Kindle Publishing Student Book Review/Critique - Don't make these mistakes

About this video

Sean critiques a student’s book on teaching a baby to fall asleep alone, which the student said was selling only a couple of copies a month. He says the biggest problem is keyword selection: the competing book on the keyword ranked under 100,000, which can look like an untapped, profitable keyword, but checking the author’s bio showed branding and a blog — outside traffic the student cannot copy. Sean argues that if most sales come from a blog, email list or YouTube channel rather than Amazon itself, the keyword is not truly profitable for a publisher relying solely on Amazon traffic, and that a ranking around 73,000 despite outside traffic is not even strong. To judge profitability, he says page-one books should be under 100,000 and be self-published titles using only Amazon traffic. On the book itself, he calls the cover simple but acceptable for the parenting niche, while criticising the subtitle for being a question about feeling exhausted, stressed, frustrated or guilty; instead, he says, a subtitle should state the benefit and problem solved, such as simple steps to help a baby fall asleep quickly without that stress. He also says the paperback price of $5.50 is too low and should be over $10, because at that price paperback royalties are smaller than ebook earnings. He praises the description’s attention-grabbing headline, problem framing, solution and call to action, but advises removing page numbers from the bullet points, especially a final page number that makes the book look very short.

Key takeaways

• A keyword under 100,000 BSR is not profitable if the ranking book’s sales are driven by a blog, email list or YouTube channel you cannot replicate
• Check competing authors’ bios and branding for outside traffic before treating a keyword as untapped
• A nonfiction subtitle should state benefits and the problem solved, not pose a question to the reader
• Price paperbacks over $10, he advises, rather than at $5.50 where paperback royalties fall below ebook earnings
• Do not list page numbers in description bullet points, as a low final page count makes the book look too short

Episode details: published October 6, 2018 · 8:36 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.

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