Corvin’s Journey to Selling Over 150,000 Books
This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Corvin an enterprising individual who has sold over 150,000 books with Amazon KDP.
His success wasn’t achieved overnight. With an unwavering dedication to their craft, consistent effort, a keen eye for untapped niches, and a talent for producing engaging book covers and titles, they paved their way to the top.
Corvin and his partner have not only made a name for themselves in the publishing world but have also developed invaluable tools and resources for the budding self-publisher.
Let’s delve into his inspiring journey.
1. Can you share your early journey with Amazon KDP? Why did you choose KDP as a side hustle?
We started KDP because we had an FBA business selling supplements and wanted a guidebook and a cookbook to go with it. One of these books became a best seller and getting really good sales (still selling to this day) and then decided to go all in on KDP doing it full time.
We went to Barnes and Nobles to get more inspiration for other kinds of books we could make and then stumbled upon activity books, puzzle books and more and felt totally inspired to make those books and create software to help us make our own books.
2. You have been able to make over six figures with Amazon KDP, what are the main factors that contributed to your success?
The main factors that contributed to our success would have been 1) being very dedicated and consistent 2) Really finding good niches 3) Creating as good or better covers than the competitors 4) Creating a good title that both works for SEO and conversions 5) Launching a book with Amazon ads.
3. @mouaadkd wanted to ask what type of book you published and found success with? how long it also take you to complete a book?
We have had most success with 1) cookbooks 2) guidebooks 3) story books 4) and activity books. Cookbooks would take us many weeks, the guidebook also (we created them ourselves, not outsourced) Activity books were faster as we used our Self Publishing Titans activity book making tools for the interiors.
4. @HappyLifege wanted to know your daily routine and if you outsource work?
Daily routine usually: Daily routing is staring work usually between 6–8 AM, work until at least 8PM usually 9PM. Go for a daily walk around sunset. Work 7 days a week, sometimes take a partial day off once a week. Priority is on support and help users with our tools, mostly free tools. Get a lot of emails and messages daily and try to answer them as fast as possible. Helping users is first priority. When doing new book launches we check the product listing and ads daily to make sure everything is managed as good as possible.
5. Do you believe authors need to run ads to succeed with KDP or is it possible to succeed with only organic sales?
No. If you run ads you can rank faster and easier on Amazon in bigger niches. If you don’t have money for ads, you can still have success on Amazon, but it will be easier going for smaller niches.
6. What is the biggest challenge you faced whilst publishing on Amazon KDP, and how did you overcome it?
Finding the best freelancers for book interiors and covers. We overcame that by looking at hundreds of freelancers and testing out lots of them to find really good ones.
7. What advice do you have for aspiring self-publishers looking for success with Amazon KDP?
If you are an author, work on building a brand and get very active on social media to build a following and drive book sales. If I had to pick one platform I would pick TikTok. If you don’t like videos, I would pick Pinterest and Facebook Group.
If you publish low or medium content books, you have to be very consistent. Find a good niche, create a good book with a good title, publish it, ideally launch it with ads, and then repeat the process. Find the next niche, etc. Consistency is key. When you find success in one niche do another one in the niche and surrounding niches or even start a series if possible.
8. Do you have any other successful side hustles?
Getting more into Etsy now. Our first shop we created 4 years ago has consistently made sales every month. Now want to do more of it. Also our Self Publishing Titans Masterclass and our KDP tools give us extra income.
9. Do you think KDP is saturated and should authors focus on low, mid or high content in 2023?
Big niches can become saturated. But there are tons of smaller niches that are totally fine and also new niches get created all the time too. So definitely still an opportunity. I think puzzle and activity books have one of the best opportunities currently.
Low content books like notebooks etc. are so easy to make that “everyone” does them and now with AI coloring books and guide / how to books are getting flooded with books. Sadly mostly bad quality books that give a bad customer experience. But puzzle and activity books take time and effort and cannot be done by AI. So more people are staying away from it.
10. What are your future plans and goals for your publishing career on Amazon KDP?
Our plan moving forward is to focus very much on brand building. Fewer books, bigger launches, social media, website, etc. Create a few brands that customers love and keep coming back to and build a community around it.
11. What social media platforms and websites can you be found on?
People can find our free tools and resources on www.selfpublishingtitans.com
We can be found on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/selfpublishingtitansofficial
Originally published at https://royaltiesondemand.beehiiv.com.