nurd:
Amazon isn't rascist as far as I can tell. They give us the opportunity but trust Nigerians and shortcuts and ruining everything for others.

Guys should go to Twitter and see Nigerians -- living in Nigeria -- doing $5k+ monthly conveniently. Check ife of ifeva group. In fact, they are plenty.

Africans, and Nigerians in particular, are doing okay on kdp. There are many white authors who can't even boast of 10k monthly. Evidence dey.

And before you come for me, I just started like the rest here and I've already crossed $500. That may be a pittance but it supplements my other income streams nicely...

SuperOnyi:








Good response, boss.


I'm done with that travel guide but decided to postpone my children's book plan. My next plan is to focus on self help niche and drop like 7 well-written books per series. I'm wondering if $40 will be enough to start advertising on Amazon. I'm tired of giving out my book for free. I might give out just one to help people but I plan to stop doing that.

What do you think?

nurd:


From my experience, that $40 can give you back $100 from ads excluding organic sales. You just need to be patient when running the ads.

I've not tried giving out books for free. I don't see the point but it works for others so that's that.

SuperOnyi:






Thanks a lot for the response. I want to build a brand and with what you've just said, I'm even more convinced that it's possible.

Sir, when running ads, do you manually target keywords or just do it automatically? I'm asking because a lot of us do not have these keyword research softwares. Thank you.

SuperOnyi:





@Tomman, I lost interest in reading your comment when you said the reason he might have made that amount was because of his location — Canada. If you're really great observant, you'd understand kdp played a vital role in evb2000's 'relocation' to Canada — he clearly stated that. Matter of fact, we all witnessed that.

I've been ignoring your comments because I do not want to discredit your claims because I'm no expert on this topic and I understand how powerful racism, tribalism, and other isms that exist can be — which means there MIGHT be some truths in wst you're saying.

However, I think it's about time black people start becoming victors instead of victims. I don't care if Europeans or their cousins in America like me — like heck, even in Nigeria, there are Igbos and Yorubas here on Nairaland who believe a person's ethnicity is enough reason to judge them.

So, rather than screaming "them whites don't like us," start working SMARTLY to build a system that will favor you and your people — besides, that's what the Chinese did and are still working on. Compare that with what African countries are doing — tragic comedy!

Tomman:


I could not agree more with the bolded statement, and it is precisely what I have been advocating for a long time for black people collectively to be doing - BUT WHICH THEY HAVE NO INTEREST IN DOING (partly because of their tendency to see so-called "white" people as gods - which they are not). There is no bigger advocate of (genuine) black independence than me, and that necessarily includes financial and economic independence.

And, incidentally, it is not an either or thing, as most black people strangely tend to talk as if it is. One can work for true independence as a people while at the same time acknowledging the realities of the hostile nature of certain other groups towards them and any attempt by them to be collectively free. In fact, such recognition of reality is a necessity, without which you can't really have true independence.

I was aware that evb2000 had starting making some money in Nigeria through KDP before he moved to Canada. I was only referring to the extent of it. Even then I may have made a mistake in my reading or characterization of the whole thing. But that does not change the overall point I had been making, I never said that one is not allowed to make any amount whatsoever even within Nigeria or Africa as a whole. But there is a certain level of income that seems to trigger the alarm bells of Amazon and causes a shutdown action with respect to black authors, especially those in Africa, regardless of whether they are working honestly or not. And that is in addition to the fact that the algorithms seem to be very much rigged against them in the first place. In fact, most of the evidence I have seen for this is actually based on the experiences of black American authors.

Like I said towards the end of my previous post, I am very much open to being corrected and proved wrong. I would be happy to be wrong on this. I like to think that, in spite of how things may look, we are nevertheless in a fair system. The problem is that I just have not seen any actual evidence that that is the case.

nurd:


I have only tried automatic ads. I tried up and down and it was money sucking. Down only is slow but give consistent sales at low ACOS. Note: I've already talked about this previously.

dreamxhaser:


Eve

Do you think it's still advisable to come to Canada? I and a Female friend of mine are really taking this KDP serious. You are our motivation to be honest.

We sef want use the money japa. I wanted to stay in naija but omo, this country just dey anyhow.

I dey reason Canada, like how is life there? Is it possible to come and set up our lives? I heard some people saying Canada don hard.

We are both 21 years, and about to finish our schooling this year so I think age is in our side.

Tomman:


To give you a clearer picture of what I was talking about, let me quote a post that I made in a different thread that was based on a similar topic:



I provided those same two links in my previous comments on this very thread, but apparently the people here who saw the post did not bother to check them out (one person even sneered at my statement that Amazon is racist towards black people at all - which is absolutely astonishing given that the very first link clearly documents this very fact extensively). But this is the problem a lot of black people have; they just do not ever want to believe that white people can possibly hate them and be against their interests. Even while evidence abounds that this is the case, they ignore it.

For the record, I am not by any means trying to discourage anyone from experimenting with KDP publishing, especially if writing is your passion. That is not my point. All I want is for us to not be deceived about what our chances really are and what the game really is that we are playing here. Are we playing a truly fair game in which everyone, regardless of race, region or nationality, have the same chances of being successful as long as they work hard and do all the right things? Or are we playing a rigged game?

My problem is that I have very strong reasons to believe the game is rigged. Not just against Nigerians/Africans, but against black people in general - including African Americans. Though it is even more so the case with Africans, especially Nigerians. Saying that it is just a matter of doing the usual stuff like having good covers and doing marketing and so on, is silly. It assumes that you are on an equal playing field where the game is not rigged. I guarantee you that there are thousands of highly talented black writers in Nigeria and around the world doing all that stuff and yet barely making anything worthwhile in spite of it. And this is true even if their stories are set in western/American setting. I have constantly challenged people over the years to show me a single example of a black person, even within America, who has been very successful publishing their own books on KDP (with hundreds or thousands of reviews and ratings), and nobody has been able to point at a single example of one despite all the black talent around the world. Even in American forums where I have posted the question, they will typically whine and lash out for daring to ask such a question, but fail to provide any example.

Even in your diary thread (which I checked out), there was a place where you actually said that you know many talented Nigerian writers working hard publishing their books on KDP, but none of them make anything even close to $1000 a month, And you don't see how strange that is. That makes absolutely ZERO sense if this were really a fair game that we were playing here - where books sink or swim simply based on quality of the stories and marketing/word-of-mouth, and nothing else. There are tons of hack white authors in the US and other countries making much more than $1000 a month on KDP from publishing recyclable garbage - some without even much or any marketing.

As I said in the quote above, as a black person - and most especially a Nigerian/African - Amazon will only let you make chump change on their platform. But the moment you somehow manage to overcome their unfair algorithms and start making any really significant money, their axe will come down on you. This has happened countless times to black authors (even those who are US citizens) who till this day do not know what they did, get no answers from Amazon, and have had their proceeds robbed from them. I also believe that the reason why you were even able to make the amount you made - a few hundred here and there per month, eventually accumulating to about $1500 - is because you were in Canada. That almost certainly would not have happened if your geographical location at the time had been Nigeria. Platforms like D2D have even banned Nigerians and other Africans blatantly.

You may dismiss this merely as "conspiracy theory". But in the end, I keep going back to evidence. I am an observant person, and I am very familiar with the indie publishing business. And the fact remains that what I have observed does not in any way look as if the system is a fair game where everyone regardless of race, region or nationality is on an equal playing field. Instead all indications point in the exact opposite direction. (And, as pointed out earlier, that is the case even if you are all writing books based on western settings.) You may ask why Amazon, or any other US corporation for that matter, would want to engage in such behavior given that business and profit should be the only thing that matters. Well, part of it is the simple fact that profit is not the only thing that matters to the American elites - racial subjugation (controlling and keeping a certain group of people in their place) also matters to them - and it matters far more than most black people dare to think. Furthermore, there isn't much reason to think that the dynamics of the market, if they did not do that, would lean much in terms of non-ebook products losing out over ebooks as opposed to merely some authors books losing or winning out over others. Besides, they're swimming in so much money that it doesn't make any difference - what do they care?

Ultimately, do I hope I am wrong about all this and that you guys are right, and that the only reason we have not seen even a single renowned independent black/African/Nigerian author on KDP, much less dozens, is simply because black/African/Nigerian authors just aren't talented at writing, or they are all too lazy or poor to use fine covers and promote their ebooks? Yes, I totally wish that were true. But, if I am to be really honest with myself, that is a bit like wishing for the easter bunny to show up at my wedding and be my best man.

Phantom042:
I will buy your kdp account at any rate. Please drop your contact

j0rdannkyle:


I have a 5 year old KDP account with sales of up to $1000. I've not published any new book since 2019 cos I went into blogging.

So let me know if you're still interested in the account

Phantom042:


Yes, I am.

Please drop your contact

lovediehatelive:



Bro, you are still young, very young, and I like the fact that you are working hard and striving for a better living writing and publishing online.


However, take this free advice:

Don't make the mistake of going to Canada or any other country with a lady.

Just stop planning your travels or travelling out with her.

Not that you should hate her, but just keep her out of your travelling plans.

You might not understand this now, but in the next 9-10 years you'll understand better.

Sorry for derailing this beautiful KDP thread, just thought I should help this young focused soul.

dreamxhaser:


Sorry for the late reply, I was very busy of late.

Thank you so much for the insight. Though we are close friends from secondary school and all that, I will religiously look into your advice.

But can you please explain a little better why you advise that? *just asking politely* as I am very interested in this😊

lovediehatelive:



Like said earlier I won't want to derail this thread.


There are several threads on nairaland on similar issues. It's best you learn from the experience of others on such issues.

ericbertrand:
Publisher Rocket currently costs $97(N140,000), however I’m willing to sell mine for N100k. I’m done with KDP, so have no need for it again. Interested parties, pls quote me. Thank you

SuperOnyi:




Why you leaving kdp?

ericbertrand:

KDP requires a lot of time and dedication. I have a new job now but no time to publish again.

Ojireal:
Anybody with publisher rocket should hola me.

ericbertrand:

Do you still need it?

FxExpo:
Do you know that you are selling it along with the associated email and connected wallet?

ericbertrand:

I’m selling the license to the publisher rocket. Unfortunately, I used my main email when purchasing it so the email is non transferable.
I understand this might raise concerns with any potential buyer, so I’m willing to be as transparent and honest as possible.
Could you explain what you mean by a connected wallet?