Your Books WON'T SELL... Unless You Fix THIS (Amazon KDP)

About this video

Sean Dollwet critiques books viewers sent him via Instagram, diagnosing why each is or is not selling and rating them out of five. The first, a purple star astrology book, has a 4.8-star average from 39 ratings but a Kindle Best Sellers Rank around 414,000 and a paperback rank over a million: he finds no demand and no other selling books on the topic, so no cover or listing fix can save it; he also calls its $32–$35 paperback price far too high versus a $16–$18 recommendation, and its cover cluttered (rating 3.5/5). A mobile app development book with zero reviews is priced too high at $9.99 Kindle, $23.99 paperback and $49.99 hardcover, with a Canva-looking cover — fix the cover and get reviews, for example via Pubby (3/5). A Greece travel guide needs its subtitle quotes removed, paperback and hardcover versions added (he says conversion costs about $5), reviews and low-bid Amazon ads (3/5). Several notary public log books from one seller share the same faults — poor covers, zero reviews, premium pricing too early; he advises starting cheap and raising prices as reviews grow, and stresses that for simple log books the cover is the main differentiator, citing a Fiverr designer offering six low-content covers for $75. A detective-story collection with six reviews has an unclear audience; he suggests pivoting to an SEO-optimized kids’ angle like ‘detective and mystery stories for curious kids,’ pointing to a comparable book he says makes $100 a day in royalties, plus adding a paperback (2/5 but high potential). The standout is ‘Food Preservation for Preppers’: excellent SEO title, cover, all formats, sensible pricing and a 4.9 average from 251 ratings, ranking first for its keyword — yet with paperback BSR around 486,000 it barely sells because, per his Cerebro check, the author runs no Amazon ads; he recommends starting a low-budget automatic campaign and scaling into manual campaigns (5/5).

Key takeaways

• No demand means no fix: the purple star astrology book ranks #1 for its keyword yet sells nothing because nobody searches the topic — validate demand before publishing.
• Zero-review books must start cheap and earn the right to premium prices; the app-development book’s $49.99 hardcover and the astrology book’s $32+ paperback are priced for books with reviews.
• Covers are the main differentiator, especially for low-content log books — outsource or learn design rather than shipping a cluttered, hard-to-read Canva cover.
• Always publish paperback and hardcover alongside the ebook (about $5 to convert, per Sean), and use services like Pubby to build an initial review base.
• Even a near-perfect book stalls without traffic: the 4.9-star, 251-rating preppers book ranks #1 organically but, running no Amazon ads, sells little — start a low-budget automatic campaign.

Episode details: published November 20, 2023 · 13:46 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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