10 Things I Wish I Knew BEFORE Starting Amazon KDP

About this video

Sean lists 10 lessons from, by his claim, over 10 years on KDP and over $2 million in royalties. 1) Action teaches more than watching videos — many who say they did KDP for a year only published for a few hours and watched videos the rest. 2) Now is the best time to start: most KDP books are low-effort, and he cites student examples (an 18-year-old making $6,000 in two months, $1,000 from a first book without ads, and $100,000 revenue/$62,000 profit in a month) while stressing results are not guaranteed. 3) Use AI for outlines, content, covers and ads to move faster — he recalls a ghostwritten book taking nine months — but never rely on it 100%; edit and add a human touch. 4) Covers matter hugely; he says the cover does over 90% of the selling, and promotes sponsor 100 Covers (packages from $100, $70 with his code). 5) Investing is part of business, and 6) your best investment is yourself — he credits a course and coaching with reaching $10,000/month at month 10 and later selling his first account for $820,000, as his claim. 7) Competition proves people are buying; mine competitors’ negative reviews for improvements. 8) Quality beats quantity: one pen name with 140 spammy books versus a five-book author he estimates at $20,000-$30,000/month. 9) Build one brand/series in one niche to raise lifetime value instead of scattered topics. 10) Add formats — ebook, paperback, hardcover and audiobook — from the same book to multiply income.

Key takeaways

• Publishing and learning from real books beats a year of watching KDP videos without taking action.
• Use AI to speed up outlines, drafting and covers, but edit it — fully AI-produced books are low quality and do not sell long-term.
• Invest in a professional cover: Sean says the cover does over 90% of the selling on Amazon.
• Treat competition as proof of demand and use competitors’ complaints as a checklist for making a better book.
• Go deep with one brand and series, and expand each book into paperback, hardcover and audiobook formats.

Episode details: published April 20, 2026 · 21:58 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Sean Dollwet’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

← Previous: How to Get Book Reviews on Amazon KDP Using BookBounty · Next: What You NEED to Know Before Copyrighting Your Book →

All Sean Dollwet videos · Sean Dollwet profile · Sean Dollwet on YouTube