12 min read By Rick Wong  Updated Mar 30, 2026

Are you tired of shrinking FBA margins, constant supply chain headaches, and hefty storage fees? If you are an Amazon seller navigating the 2026 eCommerce landscape, you already possess the keyword research and PPC skills required to dominate a completely different, zero-inventory marketplace: Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

While many view KDP simply as a creative outlet for aspiring novelists, treating it like a scalable digital product business unlocks a highly profitable, recurring revenue stream. Let’s strip away the fluff and break down the exact math, royalty structures, and realistic earning potential of Amazon KDP for modern sellers.

What is Amazon KDP?

KDP refers to Kindle Direct Publishing. Amazon launched KDP in 2007 and with it they took on a massive undertaking. Self-publishing has existed since the beginning of the written word. That part is nothing new.

Amazon put the power of publishing into the hands of the authors themselves, thereby allowing writers to explore how much can they earn from Kindle Direct Publishing. Amazon KDP is a powerful platform where DIY authors can publish eBook and print books. It offers a level playing field for aspiring wordsmiths and you can see your own books alongside authors of renown.

In the same year, Amazon was about to start a new trend all by itself. The first Amazon Kindle hit the market in 2007 and revolutionized the eBook, leading to questions about how much can you earn from Amazon KDP.

Again, eReaders weren’t new. However, Amazon put a great deal of effort into acquiring a vast library of free eBooks, so when the first Kindle sold in November of 2007, readers could acquire a lot of books and see the potential of a library in their pocket.

That first round of Kindles sold out within hours of its launch. The “iPod of reading” was a hit, making many wonder how much they can make from Amazon KDP.

That’s twice Amazon reinvented the wheel in 2007.

The traditional publishing landscape was like a fortress and the Big 5 publishers were the gatekeepers. Would-be authors would have to navigate a world of literary agents, query letters, and rampant rejection just to entertain a dream.

Now, anyone anywhere can publish a book and distribute it around the world with Amazon KDP and it’s completely free to use.

KDP and the Amazon Kindle created a perfect storm for early publishers on that platform.

So, is there still any money to be made in Kindle publishing and if so, how much? These are the questions we hope to answer.

Exploring the Potential of Amazon KDP for Sellers

If you are accustomed to the traditional Amazon FBA model, KDP might initially seem like a completely different world. However, the underlying mechanics (keyword optimization, conversion rate tracking, and PPC advertising) are exactly the same. KDP simply offers a different, highly scalable vehicle for those skills.

We wouldn’t even consider this if we had to navigate the traditional publishing route of querying agents and facing rampant rejection. Thanks to Amazon KDP, you take matters into your own hands. You can brainstorm an idea, conduct keyword research for a proof of concept, publish the content professionally, and instantly sell it on one of the biggest eCommerce sites in the world.

Why Should Amazon Sellers Care?

As an established seller, you shouldn’t just look at KDP as a hobby. It is a massive opportunity to build an inventory-free revenue engine. If you want to scale your current operations, KDP offers distinct strategic advantages:

• Launching Zero-Inventory Products: Forget about freight forwarders, customs delays, and Amazon storage limits. KDP is an entirely print-on-demand and digital ecosystem. You create the asset once, and Amazon handles the hosting, printing, and delivery, leaving you with pure profit margins and zero physical overhead.
• Building a Brand Moat: Smart sellers use KDP to dominate their niche. If you sell physical kitchen accessories via FBA, publishing a highly-rated KDP cookbook establishes you as an absolute authority in your category, building immediate trust with your target demographic.
• Cross-Selling and Lead Generation: A published book is one of the most powerful marketing tools available. You can use your KDP books to drive high-intent traffic directly to your physical FBA listings, or include QR codes inside your paperbacks to capture reader emails and build an off-Amazon audience.
• Diversifying Your Revenue Streams: Relying solely on physical goods leaves your business vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. Adding digital royalties and Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) payouts to your monthly bottom line creates a diversified, highly resilient business model.
• Generating Evergreen Royalties: Unlike physical products that eventually run out of stock and lose their organic BSR (Best Sellers Rank), a well-optimized digital book never goes out of stock. Once it ranks, it can generate consistent, passive royalties for years with minimal maintenance.

The Power of Print-on-Demand and Global Reach

Let’s put this into a real-world perspective. Say two of the products you sell most via FBA are physical coloring books and journals. Instead of sourcing these items from overseas, dealing with minimum order quantities (MOQs), and paying FBA storage fees, you can migrate these products to KDP. You create the digital asset once, and Amazon handles the printing on-demand whenever a customer orders. You only pay for printing when a sale is made, earning royalties up to 70%.

Furthermore, Amazon’s marketplace spans multiple international websites. Your books can reach readers in the UK or Australia while you’re sipping coffee in New York. Whether you are publishing low-content print books, traditional text eBooks, or expanding into audiobooks, your KDP catalog can be listed alongside bestsellers while millions of global customers peruse Amazon’s digital shelves.

The Complete Amazon KDP Royalty Structure Explained (2026 Update)

To truly understand your earning potential on Amazon KDP, you need to master the math behind the platform’s royalty structures. Amazon doesn’t just hand you a flat percentage of every sale; your margins are determined by the format of your book, the file size, and the price point you choose.

As the table shows, your eBook strategy dictates your royalty tier. While the 70% option is highly lucrative, pricing a short promotional novella at $0.99 or a comprehensive guide at $14.99 automatically bumps you down to the 35% tier. You must also watch out for the 70% tier’s hidden “delivery fee” (if you publish heavily illustrated, large-file eBooks, Amazon charges a few cents per megabyte, which quickly eats into your margins).

Print royalties are slightly more complex due to physical production costs. To see how the tiered math works in the real world, imagine you sell a 300-page black-and-white paperback for $14.99 (which qualifies for the 60% tier). Amazon calculates your 60% royalty ($8.99) and then subtracts the physical printing cost (roughly $4.45). This leaves you with a net profit of $4.54 per copy. Grasping this specific formula is the difference between pricing a book for profit and accidentally selling it at a loss.

Understanding Kindle Unlimited and KENP Payouts: The Secret to Recurring Revenue

If you only look at direct book sales, you are missing out on one of the most lucrative revenue streams available to self-published authors: KDP Select and the Kindle Unlimited (KU) program. When you enroll your digital book in KDP Select, you grant Amazon exclusive distribution rights for your eBook. In exchange, your book becomes available to millions of Kindle Unlimited subscribers who can read your work for free.

But “free” to the reader doesn’t mean free to you. Amazon compensates KDP Select authors through the KDP Global Fund, a massive pool of money that is distributed based on Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) read. Every time a subscriber reads a page of your book, you earn a fraction of a cent. While the exact payout fluctuates monthly based on the size of the fund and total global readership, it generally hovers around $0.004 per page.

This means if a reader finishes your 300-page thriller on Kindle Unlimited, you earn roughly $1.20. While that might sound small compared to a direct sale, the frictionless nature of Kindle Unlimited means readers are far more likely to take a chance on an unknown author. Many top-earning publishers find that up to 70% of their monthly income is generated entirely through KENP page reads. It transforms publishing from a pure sales game into a high-volume consumption model.

Gross Revenue vs. Net Profit: The Hidden Costs of Self-Publishing

Seeing top authors boast about making $10,000 a month on Amazon KDP is inspiring, but it’s crucial to separate gross revenue from net profit. Publishing a book that actually sells requires treating your catalog like a business, which means making upfront investments and managing ongoing operational costs.

First, there are the production costs. In a hyper-competitive marketplace, readers judge books by their covers. A professional, genre-specific cover design can cost anywhere from $100 to $500. Additionally, skipping professional editing is the fastest way to accumulate negative reviews that will kill your book’s algorithmic momentum. Depending on word count, developmental and copy editing can run an author several hundred to a few thousand dollars.

Then comes the ongoing cost of customer acquisition: Amazon Ads (PPC). Organic reach on Amazon is fantastic, but scaling your earnings almost always requires running sponsored product campaigns. If you make $4.00 in royalties per book sale, but it costs you $2.50 in ad clicks to acquire that customer, your actual net profit is $1.50. High-earning publishers meticulously track their Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS) to ensure their marketing spend isn’t cannibalizing their royalties. When calculating your earning potential, always budget for these variables; they are the investments that separate hobbyists from professionals making a full-time living.

Understanding Payouts and Taxes

We touched a bit on royalties and how they work previously. Now it’s time to figure out how that results in deposits into your bank account.

Amazon KDP has its own reporting system and it’s not more user-friendly than your seller dashboard. You can review sales, estimated royalties and more using that system.

KDP will also send you some cryptic emails about “Remittance Advice”, but they never include amounts. It’s just and indicator that you’ve sold books for the month.

The Payout Process

When you set up your Amazon KDP account, you will input your bank account information at that time. Bank transfers (EFT) or check are the only methods of payment depending upon your location.

Payments happen like clockwork – every month, around 60 days after the end of the month in which the sales occurred, contributing to your Amazon KDP revenue. So, for sales in January, you’ll see those royalties hit your bank account in March.

Tax Information

As an Amazon seller, you’re already familiar with how taxes work. You’ll be required to fill out or submit a W9 form when you set up your account.

Amazon will issue you a 1099 at the end of each year and you’ll be responsible for paying your own income tax on your Amazon KDP income.

The KDP Playbook: 5 Steps to Maximize Your Profits and Visibility

Generating KDP earnings sounds interesting, but executing a profitable launch requires a distinct set of skills. Just like launching a physical FBA product, you need to optimize your listings for the Amazon A9 search algorithm while actively driving high-converting traffic. Here is the exact five-step playbook to maximize your discoverability and sales.

1. Niche Selection and Competitor Research

To see if your book idea is profitable, your research must start on Amazon itself. Avoid broadly saturated markets. For example, romance is fiercely competitive; to succeed, you must niche down into sub-genres like paranormal romance or historical romance. Check the Best Sellers Rank (BSR) of top competitors in your target categories and download a few of their books. Monitoring these trends ensures you are riding the waves of established reader interest rather than guessing what the market wants.

2. Quality Standards and AI Transparency

You can no longer jump the fence and churn out mediocre books. In recent years, KDP has been flooded with low-effort, AI-generated content. In response, Amazon has implemented strict quality safeguards and mandatory AI-disclosure policies. Any attempt at a “churn and burn” strategy using unedited, bulk-generated text will likely result in immediate account suspension. Today, success requires professional editing, formatting, and a commitment to high-quality, human-led content. If you aren’t willing to invest in a premium publication, a low-quality book will simply be a waste of your time and ad spend.

3. Professional Cover Design and Strategic Pricing

People will judge your book by its cover. Just like your main product images for FBA, your book cover is your primary click-through mechanism. If an amateur cover fails to earn the click, your masterful writing will never be seen.

Once you earn the click, your pricing must close the deal. Pricing is a delicate balance on KDP. If you set your price too low, it implies low quality. At the same time, you must strictly adhere to the royalty tiers: to command the 70% eBook royalty, you must price between $2.99 and $9.99. Price competitively based on a deep analysis of your specific sub-genre’s averages.

4. Amazon SEO, Metadata, and Categories

As a seller, you already know that Amazon is primarily a search engine. Metadata is just a fancy term for the backend data that feeds this engine: your title, subtitle, author name, book description, and backend keywords.

You also must choose your categories carefully. Landing in the wrong category to “game the system” can result in the suspension of your KDP account. You can choose up to 3 categories, and they must be highly specific. If you write fantasy romance, categorize it precisely under “Paranormal Romance” rather than broad “Fiction.” This helps your book stand out in a sea of titles and connects you with readers who crave exactly what you’re offering.

5. Marketing, External Traffic, and Building a Community

In 2026, relying solely on Amazon’s internal search is leaving money on the table. Amazon’s algorithm heavily rewards listings that drive external traffic to the platform. Platforms like TikTok (specifically the #BookTok community) have become the most powerful free marketing engines for self-published authors.

Create dedicated author profiles on TikTok and Instagram to share visual hooks, behind-the-scenes writing processes, and aesthetic character teasers. Engaging with these highly active reader communities isn’t just for brand awareness; it is a direct driver of algorithmic momentum on your KDP listings. Combine this external social traffic with an email newsletter and a dedicated ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) team to ensure every new book launches with the required 15+ positive reviews to be considered “retail ready”.

Conclusion: So, How Much Money Can You Make with Amazon KDP?

The earning potential on Amazon KDP is virtually uncapped, but as we’ve explored, top-line revenue is only half the story. The authors generating $10,000+ per month in 2026 aren’t just uploading documents and hoping for the best; they are treating their catalogs like private label brands. They meticulously manage their cover design investments, optimize for Kindle Unlimited page reads, and ruthlessly track their Amazon PPC ACOS.

As an Amazon seller, you already have a massive advantage. You understand keyword intent, listing optimization, and the power of the Amazon algorithm. By applying these eCommerce principles to digital publishing, KDP becomes a highly viable, inventory-free path to expanding your business. If you are ready to explore self-publishing, we highly recommend immersing yourself in the strategies shared by industry leaders like Kindlepreneur and Self-Publishing with Dale to accelerate your learning curve.

We are SellerMetrics, our Amazon PPC Software helps Amazon sellers, brands, KDP Authors and agencies navigate Amazon Advertising PPC via bid automation, bulk manual bid changes, and analytics.

FAQ: All about Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

The post Making Money with Amazon KDP: The Complete Earning Guide appeared first on SellerMetrics.

There are a few ways that Amazon allows you to promote your new books, such as KDP Select, Kindle Countdown Deals, Free Book Promotions, and Kindle deals. All of the aforementioned require you to either discount or giveaway your book for free.

What is KDP Advertising?

There is another way to promote without going through the promotion route: Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy allows book sellers to promote their work Amazon book ads for authors.

Amazon kindle advertising is KDP specific, which sits on the Amazon Advertising Platform. It allows you to run paid advertising on your self-published book. The book you wish to advertise for will appear on either the Amazon search results, ebook detail pages, and on the lock screen on the Kindle devices. We will dive into the details of the different advertising types later.

Benefits of KDP Ads for Book Publishers

Amazon KDP advertisements can easily be spotted on the Amazon website. If do any type of search for novels in the search result bar. The advertised book will have the tag “Sponsored” on the top right corner of the search result tiles.

In the above, the search term “Romance Novel” and resulted in 4 books with the tag “Sponsored” which means that these books are making a bid on the keyword “Romance Novel”.

The beauty of using KDP advertising is that you have control of the budget allocation to specific campaigns in real-time and can attribute the ROI on the most granular level, which allows you to really scale and optimize your campaigns. This is the reason why a well executed Amazon Kindle advertising strategy can make or break the successful launch of a book on Amazon. More on that later.

How to Create Amazon KDP Advertising Campaigns

Before going any further make sure to set up your Amazon advertising account for your KDP account.

1. On your KDP dashboard click on “Marketing“
2. Under the “Amazon Advertising” section click on the marketplace dropdown
3. Click “Create Campaign“

Follow any additional steps required by Amazon such as entering valid credit card information. When the credit card details are properly set up it will then take you to the below screen for you to start your Kindle ad campaign.

Amazon Kindle Advertising Types & Formats

In KDP Advertising, there are 3 main campaign/advertising type options when you first create a campaign.

Each campaign type appears in different areas on the Amazon website and also on the Kindle device. I will discuss in detail of each and what is the best way to used them.

Sponsored Products Ads for KDP Ad Campaigns

The ads from this ad type shows up in two places 1) In the search results and 2) In the book detail pages.

In the above, from the search “Economic Books” the results with the tag “Sponsored” are from the Sponsored Product ad type. These publishers had set up a Sponsored Products campaign that is bidding on the keyword “Economic Books”.

The other type of Sponsored Products ad is product target, where the advertiser will choose a specific category, books, or book series to target. These ads will show up as shown below. More about Amazon Sponsored Brands Ad Management.

Sponsored Brands Ads for KDP Ad Campaigns

The ads from Sponsored Brands will be shown as a banner type ad, they are both shown on the top Amazon search results and also on the book detail page.

The Sponsored Brands banner is the top most banner on the Amazon search results and allows the advertiser to list 3 books on the banner. For example, you have 3 books that is written on the topic of “taxation”, using Sponsored Brands is a good way to bring awareness to all 3 of your books on the topic of “taxation”.

For Sponsored Brands ads on the book detail page, they will show up as the below.

Also to note, Sponsored Brands is good for helping customers discover and engage with your brand to generate awareness with the ability to customize your tagline with ads that link directly to a landing page with your selection of books. More about Amazon Product Ads Management.

Lockscreen Ads for KDP Ad Campaigns

Lockscreen ads allow book publishers to advertise their books with interested targeted ads on Kindle E-readers and fire tablets.

The ads will show up on either the wake screen or the Kindle E-reader and Fire tablets’ home page. When the readers engage with the ad, the reader will be directed to the eBook/paperback detail page.

Different Kindle Ad Targeting Options

Within the aforementioned advertising types in KDP advertising, there are also different targeting types that you can select.

Manual Targeting

In this option, you as the advertiser gets to pick the specific target keywords and products/books with the corresponding bid to the book in your ad. This is the most granualar targeting type, allows for the most control as it allows for the one-to-one relationship between the keyword/product and bid.

Automatic Targeting

The automatic option allows Amazon to target keywords or products/books that are similar to your product/book in your ad. There is much less control in this option. It is basically going on autopilot, and it doesn’t have a one-to-one relationship between the keyword/product and bid.

This option can be very useful in the beginning so you can validate the keywords and books you can target before going manual. However, be very careful as it can be risky and costly to let the casino (aka Amazon) place your bets! To learn more about this topic read out blog post on Automatic vs Manual Campaigns on Amazon. And if you are new to Amazon ads, feel free to enquire about our Amazon Ads Management Services.

Creating a KDP Advertising Campaign (Step By Step)

1. On your Amazon Advertising dashboard click “Create Campaign”

2. Select Campaign Ad Type

3. Under the Settings section, edit the Campaign Name, Start/End Date, Daily Budget, and Targeting. For best practices on campaign, names can check out our article here, and for best practices on finding your optimal campaign budget here

4. Select your Campaign Bidding Strategy. I think the screenshot below gives an excellent explanation of what each strategy does. The rule of thumb is that if you want maximum control, the “Fix bids” option is the way to go. If you want to go a bit auto-pilot, it would be the “Dynamic bid-down only” option.

5. Choose Ad Format, I normally use the option “Standard ad”

6. Add Products/Books. You will add the book titles you want to advertise. You can add multiple titles if you like, but you have to make sure that these titles are keywords related to each other. Only add multiple titles/products if it is a variation of the main product; otherwise, it is recommended to add one title in this section

7. Targeting options for manual targeting campaigns only. You will have the options to choose either keyword or product targeting.

8. Add Targets. In this option you will add the specific keywords/product and their corresponding bids

Keywords targeting

This option is selected when you click on the keyword targeting option in step 7. If you add your book titles in step 6, then there will be a list of suggested keywords once you get to this section.

If you only started your first campaign for this title and didn’t have any previous data, the suggested keyword and bid can be a good starting point. Make sure to go through all the suggested keywords manually and screen for the ones you deem not too relevant for your title.

If you know exactly what keywords you want to bid for, you can select the “enter list” option as well.

Product Targeting

This option is selected when you click on the product targeting option in step 7. If you add your book titles in step 6, there will be a list of the suggested product once you get to this section.

You select a default bid. If you have previous sales on this title, you can use the CPC in the campaigns. Go through the suggested list, pick and remove the target title by relevancy. If there are competitors’ book titles that you want to target, you can enter their ASIN under the “Enter List” tab.

9. Add Negative Targets

Similar concepts for both negative keywords and products. If there are targets that you don’t want to bid for at all or phrase you know are not a good fit for your title you can add them to the negative list

10. Final step is to confirm all your entries and click “Launch Campaign”

Developing an Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy

Now that you understand how Amazon Kindle Ads work, what formats are available and how you can target potential book buyers, let’s dive into formulating an Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy. Your approach will differ depending on factors, such as your advertising budget or whether you are looking to launch a new book or generate more sales for a book that has been selling for a while. Let’s go through different Scenarios:

Launching a New Book with KDP Ads – Limited Budget

If you are relatively new to Amazon KDP and have a limited budget, you will want to run your ads as surgical as possible to maximize the return on your ad spend. Start with an Amazon Sponsored Products Campaign with Manual targeting. The trick now is to pick the right keywords (and to set appropriate bids). Basically you want to target keywords that are both relevant to your book but that are also not too competitive.

Essentially this means targeting so-called long-tail keywords. Those are keywords that consist of around 3-4 different words (so instead of “fiction novel”, something like “fiction novel for teenagers”). While long-tail keywords tend to have lower search volumes, the commercial intent of shoppers is often higher as they are already looking for something more specific and also your book will be a better fit for a more specific long-tail keyword that is well aligned with the topic and content of your book (more on this topic: Make your book more discoverable with keywords).

Launching a New Book with KDP Ads – Significant Budget

With a bigger budget, you can essentially afford to “learn faster” and to thus scale faster. With the ability to spend more you do not be as restrictive on your keyword targeting and you can also test Sponsored Brands ads. This is in turn will bring your ad efficiency down, but allow you to discover converting keywords faster and then to concentrate your ad spend on these keywords. Read our blog post on Amazon Search Term Optimization to learn how to do this.

Driving Amazon Sales of an Existing Book

Things are easier and more predictable when you want run KDP ads to support and increase sales of a book that you have launched a while ago. You should run your ads considering your profitability (more on that below) and also to support your organic rankings. This is known as the Amazon flywheel effect.

How KDP Advertising can Supercharge the Amazon Flywheel

Understanding the power of the flywheel effect is crucial for Amazon sellers. The flywheel effect describes a positive feedback loop that occurs inside Amazon with your amazon book ads. That is because the Amazon A9 algorithm that determines how your book ranks for organic (so non ad supported) search results is impacted by the total amount of books your have sold in relation to a specific search query (and also your sales velocity). So in short: if more people end up buying your book after searching for a specific keyword, then this will improve how your book ranks organically for said keyword. Starting this feedback loop is crucial to your success as a self-publisher on KDP and can kick start your KDP sales. This positive feedback loop is also called the “Flywheel” effect. Using KDP advertising is a very good way to start “spinning this flywheel”.

The flywheel effect as explained:

1. Impression and Clicks to your book
2. Clicks = Sales
3. Sales would your keyword ranking
4. A higher ranking will mean higher sales
5. Higher sales will increase your reviews
6. More reviews = Higher conversion rate
7. Higher conversation = Higher Rankings = in Sales
8. Flywheel repeats

Any keywords you have converted in a sale will positively affect the relationship between your book and the keyword. Let’s say you are bidding on the keyword “Romance Novels,” It resulted in a sale, which means that the Amazon algorithm will know that this keyword is relevant to the book. Hence the ranking of your book on “Romance Novels” will improve.

The key takeaway is that KDP advertising will help you achieve tangible results (Sales) and intangible ones such as reviews and keyword ranking. These intangibles can affect tangible results. Knowing that KDP advertising can hit all the above objectives at one go really makes KDP advertising worthwhile, and a good investment as a result.

Measuring Success and ROI: KDP Ad Performance Metrics and Calculations

In this section, we will deep dive into the different metrics involved in Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy.

Ad Performance Metrics

• Impression The number of times ads were displayed
• Clicks The number of times your ads were clicked
• Spend The total click charges for a campaign/keyword/target (cost of winning the Amazon advertising bid auction)
• Orders Are the number of Amazon orders shoppers submitted after clicking on your ads.
• Sales Are the total value of books sold to shoppers within the specified timeframe for a type of campaign due to clicks on your ads.
• KENP read number of pages read by Kindle Unlimited customers attributed to your ads

Calculated Metrics (calculated, using denominator and numerator from metrics above)

• CTR % Click Through Rate expressed as a % of Clicks/Impression. Higher % means higher more clicks per impressions means higher relevance
• CPC $ Cost Per Click is Spend/Clicks, how much your click cost on average. Influence by how much you bid is and the competitiveness of the keyword
• ACOS % Average Cost of Sales expressed as a % of Spend/Sales, it’s a metrics for cost for sale, lower the % means higher the ROI. An important metric in Amazon advertising
• Estimated KENP royalties It’s royalties from KENP read, multiplying KENP read by the KENP rate at the time the pages were read
• KENP Revised ACoS % Its the ACoS% that takes KENP royalties in consideration, calculated as Spend/(Sales + KENP royalties)

Breakeven ACoS , what is it? Why is it important for Publishers

As explained previously ACoS is the % of advertising spent for a gross sale. Let’s say your book retails at $14.99, it takes you 4 clicks with the total spend of $2.35 to achieve an order, the ACoS in this scenario is 15.68% (What is a good ACOS on Amazon).

With the book’s listed price at $14.99, do we actually get the full amount of that considering the extra cost, such as Amazon commission and printing cost? The answer is no. Therefore, if we run into a scenario where spending is higher than (Sales – Cost), we will be out of pocket in this advertising campaign.

Does spending more than your (Sales-Cost) always a bad thing? Not always. It really depends on your objective. This concept will be discussed further.

BUT! In order to control your cost, and ensure your campaigns are highly optimized (high ROI) you will need to understand how to calculate something called breakeven ACOS.

Before that though, you need to calculate your Royalty. Therefore, we should know the cost that is incurred by the author per eBook/Paperback sale:

eBook Cost Amazon Commission and Delivery Cost

Paperback Cost Amazon Commission and Printing Cost

Your royalty is net of cost, so the royalty for your book is calculated as follows:

List Price of Book minus eBook/Paperback cost

An easy way to get the Royalty amount on your book is by going to your KDP dashboard Bookshelf Rollover on the ‘…” beside the book edit ebook/print book pricing

Under the section “Royalty and Pricing” you can see what your Royalty is (your net amount) on each of the marketplaces

Armed with the Royalty and the Listed Price, we have the information to calculate the breakeven ACoS, which is:

So if we use the example in figure 2, List Price is $14.99, and the Royalty is $6.84, then our breakeven ACoS is:

Breakeven ACoS % = $6.84/$14.99 45.6%

That means if the ACoS on campaigns or at the keywords/target level is higher than our breakeven AcoS of 45.6% than we are losing money and on the other hand, if ACoS lower than the breakeven ACoS than the campaign/keyword/target is making money. The following demonstrates the different scenarios:

1. Money Making Advertising Campaigns ACoS < Breakeven ACoS
2. Money Losing Advertising Campaign ACoS > Breakeven ACoS
3. Breakeven Advertising Campaign ACoS = Breakeven ACoS

By knowing your breakeven ACoS% you can use that as your key benchmark in the ongoing KDP advertising management and listing optimization (Amazon Listing Optimization Services). From the 3 scenarios above it may seem obvious that you want to avoid scenario 2, but it really depends on your advertising objectives, which will be discussed in the next section.

Picking the Right KDP Advertising Objectives

Let’s talk about campaign objectives, the key here is to identify what is the end goal here for your KDP advertising campaign, so you can establish your Amazon kindle advertising strategy. The following are the potential objectives for your KDP Advertising campaigns:

• Building an author’s brand ACoS > Breakeven ACoS
• Building a book series brand ACoS > Breakeven ACoS
• Ranking for Keywords ACoS > Breakeven ACoS
• Taking sales from competition ACoS > Breakeven ACoS
• Increase Sales ACoS > Breakeven ACoS
• Increase and scale your royalties ACoS <= Breakeven ACoS

I may not have included all potential objectives, but I think you get the picture and hopefully it will help you inform your Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy.

The key point is that if you have a certain objective in mind then you will have to be realistic with your ACoS targets. For example, you want to really rank for a keyword to ensure you are number #1 on the search results, then realistically your ACoS for that keyword will be higher than your breakeven ACoS.

Also, any top of the funnel activities such brand-building advertising objectives will normally results in a relatively higher ACoS.

KENP Royalties, KENP Reads and KENP Revised ACoS %

In genres such as sci-fiction and romance, the revenue coming from Kindle Unlimited can be significant. This is reflected in the KENP Royalties via the KENP Reads and also impacts your Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy. Since KENP Royalties can be an amount that can change your bid adjustments

As you run your KDP Ads your royalties from these campaigns will trickle in, that is when you need to adjust your breakeven ACoS to include KENP Royalties. Hence your calculus will need to change

So your new KENP Adjusted ACoS will be:

KENP Revised ACoS % = Spend/(Sales + KENP Royalties)

Unfortunately, this KENP Revised ACoS % figure is not inside the Amazon ad console, but it is inside SellerMetrics so the KDP authors that uses our system can optimize their bids using the KENP Revised ACoS % instead of plain ACoS % (more on the that later).

As you can see above your optimal bid calculus changes with the KENP Revised ACoS %

How to Troubleshoot and Optimize your KDP Advertising Campaigns

Ok, now that you have created your first campaign and started to drive clicks and orders, you cannot just sit back and relax. To improve your ROI or make sure you are fulfilling your objectives, you will need to optimize your KDP advertising campaigns, in other words, optimization. Here are 5 steps you can take to optimize your campaign. Of course, they’re probably much more complicated and comprehensive ways out there. I condensed the optimization process to 5 quick and easy steps, which only needed to be done once a week.

Step 1 – Stopping Bleeders

• Select last 60 days date range
• Filter by clicks =>8
• Orders = 0

Action Change Bid to $0.02 (Amazon min bid)

Step 2 – Decrease bids with really high ACoS

• Select last 60 days date range
• Filter by clicks =>6
• Orders > 0
• ACoS % > 100%

Action Decrease bid to 50%

Step 3 – Decrease bid higher than your breakeven ACoS (in our example our breakeven ACoS is 45.6%)

• Select last 60 days date range
• Filter by clicks =>6
• Orders > 0
• ACoS % => 45.6% and <=100%

Action Decrease bid to 25%

Step 4 – Increase bid on really low ACoS

• Select last 60 days date range
• Filter by clicks =>6
• Orders > 1
• ACoS % <=22.2% (Half of 45.6%)

Action Increase bid 20% above CPC (If you are not using SellerMetrics, this require a lot of manual calculations)

Step 5 – Add new keyword and negative keywords

This step will require you to run Amazon advertising reports. On the Amazon advertising dashboard click on “Report” Click “Create Report” Select Campaign Type Report Type “Search Term” Report Period last 30 Days Click “Run Report”

Once the report has been processed, download and open the report.

Add new Converting Keywords

You will filter the report for any “Customer Search Term” that converted as an order, and filter match type to exclude “Exact”.

Lastly, compare if the “Customer Search Term” is NOT equal to “Targeting” values. You can do this with a simple spreadsheet IF formula. The idea is that you want to pick up unique “Customer Search Term” values that resulted in an order that is NOT currently in your campaign

Add the filtered search terms into the corresponding KDP advertising campaign. As to what the starting bid should be, I would use the CPC value on the campaign level

How to add Negative Keywords to Refine Ad Targeting

Going back to the search term report, you will filter for clicks => 8 and order (14 Day Total Orders) = 0

Add the resulting values on the “Customer Search Term” field and add the negative keywords by going into the corresponding campaign click “negative targeting” click “Add negative keywords”. It is also highly recommended that you use the “Negative Exact” match type

As a writer, I understand that you want to spend all your time writing your best work. That is why I condense the optimization process to only 5 steps, once a week. Doing all the above should not take more than 2 hours out of your week. Depending on the number of campaigns you are currently running, of course.

If the 5 steps are followed week in and week out, you should see your campaign optimized. This means sales increase and at the same time your ACoS decrease. That is the goal all Amazon advertiser is striving towards.

Also to note, the above optimization process doesn’t take into account the KENP royalties. Optimizing with KENP royalties can only be done using SellerMetrics, which we will document below.

How can SellerMetrics Help Kindle Authors?

There are many choices for Amazon Ads software that sits on top of the Amazon Advertising Platform. Unfortunately, not all Amazon PPC software is KDP friendly. We at SellerMetrics designed our KDP PPC software to support KDP publishers as well as Amazon product sellers with unparalleled options to optimize their Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy.

SellerMetrics supports the following feature:

• Automatically collects your KDP ads data daily (collect past the 60-day date range limit)
• Able to connect your KDP Advertising account via an API connection
• Allows you to optimize multiple campaigns at once (able to do the 5 step optimization process between different campaigns and accounts)
• KENP Read/KENP Royalties/KENP Revised ACoS % metrics
• Harvest Search using # of KENP Read
• Bid adjustment decisions with KENP Royalties data point included
• Bid automation (can set your campaigns to automatically optimize based on SellerMetrics advance algorithms using user-defined ACoS goals as the target)

KDP Ads Optimization using SellerMetrics (via KENP Revised ACoS %)

Step 1 – Stopping Bleeders

• Select last 60 days date range
• Filter by clicks =>8
• KENP Read = 0
• Orders = 0

Action Change Bid to $0.02 (Amazon min bid)

Step 2 – Decrease bids with really high KENP Revised ACoS%

• Select last 60 days date range
• Filter by clicks =>6
• KENP Revised ACoS > 100%

Action Decrease 50% from CPC

Step 3 – Decrease bid higher than your breakeven ACoS (in our example our breakeven ACoS is 45.6%)

• Select last 60 days date range
• Filter by clicks =>6
• KENP Revised ACoS % => 45.6% and <=100%

Action Decrease 25% from CPC

Step 4 – Increase bid on really low KENP Revised ACoS %

• Select last 60 days date range
• Filter by clicks =>6
• KENP Revised ACoS % > 0 % and <=22.2% (Half of 45.6%)

Action Increase bid 20% above CPC (If you are not using SellerMetrics, this require a lot of manual calculations)

Step 5 – Add new keyword and negative keywords

Using SellerMetrics to “Harvesting” your search terms and add them as keyword is super simple. This can be done for both positive and negative, by either orders or KENP reads as your trigger threshold.

Setup Search Term Rules

Beauty of SellerMetrics is that you can tell the system to harvest for # of Order and # of KENP Reads

Once the rules are set up, the trigger search terms from the above rule will appear on the “Converted Search Terms”, where you can push the search terms into the selected destination ad groups

Set up Negative Keyword Rules

In the above negative rule, it is telling the system that any search terms that realized >=5 clicks and 0 orders will appear on the “Negative Keywords” screen, where you can push these poor performing search term as negative keywords into the selected destination ad groups in the above rule.

If you take the above steps with SellerMetrics, I guarantee that you will see ACoS improvement within 3 weeks.

Also, the beauty of SellerMetrics is all the above steps be completely automated with our Automation Settings setup below.

There is no a risk (no credit card required) free 14 days trial for you to see for yourself, sign up for a free trial with SellerMetrics.

Yeah, so ok I have reviewed my own software, might be a bit biased. But I stand by it. If you have read this review, I’ll be happy to give the reader a lifetime discount, just reach out to me on the widget on the button right and mention this article

Conclusion: Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy

I hope the above will help my fellow KDP authors with the knowledge to execute their Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy. As with anything new, it may seem intimidating at first, but if you follow the above steps you should see some positive outcomes with your KDP advertising. KDP has become more competitive over the years, you cannot just publish a book and just wait for royalties to come in, being strong in KDP advertising will definitely give you a clear advantage.

If you have questions or insights to share, please feel free to post them via the comments section. Please also consider joining our Facebook Group where we discuss any questions you may have about running an Amazon business.

We are SellerMetrics, our Amazon PPC tool helps Amazon sellers, brands, KDP Authors and agencies navigate Amazon Advertising PPC via bid automation, manual bid changes, and analytics.

FAQ: Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy

What is Amazon KDP advertising?

Amazon KDP advertising is a pay-per-click (PPC) system that allows authors and publishers to promote their Kindle books on Amazon. Ads are displayed to relevant shoppers based on keywords, genres, and other targeting options, helping authors boost book visibility and sales.

How does Amazon’s advertising platform work for Kindle books?

The platform operates on a PPC model. Advertisers bid on keywords, and ads appear in prominent positions such as search results and product pages. You pay only when someone clicks on your ad, and the goal is to drive readers to your book’s product page.

What are the benefits of using Amazon Kindle ads?

Key benefits include:
Increased book visibility on Amazon’s competitive marketplace.
The ability to target niche audiences by keywords and genres.
Enhanced organic ranking through higher sales velocity.
Control over ad spend and performance tracking.

What types of ads are available for Kindle books?

There are three main ad types:
Sponsored Products: Promote individual books in search results or product pages.
Sponsored Brands: Showcase multiple books or an author brand in a single ad.
Locksreen Ads (for Kindle devices): Target Kindle device users with visually appealing ads.

How much should I budget for Amazon Kindle advertising?

Budget depends on your goals and competition in your niche. A starting budget of $50–$100 per day per campaign is common for testing. Monitor your ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales) to adjust spend as needed.

How do I measure the success of my Kindle ad campaigns?

Key performance indicators (KPIs) include:
ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales): Measures ad spend vs. sales revenue.
CTR (Click-Through Rate): Indicates the effectiveness of your ad creatives.
Impressions and Conversions: Tracks how often your ads are seen and result in sales.

Is Amazon Kindle advertising effective for new authors?

Yes, it’s highly effective for new authors to gain visibility in a crowded marketplace. Start with a small budget and target specific, relevant keywords to reach niche audiences.

Can I run Kindle ads for books not enrolled in KDP Select?

Yes, you can advertise books not in KDP Select, but authors in the KDP Select program often see added benefits, such as improved discoverability and promotional opportunities.

How long does it take to see results from Kindle ads?

Results can vary based on your book, niche, and ad strategy. While some authors see results within days, others may require weeks of optimization to achieve significant sales boosts.

What are some common mistakes to avoid in Kindle advertising?

Using irrelevant or overly broad keywords.
Neglecting to optimize your book’s product page.
Setting unrealistic budgets without performance monitoring.
Ignoring Amazon’s campaign performance reports.

How do I know if my book is ready for advertising?

Ensure your book has:
A professional cover design.
A compelling product description.
Positive reviews to establish credibility.
Optimized metadata with relevant keywords.

The post Amazon Kindle Advertising Strategy: The Complete Guide for 2026 appeared first on SellerMetrics.

Having the correct and the most optimized KDP metadata is not only adhering to the KDP content guidelines, which Authors, publishers, and selling partners are responsible for, but also good for Amazon SEO. So we cannot underscore the importance of KDP metadata anymore than that!

Amazon KDP metadata for books falls into the following specific buckets:

Book Title

The most commonly utilized search attribute is the title. Only the title of your book, as it appears on the cover, should be included in the title section. Any part of the title that is erroneous and irrelevant results may be buried and hidden from the search. 

Customers pay close attention to title problems and will not recognize your book’s legitimacy if it contains corrupted special characters, unnecessary words, poor formatting, excessive descriptive information, and so on. The following things are banned in the title field, but not limited to:

• Unauthorized reference to other titles or authors
• Unauthorized reference to a trademarked term
• Reference to sales rank (e.g., “bestselling”)
• Reference to advertisements or promotions (e.g., “free”)
• Only Punctuation (e.g. “!!!!!!!!”)
• Using only “unknown”, “n/a”, “na”, “blank”, “none”, “null”, “not applicable”

source

It is important to note that although there is a 200 characters limit (with the subtitle), it is important not to keyword stuff your titles. As not only the reader can pick up on it, but Amazon as well.

If you’re combining numerous stories into one book, use phrases like “Boxed Set,” “Bundle,” “Collection,” “Compilation,” or “Series” in the title box and on the cover to appropriately describe the contents of your book. Within a book, stories in a series must be in proper sequential order, and collections of individual stories must have all of the stories specified in the metadata, specifically in the description.

Start your title with the terms “Summary,” “Study Guide,” or “Analysis” if you’re producing a companion book based on original work, such as a summary, study guide, or analysis. Make sure the terms “Summary,” “Study Guide,” or “Analysis” appear before the title in a font at least as large as the remainder of the title when designing your companion book cover.

Your title must be added to the cover of print books (on the spine or front cover). It should also match the metadata you provide during title creation. The title is not required to be in your manuscript, but if you are adding the title in the manuscript it must match the metadata

Also please note for Books and Hardcover, the title metadata cannot be changed once the ISBN is assigned and your title is published. eBook on the other hand allows you to change your title even after your book is published.

Subtitle

A subtitle is a supplementary title that may be used to provide more information about your book’s content. Your title and subtitle must be under 200 characters combined. The same rules apply to your subtitle as they do to your title.

If a subtitle is used it will appear after the title with a colon in the description area of your Amazon listing.

Series Information

A series is a group of novels that are linked together. Please leave this section blank if your book is not part of a series. If your book is part of a series, however, fill in the series name field once a title is written. Customers may locate more Kindle novels in a series by looking up the name of the series.

The Series Name field will appear after your book’s title. Because titles are the most often used search parameter, your series name must follow the standards for book titles outlined above. Enter only the series name only, the series number and title of the book should not be included.

Description

A synopsis of the plot and characters will entice readers. Nothing more contributes to the tension or surprise should be revealed. Give readers a feel of what makes your book intriguing and what type of book it is by describing it. 

If you need inspiration, look at the back cover or inner dust jacket flap of books in your category. Request opinions from friends or other writers. Consider your book description to be a 30-second pitch designed to persuade a casual browser to purchase your book.

You may also use basic HTML tags in your description to format for bold, bullets, and headers

The following things are banned in the description field, but not limited to:

• Pornographic, obscene, or offensive content
• Phone numbers, physical mail addresses, email addresses, or website URLs
• Reviews, quotes, or testimonials
• Requests for customer reviews
• Advertisements, watermarks on images or videos, or promotional material
• Time-sensitive information (for example, dates of promotional tours, seminars, or lectures)
• Availability, price, alternative ordering information (for example, links to other websites for placing orders)
• Spoiler information for Books, Music, Video, or DVD (BMVD) listings
• Any keywords or book tags phrases

Author

Put the name of the main contributor to your book here. You are permitted to use a pen name as long as it does not affect your consumers’ ability to make informed purchases.

Contributors

This metadata is optional. Contributors are those who helped you put your book together. As long as they worked on that specific book, you can use these fields to name other writers, editors, illustrators, translators, and anybody else you wish to credit. You can add as many contributors as you require. You must list all of the contributors to a public domain book.

Don’t include anything else here but direct contributors; don’t include search terms or other keyword type information. Do not put the original work’s contributor(s) in the Contributors area if you’re releasing a companion book based on original work, such as a summary, study guide, or analysis.

Publishers

You may insert your name or the name of your publishing business here if you are the book’s author or publisher.

KDP’s main goal is to highlight the author of the work, not a publisher. In the publisher section, just the names of the book’s author and publisher should be supplied. On the book’s detail page, customers may see the publisher’s name.

The following things are banned in the publisher field:

• Any other publishing house, including any that has already published the book, is mentioned.
• Reference to Amazon or Amazon-affiliated companies
• Reference to Kindle or Kindle Direct Publishing
• Websites or domain names

Keywords (Super Important)

A word or a phrase can be used as a keyword.  2-3 long words (long-tail keyword) are the best to match the reader search queries to your book. Think like a reader while determining the best search terms for your book. What themes or genres do your viewers like to read about? Or are they searching answers to a question?

Instead of guessing, we have written extensively about Amazon KDP keyword research. There are tools and process in place that allows you to get more tangible data on keywords.

So do some extra research and make sure your 7 keywords in this metadata section are the most relevant to your work.

As with anything Amazon, there are restrictions. Avoid keywords that aren’t appropriate descriptors of your book’s major storyline, or keywords that have nothing to do with the content. Incorrect terms might produce unexpected or perplexing search results, resulting in a negative consumer experience and as a result, hurt your organic rankings. Keywords that mislead or manipulate readers are also a no-no.

Example of prohibited keywords:

• Other authors
• Books by other authors
• Sales rank (e.g., “bestselling”)
• Advertisements or promotions (e.g., “free”)
• Anything that is unrelated to your book’s content

Cover Image

Your cover’s title, subtitle, author name, and series information should all match the metadata you have entered previously. Covers that are misleading by mimicking the layout, color scheme, fonts, and/or photos of another book are not permitted.

ISBN

ISBN is required for print versions of your work such as paperback or hardcover. Amazon can automatically add and provide for the 13 digits ISBN and add it to the barcode of the back cover. If the ISBN is added to the manuscript it must match the ISBN in the metadata under the content section, but selecting the section “Use my own ISBN”

The post A Guide to Optimizing Amazon KDP Metadata for Books Listing appeared first on SellerMetrics.

Since you are publishing on Amazon, the potential reader makes their book discoveries on the Amazon search bar via Amazon A9 Algorithm. How the reader’s search can be related to your book title is by matching the right keywords in your KDP book listing.

You add/update the keywords of your KDP listing by following these steps:

1. Sign in to: https://kdp.amazon.com
2. Go to your Bookshelf and click the ellipsis button (“…”) under the KINDLE EBOOK ACTIONS or PAPERBACK ACTIONS menu next to your book
3. Select “Edit eBook Details” or “Edit Paperback Details”
4. Under the “Keywords” section, make the edits you want
5. Go to the bottom of the page and click Save and Continue
6. Once you reach the book Pricing page, click the Publish button at the bottom of the page

So now the question is how can I find the most popular and relevant keywords for my book?

What is Keyword Research?

We will begin with what exactly is keyword research. As an online entrepreneur I am quite sure you have heard of the term, this term probably the most well known in the digital marketing/SEO space. Keyword research is a process of finding the most relevant search terms used by your potential end-user, it seeks to answer the following questions:

• What are people searching for?
• How many people are searching for it?
• What is the intent of the search?

Amazon KDP keywords are no different. Finding what people are searching for is probably the first step, there are software tools out there to help you with the process, which will be discussed in detail below. By finding the keywords that your target audience is using will be your first step to getting your book to the right audience.

A Note About Keyword Relevancy

After you acquire a list of keywords, there is also a process to select a set of highly relevant keywords. You have to make sure that you eliminate the keywords that are less relevant to each other. This step is not an exact science, but as the author, you will have a good idea if the keyword is relevant or not.

You want a list of, at most, 10 keywords that are at least 80% relevant to the product. In other words, your book title should be at least an 80% match with the keyword. What I am explaining to you is very subjective and based on what you define as relevant. The number of actual keywords you can get in depends on your keyword research process, or how unique the topic of your book is.

How do you know a keyword’s percentage relevancy? The below example can be a broad guide for you to follow. If your product is a Yoga Wheel that is 10 inches in diameter in size, the following would be its keyword and related relevancy:

One quick and easy way to figure out relevancy is to do a search on Amazon using that keyword. See if similar titles are amongst the search results. For example, if you are self-publishing a self-help novel on mindfulness, you can use the keywords “self-help” or “mindfulness.” If books similar to yours come up for the search query, it means that the keyword is relevant to your book.

What is the Flywheel Effect? Why is getting keywords rights so important?

A book on Amazon will also increase visibility with the more clicks and sales it gets. These are counted as “positive interactions with a consumer” which boosts your book’s rankings. However, books can also get a “negative interaction” if the customer clicks on book listings above or below yours. Meaning, if other books for a query are being clicked on, but not yours. Your book’s rank for that search query will be penalized and lowered in that case.

The impact of these negative and positive ‘points’ that are given to your book listing will also reduce over time. In this case, you need to keep the momentum going! Do this by consistently ranking for the correct keywords. This will garner enough sales to make your listing more attractive than other similar competitors.

This is the Flywheel Effect, the more clicks and sales you get, the more attractive your listing is to the Amazon algorithm.

Accumulating these positive points on your book listing will allow you to maintain a high ad rank. The key to unlocking this flywheel effect is ensuring the relevancy of your book to the keyword you’re trying to rank for. The ad ranking and discoverability of your book depends on whether customers are clicking on it! If it’s not relevant to their search query they will not do so, and it will negatively impact your sales & rankings.

How to research keywords for your KDP Book?

Using the Amazon Search Bar

This is one of the most basic but effective methods to find keywords for your book. Type a word relating to your book into the Amazon Search Bar and look at the suggested search queries. Remember to make sure you are in the marketplace you intend to sell in, it matters!

For example, if you type “serial” into the search box you get the following:

• serial killer books
• serial killer true crime
• serial killer trivia

If you’re writing a fiction or non-fiction novel on true crime, these could serve as keywords you can use. Put them in the metadata of your book, and run them in your Sponsored ad campaigns. Of course, it’s important to remember that a search query is not a keyword. This is where you have to use your judgment to simplify the search queries you found. This means making it all lowercase, removing common words like “is” or “a” or “the” and so on.

An even better trick is to use 1 search query as multiple possible keywords to bid on. From our earlier example, there was the search query “serial killer true crime”. We can actually split this query into 3 keywords: “serial killer”, “true crime”, “crime”. Extracting keywords like this from longer search queries lets you cover more ground and make your book more discoverable.

Using Keyword Research Tools

Search suggestions are a good start but to really make your book discoverable, you need over 1000 relevant keywords. To reach this volume of Amazon KDP keywords, you will need to use keyword research tools.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Adwords Keyword Planner is a tool that is perfect to research keywords. Signing up for an account is free, and you can just use the Keyword Planner tool since that’s all you need. You can input more than one topic at a time, e.g. “crime, thriller, procedural” and Google will output a list of relevant keywords. You can then sort them by search volume, and filter out any keywords that don’t apply.

Similarly, you can use Google Trends, which won’t even require an account. However, Google Trends is more useful to find out the current ‘popularity’ of a keyword, and the traffic in a certain region over time. Using Keyword Planner in conjunction with Google Trends is actually a great strategy, because you can see the search volume trend over time for a set of keywords you’d like to use. Even better, Google Trends provides a few related topics & related queries, that you can widen your search with.

You can even compare your keyword to another keyword, to find which one has better search volume!

ahrefs Keywords Explorer

Google Adwords Keyword Planner and Google Trends will provide a good overview of what search queries customers are using overall. To find Amazon KDP keywords though, you will need more specialized tools. One such tool is ahrefs Keywords Explorer, where you can find keyword search volumes specifically on Amazon. You just have to select “Amazon” in the dropdown next to the keyword search box.

Using ahrefs Keyword Explorer, you can find the search volume of keywords, volume by country, and also keywords with similar terms or “phrase match.” Clicking into a keyword will also tell you the average CPC for a keyword, which is a useful guideline for how much you would spend in a Sponsored ad campaign if you were to use that keyword.

Keyword research tools are a trustworthy source of the most relevant keywords, because they are backed up by concrete search volume data. Instead of simply pulling terms from within your book, it’s better to go off the book category and extrapolate new keywords from there.

Finding relevant Amazon KDP keywords with high search volume will help make your book discoverable to readers, and help you achieve The Flywheel Effect!

Conclusion

The author of this guest post, Rick Wong is a veteran Amazon seller who is into all things Amazon FBA. Having sold his Amazon business, Rick writes and talks about this topic to share his passion for Amazon FBA business building. A data geek at heart, he is currently the Co-Founder of SellerMetrics, a software tool that helps Amazon sellers automate the tedious and manual work of Amazon PPC Optimization.

SellerMetrics is an Amazon PPC tool that helps Amazon sellers, brands, KDP Authors and agencies navigate Amazon Advertising PPC via bid automation, manual bid changes, and analytics. SellerMetrics has been known to bring down ad spend and increase sales at the same time, average users can expect a 25% increase in ROI immediately after use, sign up for the free trial to find out.

The post Amazon KDP Keywords Research: Make your Book More Discoverable appeared first on SellerMetrics.