These Are The WORST Amazon KDP Mistakes Beginners Make (Avoid at All Costs)

About this video

In a subscriber book review and roast, Sean works through submitted KDP books and repeats the same core mistakes. On ‘Tales of Wonder,’ he criticizes an AI-looking cover with hard-to-read text, only two reviews, and a fancy title with no keyword — suggesting a clear title like adventure stories for kids ages 4 to 8 instead. On a Halloween coloring book, he flags a repeated title and subtitle wasting keyword space, uncapitalized title words, and cover text blending into a likely Midjourney image, suggesting the subtitle cite a benefit such as 50 coloring pages for ages 4 to 12. He praises a beginner children’s Bible story book’s clear, keyword-led title, benefit-rich subtitle, and cover, but says it has only one review and no marketing; he compares expecting Amazon to sell it to opening a hot dog stand on a quiet corner with no signs, and recounts a friend whose book went from no income for a year to, in his telling, $5,000 in a month after getting reviews. For a student’s ChatGPT money-making book with 304 reviews, he says title and reviews are strong but the futuristic realistic cover image should be replaced with a simpler, more text-based nonfiction design; he notes its audiobook version does $25 to $40 a day per Book Beam, illustrating why high-content books benefit from multiple formats. On a historical romance, he cites a cheap-looking cover, a 4.2 average rating below his 4.3 minimum, no paperback version, and a standalone 99-cent book with no series, which caps earnings per customer; fiction, he says, needs a series where later books recover the first book’s ad losses. He closes on a children’s cat book whose cover appeals more to adults than kids ages 5 to 12 and whose subtitle has grammar errors, advising the author to clean it up, market the book now that it has enough reviews, and build it into a series.

Key takeaways

• Titles must be clear and keyword-based, not cute or fancy — Sean rewrites vague titles into plain descriptions of the book and its age range.
• Covers fail when AI images look generic and text is small or blends into the background; compare against competitors and use a proper designer.
• Reviews and marketing are not optional: Sean suggests 10 to 20 reviews for credibility and says even a well-packaged book will not sell if nobody promotes it.
• Publish in multiple formats where possible — a student’s paperback underperformed while its audiobook version earned an estimated $25 to $40 a day.
• Fiction needs a series and quality control: a lone 99-cent book caps revenue per reader, and Sean treats a 4.3 average rating as the minimum to aim for.

Episode details: published January 7, 2025 · 16:46 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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