Month ten, and I want to be straight with you again. September was the first month that didn’t go up.
Estimated Royalties: $345.86 Published Books: 3 (total now at 159 published)
A New Ceiling: Amazon Now Limits Uploads to 2 Books a Week
The biggest story this month isn’t really about me. Amazon recently put a limit in place capping uploads to 2 books per week, per account. It’s a direct response to the flood of low effort, spammy AI generated books that have been clogging the platform, and while I understand why they did it, it’s frustrating to get caught in the blast radius of other people’s shortcuts.
This changes the math going forward in a real way. The 12 to 16 book months I’d been planning around simply aren’t possible anymore, full stop. Volume as a growth lever is capped now, whether I like it or not. That means the next phase of this has to lean much harder into quality over quantity, better keyword and niche targeting on fewer titles, and likely putting some ad spend behind the existing catalog instead of just hoping new volume carries things. I’ll be testing that approach over the next couple of months and reporting back on what actually moves the needle.
I published 3 books this month, partly because of the new cap and partly because my attention has been split. I’ve been putting real time into growing a YouTube channel and building out my Amazon Influencer Program (AIP) storefront. After watching other creators lose their entire income when they leaned on one single stream, I’d rather be building two or three smaller ones now than find out the hard way what happens when one gets capped, demonetized, or changed overnight. This month’s upload limit is a pretty direct example of exactly that risk.
The First Dip, and Why I’m Not Worried About It Yet
Total revenue for September came in at $345.86, down from $427.85 in August. Here’s the full breakdown from KDP’s royalties estimator for the month.
| eBook royalties | Print royalties | KENP royalties | Total royalties | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September | $67.22 | $258.91 | $19.73 | $345.86 |
This is the first month in ten that didn’t beat the one before it, and I don’t love seeing that streak end. But a few things make me less worried than I might otherwise be. September is widely known as a slow month across Amazon, since shoppers start holding off on purchases once they know Q4 deals and holiday sales are coming in October. Combine that with a publishing month that was lighter than usual thanks to the new cap and a two income stream pivot in progress, and a dip here isn’t exactly shocking.
Let me put it in context. I started this in December with zero books and zero dollars. By June I was in the low $330s. By July I was at $343.46. By August I had jumped to $427.85. September landed at $345.86, which is a step back, but it’s still well above where I was just a couple months ago, and it lands right as Q4 is about to start.
Ten months in, and this is the one that actually tests the plan I’ve been talking about since the beginning. The goal was always to build toward a Q4 peak, and October through December is exactly where I expect the slow September pattern to reverse. With the upload cap now in place, growth from here has to come from better targeting, better ad support on what’s already published, and the new income streams I’m building alongside the catalog, not just from publishing more books.
The compounding is real, even in a month where it paused to catch its breath. Q4 is next, and that’s where I need it to show up.