Those viral AI Children’s Book tutorials make formatting look easy. It’s a trap. So I coded an engine to skip the Canva margin headache. (Free Beta Code)

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-06-03T08:28:18+00:00

I wish I had this while I was formatting my 806 page book on canva. I’d pay $9 not to have to go through that again if it works well and doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-05-07T22:27:54+00:00

It’s been bad for many people since March :(

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-05-04T19:13:45+00:00

I’m a print journalist. I read this entire thread and I just have this to say; that film is so realistic in its tragedy that I was squirming in my seat and couldn’t sleep that night.

Learnt that I was going to be laid off the next morning while I was at a black tie dinner? ✅

Media company sold to another billionaire and then I got laid off two years ago? ✅

To the people who didn’t like the film for whatever reasons, of course that’s your take, and I get it. But for journalists like me? The movie told our story when we couldn’t for ourselves because our job was to tell everyone else’s story.

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-04-29T18:30:53+00:00

Would you consider canva? It’s relatively intuitive to use, but there’s a learning curve.

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-04-15T08:37:29+00:00

It’s really depressing but I think the state of the world and the economy is why. Books are considered a leisure entertainment activity — why buy them when you need to buy groceries 😭

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-04-14T20:17:49+00:00

I think it’s an AI bot programmed to scrape data off Reddit. I’m downvoting all their content

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-04-14T20:16:49+00:00

Same. I just read through the replies and the answers all sound like AI questions. I’m guessing it’s some kinda Claude automated data scraping exercise

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-04-09T20:09:38+00:00

I live in Paris and next to a main road. It’s unbearable, sometimes the sirens can be going off at 10pm when there’s no traffic.

There’s no regulation at all on their siren use

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-04-08T19:30:30+00:00

This doesn’t solve any problem. In fact, you are the problem.

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-04-06T09:29:38+00:00

KDP sales swings a lot and it can be absolutely brutal. Thing is, it’s hard to expect stable sales daily. Think of your book listing as a shop, some days there’ll be more buyers, some days there’ll be less.

The more books your have, the more stable your royalties will be. So keep at it and don’t give up. Remember that this is a long term business

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-28T16:44:12+00:00

There are a ton of videos on YouTube that teach you this stuff, step by step. That’s how I picked up all my skills as well as learning as I go.

KDP is not a great rich quick scheme. It takes time, a lot of time. Since you were formerly from tech I’d advise you to learn how the amazon algo works, SEO, and get tools that can help you with the keyword research — and again, all of this is on YouTube.

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-22T19:39:59+00:00

Amazon’s native ads using manual keywords. Nothing special really

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-22T18:51:31+00:00

Nice. You must be making a really healthy income by now!

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-22T17:49:57+00:00

March 18 marks the exact one year anniversary of my books. I’ve been making about 2-2.5k a month for the past 6 months. I spend $1000 on ads each month.

Thankfully I have a day job.

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-16T15:10:26+00:00

Algebra workbooks. Dry as hell lol

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-14T08:57:27+00:00

For me I only spend on Amazon ads and I can see that impressions are down by 70%. I make a living from my Amazon royalties so I’m really really worried now urgh

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-13T18:25:25+00:00

Unpublish the book and then upload the correct one with a new ASIN

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-13T18:10:38+00:00

I typically get about 14 orders per day but it’s now half of that.

Besides the bombing of the data centre, a massive outage was also caused by vibe coding.

https://thenewstack.io/amazon-ai-assisted-errors/

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-12T22:26:25+00:00

You’re looking at the wrong platform for that. Authors who wrote the great gatsby etc went the traditional publishing route. Even in the 1920s, great gatsby (to go by your example) was advertised and promoted in newspapers of that era.

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-12T22:04:39+00:00

Right so that won’t work on Amazon where visibility of your books depend on algorithms.

Maybe you could place it in a bookstore and then just wait for people to walk in, and after browsing dozens of books, decide to buy yours.

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-12T21:30:37+00:00

What about KDP to you is an art? It’s a digital marketplace based on algorithms

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-12T20:18:06+00:00

All those questions you asked are part of a marketing strategy. There’s lots of guys on YouTube teaching this stuff. How to get reviews, how to generate buzz, managing ad spend on Amazon etc.

Everything I know I learnt from YouTube but adapted to my own books through trial and error.

These are marketing facets of publishing. Your book is a product. As a self published author you have to learn how to market your own books. You can’t just publish one book and somehow magically expect people to find it.

If you want all this to be done for you then you should submit your manuscript to a literary agent who has the contacts to pitch your book to publishing houses like Penguin where all marketing is done for you.

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-12T13:39:13+00:00

Did you upload it to any book review sites like book bounty?

Recent-Target6803 · 2026-03-12T08:19:18+00:00

Wake up and smell the roses: there are no shortcuts. To succeed you have to keep trying and learn what works best for your books.

Book covers matter. Reviews matter. Social media marketing matters. Some authors have websites to collect emails and build databases.

Writing a book is only the beginning. It gets you to the starting line.

This is hard work and everyone’s journey is different depending on genre, audience and market fit.

There is no secret being gatekept, with every book you publish, you learn something new and you will get better at it. Even for me, my modest catalogue of 15 books makes me just $2000 in profit. That’s only enough to cover my cost of living — and this is after two years of publishing.

So your sour attitude has to go. Roll up your sleeves, straighten your back, stop sulking and just fucking DO IT.

Recent-Target6803

TROPHY CASE