You usually hear me talk about all the things I love about self-publishing and the advantages it has — especially how it can save you money compared to hiring a publisher and how you can move much faster than going the traditional publishing route. But today I wanted to switch things up and share 3 things I don’t love about self-publishing through Amazon KDP. 👀 1. Printing in Color is EXPENSIVE 🎨 If you're creating a cookbook, children's book, photo book, workbook with lots of graphics, or anything with color pages, costs can climb fast. The longer your book gets, the more expensive it becomes to print, and that means either: • You raise your retail price • You accept lower royalties • Or both 😩 I've played around with the KDP pricing calculator before, and it becomes pretty eye-opening when you start adding page counts. A color book that sounds amazing in theory can quickly become difficult to price competitively. 2. KDP Select Comes with Limitations 📚 Now don't get me wrong... I actually like KDP Select because of the perks. You can run Free Book Promotions, Kindle Countdown Deals, and your ebook can also be included in Kindle Unlimited where you get paid based on pages read. BUT... The tradeoff is exclusivity. If you're enrolled in KDP Select, your ebook can't be available digitally anywhere else while you're enrolled. That means no: ❌ Apple Books ❌ Google Play Books ❌ Kobo ❌ Barnes & Noble Press ❌ Selling the ebook on your own website Your paperback and hardcover can still be sold elsewhere, but your ebook is restricted. 3. You Don't Own the Customer Relationship 👥 This one is probably my biggest annoyance. Amazon never tells you who bought your book. You don't get their email address. You don't get their contact information. Y ou can't follow up with them later and say: "Hey, I released another book!" This is exactly why it's so important to create ways to bring readers into your ecosystem. Things like: ✔ QR codes inside your books ✔ Bonus resources

🔥You get out what you put in. I wanted to take a few minutes to recognize some community members who are taking what they’ve learned and actually putting it into motion. Results don’t happen because you join a community, buy a course, or save a post. Results happen when you take action. 📣 @Gemma Coles (my VIP client) launched her book in less than 8 weeks. She’s already seeing sales, working on gathering reviews, actively marketing her book, and she's already thinking about the next one. That's publisher thinking. @Pat Terrell followed the lessons inside Premium and used the step-by-step process to get her book published and live on Amazon. @Gale Bates started by moving her planner from only being sold on her own website over to Amazon KDP, making it easier for people around the world to buy it. Since then, she’s already moved into launching a children’s book and has plans for more. @Tara Adler joined the call last night where I was able to help with some keyword research (replay coming soon 👀). She’s actively working on multiple books at once... and no, not ideal Tara is just an overachiever 😂 @Jim Flach has some great ideas in the works and decided to start with a children’s book in his niche so he could move through the process more quickly and learn by doing. 🎉 There are many people in this community making progress, and every small step matters. Whether you're writing, researching, designing, publishing, or marketing — movement creates momentum. The people taking action are moving closer to launch goals and sales goals. The people sitting on the sidelines? Those goals stay exactly where they are. "You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to become great." Drop a comment below and tell us: What is ONE thing you're working on right now? 👇

If you had the pleasure of attending my webinar last month then you got to meet my wonderful friend @Shayna Melissa Stockman who I was very grateful to have as my moderator. Shayna recently opened her own community here on Skool. If you or someone you know is living with autoimmune issues, please join her group here. Shayna is a great example of using her book to gain speaking opportunities and sell author copies. She attends events regularly, not just to promote her book but also to use them as a doorway to bring people into her program. ➡️ CHECK OUT HER BOOK ON AMAZON

This is a PROUD moment for me to highlight that @Gemma Coles has OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED 🚀 her book 📖 AI FOR BUSY PROFESSIONALS she’s been working closely with me on my VIP tier and actually implemented everything exactly as it was taught, not picking and choosing, not skipping steps, but executing the full strategy from start to finish. And here’s the result… her book already hit #1 New Release in its category. That doesn’t happen by luck. It’s not random. That’s what it looks like when the right strategy meets consistent execution. Most people focus only on “getting the book published,” but the real leverage is in how you launch it. The positioning, the category selection, the early traction, those are the pieces that push a book into visibility fast. Takeaway for your own launch: If you want momentum early, don’t wait until your book is live to start thinking about marketing. Build it into your launch. - Choose categories where ranking is actually achievable - Get early readers lined up before launch day - Drive immediate activity (downloads, clicks, engagement) in those first few days That early window is everything. When you hit it right, Amazon starts working for you instead of you chasing sales after the fact. If you would like to support Gemma, please grab a copy of her book it's only $9.99 on Amazon and I promise you will learn more than a thing or two! (p.s. - I've already ordered my copy and it's on the way 😉)

Are we surprised who won the leaderboard this month? I'm not shocked @Gemma Coles won AGAIN! But, the reason she won is that she was taking action, going through the lessons, preparing her book, and actually executing a book launch, so she was showing up every day! What does Gemma WIN?!? Well, since she is already a VIP member with me, I'm going to give her an extra opportunity to cash in on another 7-day PINNED post to help promote her book or future book again in the future. For those of you who would like to promote your own book in the community, I offer: - 24hr Pinned Post for $10 - One Week Pinned Post & Email $50 Also, huge shoutout to our other highly active community members this month @Lara Knutzen @Nick Nebelsky @Pat Terrell @Cristal Vancarson Thank you all for showing up and spending time here, engaging with other members. I truly appreciate all of you in making this community the amazing space that it is. 💖