Great December strategy explainer from Gerald Confienza. The main takeaways: 1️⃣ The Exact Match Test The goal of this strategy is to capture specific, high-converting opportunities without wasting the budget, leveraging the higher buyer urgency and conversion rates seen in December. Implementation and Bidding: 1. Identify Targets: Use a tool like Helium 10 (specifically Cerebro) to find competitors’ books. Extract the top five to ten keywords that competitors are ranking for organically, ideally those with an organic rank between one and five. 2. Campaign Creation: Activate a new exact match sponsored product keyword ad campaign using these extracted keywords. 3. Aggressive Bidding: Start with very aggressive bids, usually at around $2, aiming for the top of search result placement. The intent is to see if the ad is "worthy of top of search placement," which yields the biggest ROI and helps improve the book's organic ranking for that keyword. Monitoring and Management: • Monitor the campaign's performance over a 3 to 7 day window. • If you see sales, break-even, or only very slight losses, keep the keyword active. • If the keyword is profitable, gradually raise the bids so that the performance is maintained at total break-even. • A keyword is considered "working" even if it incurs a slight loss (e.g., 55% ACOS) if it helps maintain or improve the SEO rank for that specific search term, increasing the book's overall visibility. • If the keyword does not perform within the 5 to 7 day window, turn it off immediately. 2️⃣ Prioritizing Gross Royalty Over Low ACOS The expenditure-to-profit ratio is most optimal in December, meaning sellers should focus on maximizing total sales and profit rather than strictly adhering to a low ACOS (Advertising Cost of Sales). Strategy Details: • Avoid the "Low ACOS" Trap: Sometimes, a slightly higher ACOS is beneficial if it causes the gross royalty per day to grow. When gross royalty increases, net profit can actually grow, even if the ACOS goes up.

This is by no means an idle question for the year 2026. If you want the answer right away, there is a detailed plan published today in the Classroom. Briefly, we need to use the most underutilized method: our contacts. Sure thing, you must comply with Amazon rules. Amazon “Customer Reviews / Community Guidelines” page guided who may not review your book: “We don’t allow a review by someone who has a direct or indirect financial interest in the product. We don’t allow a review by someone perceived to have a close personal relationship with the product’s owner, author or artist.” Another passage from Amazon’s self-publishing guidance: “You may provide free or discounted copies of your books to readers, as long as you do not require a review in exchange or attempt to influence the review.” Here is the simple rule: anyone who benefits from your success should not review your book. Anyone who has no stake in your sales can review it. People you CAN ask for a review: • Readers you know casually who did not work on the book. • Members of your email list who subscribed willingly. • Colleagues who have no financial or personal stake in the book. • Followers from your social media audience. • Beta readers who did not get paid and did not contribute editorial work. People you should avoid from asking for a review: • Close family. Amazon often blocks these reviews automatically. • Close friends when Amazon can see a strong connection. • Anyone you paid. This includes editors, designers, ghostwriters, formatters, and marketers. • Business partners or employees.• Anyone you trade reviews with. Amazon treats that as manipulation. • People who received compensation of any kind beyond a free copy. A safe pattern is this. Give people an easy path to read your book. Ask for a review only if they want to leave one, and never guide what they say. Amazon looks for bias, and bias usually shows up in relationships or incentives.

From a results standpoint, November was awful for me. Royalty increased by only 9% from October to November, reaching $1,458, while operational profit was $843. A lack of preparation and an absence of new books dramatically limited my results. Lesson learned. What were your results?

After receiving feedback from @Robert Alan, the final decision was made, "AI Strategy" will be published daily, section by section. The course is free for current Guild members at Level 2 or above who join before December 1, 2025. I genuinely believe the course could transform your business if you read and implement it bit by bit. It would be fantastic if you shared your thoughts and findings during the implementation process.

A few days ago, while out on my daily walk, I listened to Daniel Priestley's ideas about incomes distribution. I realized that I had often seen this in the KDP space. The income generated by self-published authors is extremely unevenly distributed. A massive majority of authors earn very little, while a small, elite group of Superstars earn the bulk of the revenue. 1. Newbies and Moderately Successful authors (The Base): The vast majority of authors fall into the lower-earning brackets. Estimates of HMD Publishing suggest that: - Around 46% of self-published authors earn $100 or less per month. - The overwhelming majority (80–90%) earn less than $50/month or nothing. 2. Superstars (The Top): A small fraction of authors capture disproportionately high earnings. - The top 10% of self-published authors are reported to earn 71% of all self-publishing income. - A small percentage, estimated to be less than 1% or around 10% in some surveys, earn over $100,000 per year, proving that exponential income is possible but extremely rare. The functional skills of writing and publishing are common, but the breakthrough success belongs to the elite group who master the added skills to become the Superstars. 🎠 But the craziest things starts with the Merry-Go-Round of Distraction. For KDP authors, it is the perpetual cycle of niche-jumping and chasing viral trends, which prevents them from building sustainable authority in one area. Moderately Successful authors see a new shiny niche, recommended by some guru and jump in it, dreaming about success. And immediately they become a Newbie in this new niche, loosing all their skills and experience, accumulated in they current niche. How it works: 1. A Moderately Successful author in Niche A sees a Superstar in Niche B. They are distracted by the exponential success of the Superstar. 2. The person jumps to Niche B. They reset their progress and become a Newbie in the new niche.