Thank you so much to @Thomas Juuls and @Ljubitza Kouris - it was a great meeting. @Suzanne Smith was with us at start, unfortunately, she left the meeting soon. It's sad that due to technical imperfections caused by moving the meeting to Friday, we were deprived of the opportunity to see @Yannick Di Mondo at the meeting. We discussed Guided Publishing System in deep. Premium tier members can watch the recording 🎦 in the Classroom. The main topics we discussed was: Core Philosophy & System Design - User-Centric Flexibility: Unlike many AI publishing tools that hide their processes, the GPS is designed to give users control over the specific Large Language Model (LLM) they use, such as Gemini Pro, ChatGPT, or Claude Opus. - The "Recipe" Framework: The system operates on a "recipe" model, where data files (market data, Book DNA, Reader Avatars) serve as ingredients and prompts as instructions. High-quality results depend on the precision of both. - Human-Led Creativity: Following the Pareto (80/20) principle, the system delegates "boring" heavy lifting to the AI while keeping the user in charge of creative taste and strategic decision-making. Quality vs. "AI Slop" - The Problem with Generic AI: "One-button" AI solutions often produce "AI slop" – low-quality content that consumers can easily distinguish from professional work. - Data Integrity: "Garbage In, Garbage Out." Generic data leads to generic results; it's important to upload their own specific research (e.g., from tools like KDP Scout) to get actionable insights. Key Tools & Functionality - Avatar Distiller: This tool generates highly detailed Reader Avatars based on a Book’s DNA. This allows publishers to "test" covers and marketing copy against an AI model that simulates their target audience’s specific demographics and habits. - Niche Finder: We discussed how using specific, user-collected niche data (rather than generic best-seller lists) dramatically improves the AI's ability to find profitable publishing opportunities. - KDP Ads Scenario Calculator: A tool designed to help publishers simulate different advertising outcomes to decide whether to continue or stop specific Amazon ad campaigns.

It's crucial when planning a new book to analyze reviews of your top competitors' books to improve your own. Now you can do it in a few clicks with the Royalty Guild Review Collector. This free and extremely simple-to-use Chrome Extension allows you to collect all reviews from a page into temporary storage and then navigate to the next page. Once you've gathered all necessary reviews, simply download them as a CSV file to analyze with your LLM of choice. Just upload the attached "Review Analyze Prompt.md" file and the downloaded CSV file to Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT, and type "Execute the prompt." You will get a ton of insights for your niche. ❗Local versions (.de, .es, .fr, .it) are in the development pipeline.

I've been sitting on this post for a while because I wanted to make sure I wasn't just being dramatic. After months of watching the space closely, I'm convinced this isn't fear-mongering — it's pattern recognition. Here's my honest breakdown of where Amazon KDP is headed — for all of us. The Ground is Already Shifting Under Our Feet KDP is currently the frontline of AI disruption. The market isn't just "getting competitive" — it's being flooded with synthetic content at a scale we've never seen before. Amazon knows it. That's why they're actively rewriting the rules: algorithm changes, royalty structure tweaks, review policy updates. The A10 algorithm shift wasn't accidental. They're trying to manage a glut they didn't anticipate, and they're doing it in real time. If we've noticed our organic rankings slipping over the past year, we're not imagining it. The playbook that worked in 2022 is now actively working against us. The Next 1–2 Years: We're No Longer Authors. We're Media Buyers. Here's the hard pill: writing a well-structured, 30,000-word book is no longer a differentiator. We can produce it in a day. Execution — the thing we used to compete on — has been commoditized overnight. And before anyone says, "just write better, more human content," readers can't actually tell the difference anymore. That ship has sailed. Competing on the quality of the text itself is a losing game, regardless of how it's produced. So what actually wins now? External attention. Amazon's new algorithm heavily rewards books that arrive with an audience already attached. That means the winners over the next two years won't be the best writers. They'll be the best digital marketers — the ones building newsletters, growing YouTube followings, nurturing Skool communities, and then pointing that audience toward their books. Our identity in this business has to evolve. We need to think of ourselves less as authors and more as media brands that happen to publish books. The second piece of this is what I'm calling the trust premium. Readers are already experiencing AI fatigue, even if they can't name it. They can feel when a person is behind something — not because the writing is better, but because the marketing is authentic, the niche is specific, and the face behind the brand is real and present. Verifiable human presence and transparent, specific marketing will convert dramatically better than anonymous, optimized content. Our humanity isn't in the text anymore. It's in how we show up off the page.

You saw the chart. Eight months, 22x royalty growth, 15x profit. Not magic – process. Now I'm setting the next target: $5,000/month by the end of 2026. And I'm doing it publicly, with full transparency on what works and what doesn't. Here's what changed in my thinking going into this year. Low-content got me to $50/month on autopilot. Switching to a quality-first mindset got me past $3,000. But scaling further requires something I spent the last few months building: a repeatable system that doesn't depend on my mood, my schedule, or lucky niche picks. I'm calling it the Guided Publishing System. It's not a course. It's not a prompt pack. It's a structured workflow — built around the idea that AI can do the heavy lifting in execution, while the decisions, creative direction, and judgment calls stay with us. That's what produces defensible, platform-compliant books that actually sell. And that's what separates publishers who plateau from publishers who compound. I'm not ready to open it up fully yet. But I'm looking for a group of serious publishers – people already making something on KDP, already past the "does this even work?" phase – who want to run this alongside me in 2026. What that looks like in practice: Real numbers shared. Real process documented. No cheerleading – just what's working, what broke, and how I'm adjusting. If you're plateaued somewhere between $50 and $1,000/month and you're done waiting to figure out what the next level actually requires, this is worth paying attention to. If $5,000/month is a thing of the past for you, it's amazing! Let's target 5x growth, for example. More details on the Premium tier upgrades will be available soon. Watch this space. --- The chart shows my trajectory from Jan-25 through Dec-25. Your numbers will be different. I hope you will crash it.

Imagine you are creating a book about decluttering. If you hired two cover designers and gave them a task: Create a cover for a book about decluttering with the title: "Decluttering Made Simple. Subtitle: Practical Strategies to Organize Your Home and Achieve Peace from Clutter in Less than 10 Minutes a Day. By Kate Hansen." Designers returned with their concepts. What offer would you prefer as a prototype to continue with? Your ideas about the quality of designs? Cast your vote for the set you like better. ----- ⚠️ If you recognized some designs, NO SPOILERS please.