in the in the game. When it comes to my strategy, the heavy scaling, it's also important to differentiate between uh cross royalties, which is the number most people show on social media, etc., and the actual net profit. I'm always uh transparent about that. I scaled my gross royalties really fast to 50 this month, which is Easter month, will be 60k. Last month was also 60k in February. But it's important to mention that I had a 60k gross month. But since I was launching new books and uh getting books positioned for Easter in February, I ended the month with only I think it was 2k, around 2k net profits, which is crazy. You have to think I spent almost 60k in ads, like 57k in ads this month, made around 60k, but I get the 60k two months later. Yeah, and that is not possible for most people, or if it's possible, it takes a lot of confidence to go this approach. I have the confidence to go this approach. I went into this heavy heavy scaling strategy very early. I have all the connections, I have the knowledge, I can just ask anybody. I have Gerald managing my ads, so that's uh confidence. I think Gerald is more is also one of the persons who invented these heavy launch ad strategies for KDP publishers. I think the whole DPE network, without the DPE network and my friends, I'm proud to call them my friends now, um, I think I wouldn't be there at all. This makes it very unique, but I think it's still very inspiring. I would think so. Yeah, I have to be transparent about the net and cross. But now, for example, in the Easter month, I will end the month with around 20k net. I have like a 33% profit margin around there, which is pretty acceptable, I would say. Like 20k net after 10 months is a good number. Also, my plan is to keep this up until the end of Q4, or we will see maybe we will have a little shift and shift more to profit. Scale it up and take profits after it has reached a big number. But that's not a must-do the strategy. Andre, for example, the best example to uh to verify that this is not a must-do approach.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

What you need is some kind of ad spend to get traction to the books. Everybody needs to start investing into Amazon ads. I think that's the most important thing. If you start KDP and you don't do ads at all, that's the biggest lost potential that people have. So even if you only have $50 a month to invest, put them towards the Amazon ads. Do everything yourself, create the books yourself, the covers yourself, but invest the money you have into ads because you need that to get data, to get traction, because else the algorithm will never show you to anyone. Unfortunately, that's how it is, you need to spend a little bit of money to get money back. But you don't need to spend thousands of dollars. A lot of people are complaining and saying, for example, if they see your interviews and your examples, they think, okay, I need so much money, you can't start with KDP. No, you can start with KDP with a few dollars. You just need to have the balls, as you put it, to invest that money, like 50, 100, 200 a day to build traction. Then it slowly gets more and more, just takes longer. But I did in my year, as I said, I had not a lot of money at all, I just had a lot of time, and I worked the first six months full-time on KDP immediately. Then all my savings I saved over my entire life were gone. I had zero savings, put all into KDP step by step, and it wasn't a lot, it wasn't a lot of money that I had saved, and I also needed to live from my savings because I did KDP full-time. So it was my living and fixed cost expenses and the money I put into KDP to grow that, and that was then gone after half a year. And then I took like a holiday job for three months, got paid there, and invested all that money into the books I have published in that six months where I worked full-time on KDP. So I produced six months of books, then I had a full-time job again for three months, and all the money I earned there that I didn't need to spend in my living expenses, I put fully into ads for the books I produced. And then I scaled from starting my full-time job, I was at 1700 gross, and then over these three months it jumped to 3,000, 5,000, and 8,000. And I didn't publish a book there. I only started more Amazon ads and scaled the books I already produced. That was because I was willing to go into another job. It was a really labor-heavy job for three months, but I earned the money there and reinvested it. And I think most people are also not willing to have maybe an additional job to earn more money to put it into KDP.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

That's a very, very inspiring story. I think it shows that consistency will be worth it, and even putting in the extra effort to make some money outside of KDP. Yeah. I think that is a very inspiring approach. Of course, it can be a little bit demotivating that Amazon ads or this money to invest into ads is necessary more or less, in different amounts, I would say. But I think that's just part of every business. Every business needs some kind of marketing, bringing yourself to the eyes of the customer.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Most businesses need way more investment than KDP. These were now all the reasons why people struggle and why the average publisher doesn't earn too much and how we think about that topic. We looked it up, the actual numbers, what a self-publisher, especially on KDP, earns, aren't online, so they don't publicly show these numbers. So we can't really answer the question of this podcast how much are people really earning. But on average, it's way less than you normally hear on YouTube. It's maybe a few hundred dollars a month. The main reason the average is so low is that also most people who start it are, as I said, just hobby people. They don't also take it that serious, they just aim to have a little bit of side income, another full income. More people than I think the viewers or the listeners expect that really treat it as a business have also really successful numbers. We have so many, we have insights in multiple coachings and communities. We're also members of DPE, for example, it's also a community of advanced health publishers, and all the people really take it serious that we saw, they at least gain some traction. Some just take longer because their circumstances are different, they have less time to invest, less money to invest, but still, when they just do it after three years, they are really far. Being consistent changes a lot, and as you put in the in the beginning, just the mindset is really important. Sounds like motivational speech, uh blah blah, but it's it's really important and really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

The mastermind events we host, I was also uh very surprised. There are also some other people who are also on a very fast-scaling trip, and they also don't put huge investments into Amazon ads. Another case study of a person I met that is also a DPE member that also showed like the importance of running good ads. He has been publishing for a year or so. He had a lot of books online, but the ads part wasn't his specialty. And then Gerald started managing his ads, Gerald and his team, and it wasn't a big increase in ad spend or that they put much amount of money into the ads, but it was just optimizing ads and creating new types of ads that got him from like 2k gross or something. I'm not 100% certain on what the initial number was, but it was from like 2 to 3k gross to 10, 15 or above gross in a very short time frame. Just the thought that popped into my head. I think what is common across all is that consistency pays off and staying in the game pays off.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Education part. Alone if they watch a podcast like this or the YouTube videos, there are so many great KDP YouTubers. Search KDP, Amazon KDP on YouTube, and you find so many people. And just educating yourself is really important. You don't necessarily need a big coaching program or community. If you are advanced, I think it makes sense, something like DPE. If you are already doing a few thousand dollars a month or tens of thousands of dollars a month, then joining DPE makes sense. But as a beginner, I think nowadays you don't necessarily need the coaching. You can start yourself with YouTube videos, make experience, publish the first books, that's the most important thing. Just getting books out and then just educating yourself, um, reflecting on the failures and mistakes you're doing, and then iterating and getting better.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I think we summed it up pretty well. Let us maybe know what is your approach like, how is your journey going? Um, maybe we can also have one episode in the future where we give specific advice based on your comments. So feel free to ask us also questions or opinions where you state your current situation and want advice basically. Otherwise, feel free to save this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever you prefer. Also, we are very happy about subscriptions on this YouTube channel if you watch it on YouTube. Find the recommended videos.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Sorry for doing the promo machine at the end, but uh if you have multiple podcast episodes, just click on our channel or click on one of the videos that maybe pop up here around us, and then we would be happy to uh welcome you into the next episode. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

See you guys next time.