Amazon KDP report is one thing most authors find challenging to understand. Once you have published your book, the next thing on your mind is how to sell your book. Book sales might start showing a few hours after the book is live, or it might take time. To see your sales, you will need to open your sales dashboard.
In this article, I will explain how the Amazon KDP dashboard works. But before then, let’s understand some concepts about Amazon book publishing.
Amazon KDP
It is a platform where you can publish your book and sell it. Amazon is a free platform where anyone can publish their books. Authors don’t pay to publish their books. Amazon KDP gives you control over your book, which means that you can publish your book and unpublish it whenever you want.
Also, Read How to write and publish a book on Amazon KDP
Publishing Books on Amazon
After writing a book, the next step is publishing it. If you are new on Amazon, you can go to kdp.amazon.com, create your account, and publish your book. Publishing books on Amazon doesn’t take time. You can publish your book within a few minutes if your manuscript and book cover is ready. Once you have published your book, Amazon KDP will review your book (within 72 hours) before your book goes live.
Selling your book on Amazon.
When your book is live on Amazon, you might start getting sales immediately or within a few days.
Now that your book is live, the next thing you will be looking at is your sales report dashboard. It is where you will know your daily sales report and if your book sells.
Amazon Sales Dashboard
Understanding the Amazon KDP report page is very important as an author. It will help you make decisions towards your book, like; Changing keywords, changing the book cover, updating your book description, and even when running the AMS campaign.
To see your Amazon KDP report,
log in to your KDP account via kdp.amazon.com
Click on “Report” at the top of the page; It will display the dashboard below.
In your dashboard, you will see the following;
Units ordered: A list of numbers is located on the left side of the KDP sales dashboard. It shows the number of books sold or units ordered. Let’s assume that you sold 10 copies today; it will show 10 copies sold.
Orange Color: It represents the ebook sales. It shows the ebook units sold per day. It is updated after sales of an ebook are processed. If you want to count the units sold in a month for ebooks, that’s the line to check
Blue color: It shows the number of free units ordered. Let’s assume you are running a free book promotion; all free units ordered are shown in blue color in your KDP dashboard.
Ash color: Found on the Amazon KDP report dashboard. It represents units sold for your paperback. It shows the number of paperback units ordered. It is updated after the book has been shipped. Sometimes, if your book is ordered through Amazon third-party partners, it might take more days before your paperback sales reflect. So, if you are calculating the number of units sold for paperback for a marketplace or a certain period, that’s the line to check.
KU/KOLL: This is found on the report dashboard. The number of Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) read determines the royalties you earn from KU (Kindle Unlimited) and KOLL (Kindle Owners’ Lending Library). This graph is updated as pages are read by customers who borrow your book from KU and KOLL.
Understanding Amazon Sales dashboard
Understanding the graph is one of the challenges most authors face. When you look at the graph, you will think that your book sales are disappearing, but your sales are there.
Your KDP sales report will display the way you configured it. Let’s assume you set it to display a weekly report starting on Sunday. Sales for the week will be showing, and the previous week’s sales will start going backward at the beginning of another week. It doesn’t mean that the sales are not there. Instead, it means the old sales are creating new spaces for the latest sales.
To understand your sales report well, go to the calendar and change it from weekly sales reports to the last 90 days’ sales report. You will be able to see the sales that have disappeared from your dashboard.
By default, Amazon KDP displays sales reports for the last 30 days. But if you want to understand it better, you can change it to the previous 90 days. You will be able to see your previous sales that are not showing.
If you want to read more about the sales report, check out the Amazon sales report page.
There are other things that you will see on the page, which include:
Other things found on the Amazon KDP Report Page
Historical: Found on Amazon KDP report page. It shows the summary of your book sales in previous months. It is usually updated on the 15th of every month. The historic page will show you the data if you have lost track of the number of books sold in the previous months.
Month–to–Date: This shows the net unit of books sold in the month. If you have many books published on Amazon KDP, this will give you the sales summary of each book.
Payment: It shows when Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing has paid you. It is a perfect way of tracking your payment. Payments are made 60 days after each sales period. For example, sales made in January will be paid at the end of March (60 days).
Pre-order: If you set your book in pre-order mode, it will track your pre-order sales. I don’t usually do that, but you can try it.
Promotions: When you are running promotions like; free book promotions or Kindle countdown deals, it is a place to track the status of your promotion. It is essential if you are running multiple promotions. It will give you the status of each promotion.
Prior Month sales: Seen on Amazon KDP report page. It shows sales made within the month via various market place. It is an avenue to track your sales. You can filter by the marketplace to see the sales from each market. And it is also essential if you are targeting a specific marketplace. With this report, you will know the markets that your book is selling very well. It is advisable that you filter by marketplace when checking to avoid confusion.
What you can do in your KDP Sales Dashboard
Check Book Sales: You can check the number of books sold in a certain period – like 30 or 90 days. To do that, open your report page and locate where dates are written beside the “units ordered” you will see a dropdown menu, click on it and select the date of the sales range you want to view. After, you can click on “Update.” The units sold within that range will be displayed. If you want to change it, go back to the page, click the dropdown menus, and click on the date you want to view sales.
Furthermore, as you click the drop-down menu and select the duration of sales, the number of KENP reads for such a period will be displayed.
Generate Book Report: If you want to generate a report of units sold in Amazon KDP for a certain period, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Generate a report. Your sales report for the duration will be downloaded. You can also report at the bottom of the page any issues you have. There is a kdp help page below to report any issues.
Contact Support: After checking your sales dashboard, if you need assistance, please contact kdp support below the page. They will respond to you with detailed feedback on your issue.
Conclusion
Understanding your Amazon KDP report is very important. It will help you to make decisions concerning your book, like book promotion strategies. But if you think there is an error in your dashboard, you can contact Amazon with proof of sales. Also, if your book is not selling, go back and review your book. It might be because your book doesn’t offer value to buyers or your keywords are not targeting the right buyers. You can start by changing most of your keywords or rewriting your book description. If you think your book sold and it is not reported or need assistance, please contact kdp customer service. They will offer you detailed feedback.
I hope you have learned something from the article.
