KDP Authors are Losing Sales Because of THIS

About this video

Dale explains why many KDP authors lose sales: their book covers. Authors often design their own covers for creative control or to save money, but without professional design training they do their work a disservice, and quality design does not have to cost an arm and a leg. He cites subscriber Tommy Williams, who had tried advertising, discounts, paid AMS marketing, writing in series, back-of-book calls to action, and social media, yet had sold no books in months; Dale’s first observation on his author profile was the covers. Dale admits his own DIY covers were poor too: he recounts his Ultimate Home Workout Plan bundle, launched in late 2015 with early-2016 breakout success, whose original cover was made on Fiverr for about five dollars; when he replaced it with his own design that friends praised, sales tanked, and restoring the old cover brought sales back. For Tommy’s young adult fantasy series, Tommy wrote a simple, detailed cover brief, and they ordered through Olivia Pro Design on Fiverr, choosing up to three licensed Deposit Photos images and a custom gig with extra graphics, at about $25 per cover — $75 total for the three-part series. Dale closes by pointing viewers to his vetted list of Fiverr professionals and teasing a follow-up about how he nearly ruined a cover with a bloated design brief.

Key takeaways

• Amateur DIY covers are a fundamental reason many KDP authors fail to sell, even when they market actively.
• Authors typically self-design for creative control or money, but professional covers can be inexpensive.
• Dale’s own experience: replacing a roughly $5 Fiverr cover with his own praised design tanked sales; restoring it revived them.
• A simple, detailed cover brief helps the designer; an overstuffed brief can ruin a design.
• Tommy Williams’s three-cover series redo via Olivia Pro Design cost about $25 per cover, $75 total.

Episode details: published September 20, 2022 · 5:12 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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