A minute of nostalgia. Everybody who has had a marketing course during their education will definitely recognize the BCG (Boston Consulting Group) Matrix. Although this concept emerged in the last century, it remains an extremely useful tool for portfolio development. The Momentum Matrix in KDP Sales Analyzer classifies each active book in your catalog into one of four quadrants based on market growth rate and relative market share — helping you decide where to invest, scale, or cut. Here's how each quadrant maps to a books portfolio: - Leaders (High Growth / High Volume) — bestselling titles in trending niches; double down with sequels, series, or companion workbooks - Cash Cows (Low Growth / High Volume) — evergreen titles with steady sales; milk them for revenue to fund new launches without heavy reinvestment - Breakouts (High Growth / Low Volume) — new books in fast-growing niches; test with ads and optimize listings to see if they can become Stars - Dogs (Low Growth / Low Volume) — underperforming titles in stale niches; stop promoting to free up resources The core strategic value is reallocation of effort: Cash Cows fund the promotion of Breakouts and Stars, while Dogs are deprioritized. For a KDP publisher, this means your back catalog essentially finances your next profitable niche launches — turning your portfolio into a self-sustaining growth engine. What tools are you using to make decisions on your book portfolio development?

If you do not use NotebookLM in your book production, just postpone everything and watch this video. This is the essential tool for nonfiction book creation. If you are already using NotebookLM, please share the tasks you are using it for.

The last two weeks were unusually slow and silent in the Guild. I am not sure, but it feels like there was less activity in most of the communities I am involved in. Is it just my perception, or have you experienced the same? Anyway, the Guided Publishing System is now built and fully operational. I am in the process of creating the new book with the system, and it works exactly as it was supposed to - "blank page syndrome" gone. Every time I come back to the book, I know exactly what the next step is. The same thing applies to the Review Catalyst tracker - it removed a lot of hustle and ambiguity from the process. I used the Paperback 3D Mockup for the A+ content for a few of my books, and it totally changed the experience of creating marketing materials. I am not sure if it's interesting to anybody except @Yannick Di Mondo, @Sven Georgiev and me. Anyway, it's OK for me to continue developing the tools, even if only three of us will use them. Slowly, without a rush, providing functionality that publishers are interested in. So, what is on your mind? What are you doing now? What are you aiming for? P. S. @Ana-Rita Piirainen It's so nice to see you back!

Relaxed weekend's task for everybody who joined the $5,000/Month Challenge. If we look at the core of every niche research session, we will see the same pattern: We apply our skillset and experience to the market data and search for an intersection. Such intersections become our books in the future. In the Guided Publishing System, you will receive the data, but you must provide your experience and interests. I named this description "Publisher Persona" (OK, I named it "Publisher DNA," but my wife wrinkled her nose and asked, "Do you mean Publisher Persona?"). How to arrange the interview? It is similar to a Book DNA interview: Step 1: The Setup Download the Publisher Persona Interview.md ⤵️ file from Publisher Persona & Book DNA page and upload it to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Type "Execute" and let it guide you through questions about yourself. Step 2: The Secret Sauce Here's the trick: Don't type your answers. Use the microphone instead. Why? Because typing filters your thoughts. Speaking captures the nuance, the emotion, and the real vision of yourself that gets lost when you're staring at a blinking cursor. Step 3: The Brain Dump Just talk. Let the AI dig deeper into what makes you unique—the skills, the life experience, the details that matter. Step 4: The Result Run it through "Fast Mode" to get a clean, summarized TXT file. That's your Publisher Persona—a description of what interests you, what you prefer to avoid, and what niches are a good fit for you. You will need to provide this file to your Niche Finder AI freelancer when you start a new book.

As usual, it was an amazing meeting. Instead of one hour, we had to stop after two hours. I decided to cut the most interesting parts of the discussion into separate clips. So, enjoy.