Meeting 19 December, 2025. Takeaways · Royalty Guild. Amazon KDP Kit

Igor O

Dec '25 (edited) • 📺 Information

Meeting 19 December, 2025. Takeaways

The meeting was mind-blowing.

@Latte Motte

is absolutely the legend.

@Ana-Rita Piirainen

in the real conversation is amazing.

@Thomas Juuls

, as usual, was full of insights.

Let me summarize out one and half hour conversation.

1. Publishing Strategies: Short vs. Long Form

One of the themes of the meeting was the strategic use of "short-form" content to dominate niches and test the market.

Dominating Niches with Shorts: Thomas Juuls shared his strategy of breaking down books collections into single, short-form books (some as short as 8 pages) to dominate specific niches on Amazon.
Kindle Shorts (US Only): It was noted that while Europe lacks these categories, the US platform features "Kindle Shorts," which Amazon automatically categorizes based on reading time and page count.
Short-to-Long Growth Model: Igor O proposed a "reverse" publishing model where authors release individual stories or chapters as separate books first to identify which resonates most with the audience before compiling them into a "major" branded book.
The "Keiretsu" (系列) Concept: Latte Motte introduced the Japanese concept of Karetsu—mutually reinforcing connections—applying it to a book portfolio where various parts work together to strengthen the overall brand.

2. AI as a Creative and Analytical Tool

The participants discussed AI not as a text generator, but as a sophisticated tool for analysis and workflow optimization.

Audience Avatar Analysis: Thomas used ChatGPT to conduct a detailed audience analysis for bedtime stories, identifying mothers in their late 20s to early 30s as the primary buyers. This resulted in a vastly different and more effective book description.
Workflow Efficiency: Latte Motte reported completing a report in half a day that previously would have taken a week by using human-assisted AI.
Style Conversion for Imagery: Igor suggested using AI to describe the style of an existing image and then converting personal photos into that specific style (e.g., pencil strokes or lithography) to maintain consistency without creating "AI-looking" art.
Voice Cloning: Ana-Rita Piirainen shared that she created a professional clone of her own voice to continue generating income from voiceover work.

3. Amazon Optimization and Findings

We shared specific findings regarding Amazon's internal mechanics and recent test results.

BSR Cannibalization

Igor found that e-books can "cannibalize" paperback sales, splitting the Best Seller Rank (BSR); switching off e-books in some segments significantly improved BSR and tripled royalties.

Seasonal Cover Testing

Thomas tested a Christmas-themed cover for a journal; it was a failure, stopping sales almost entirely as users may not want a seasonal cover on an evergreen tracking tool.

Color Consistency

Amazon prefers (and sometimes requires) that e-books and paperbacks reflect each other in terms of color/B&W; publishing a color e-book with a B&W paperback can lead to customer dissatisfaction or technical issues.

4. Technical Tools and Methods

Language Level Analysis: We discussed targeting specific English levels (e.g., B2) or school grades for better readability and broader appeal.
Formatting Software: Mentions of using Quillbot for tone/grammar , Affinity Studio for vectorizing images , and Google Sheets for project management.

This is just major topics and takeaways, the real meeting was 10x more interesting.

P. S. And we talked about em-dashes and en-dashes. Em-dashes have been presented in books for ages, and removing them from a text because of the lack of education of some people ("Look, em-dash. This is ChatGPT!"), seems like a sub-optimal choice for me. And everybody has their own opinion on the topic.

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