My question to people who are already publishing puzzle books or want to start publishing them: what are your top three roadblocks? What are the three questions that, if solved, would help your income grow faster? For example, if next month you could get one major struggle solved for you for free, what would be the struggle you would want solved? 🔑 The question is not exactly theoretical; it could be that you will get the real magic wand, who knows.

Look at the BSRs and the number of reviews. Working on my analytical tool, I routinely watched the first page of BSR-sorted books: BSR #1 – 1 review (the data in the tool is delayed for a few minutes), BSR #1 – 1 review, BSR #37 – 0 reviews. I thought it was some glitch, but no. It is the reality: BSRs less than 50 and almost no reviews. And now the most cryptic thing – all such books were published two days ago, May 12th. Please, somebody, explain it to me. Why May 12th?

The last two weeks were unusually slow and silent in the Guild. I am not sure, but it feels like there was less activity in most of the communities I am involved in. Is it just my perception, or have you experienced the same? Anyway, the Guided Publishing System is now built and fully operational. I am in the process of creating the new book with the system, and it works exactly as it was supposed to - "blank page syndrome" gone. Every time I come back to the book, I know exactly what the next step is. The same thing applies to the Review Catalyst tracker - it removed a lot of hustle and ambiguity from the process. I used the Paperback 3D Mockup for the A+ content for a few of my books, and it totally changed the experience of creating marketing materials. I am not sure if it's interesting to anybody except @Yannick Di Mondo, @Sven Georgiev and me. Anyway, it's OK for me to continue developing the tools, even if only three of us will use them. Slowly, without a rush, providing functionality that publishers are interested in. So, what is on your mind? What are you doing now? What are you aiming for? P. S. @Ana-Rita Piirainen It's so nice to see you back!

To be honest, for a moment I felt uneasy. I opened my account with some tension... Fortunately, everything is fine; the account is okay. In regional markets, everything is OK, but in the U.S., it's dogs.

Most Amazon KDP publishers don’t stall because they’re lazy.They stall because they’re solving the wrong problem. I’ve noticed a pattern with publishers stuck around $50–$1k/month: • They focus on publishing more instead of publishing better • They chase random niches without validating buyer intent • They tweak covers and blurbs endlessly while ignoring traffic flow • They rely purely on “organic hope” instead of a repeatable system What’s interesting is that the jump from $1k → $5k/month usually isn’t about talent or luck. It's about clarity: – Knowing which books deserve scaling – Understanding why some listings convert and others don’t – Treating KDP like a business, not a slot machine I’m curious, For those here who’ve broken past the $1k/month mark:What was the ONE shift that changed everything for you? And for those still climbing: What do you feel is your biggest bottleneck right now, traffic, conversion, or niche selection? Let’s turn this into a real discussion instead of recycled advice.