My KDP Wizard Review :)

My KDP Wizard Review 🙂

KDP Wizard

With KDP being the largest publishing platform by far, and with most of the worlds self-published authors publishing through said platform, I’ve always been kind of confused by the lack of accompanying programs. I’ve been keeping an eye out for a tool that will actually do all the common sense functions you’d expect to be already invented for the largest bookselling platform on earth, and when I heard of KDP Wizard I was eager to try it, since it’s the first real attempt at building a suite of tools for publishers. This is my honest, unpaid, real review. 

Quick update Oct. 19: It’s been a couple weeks since I originally wrote this article, and I am blown away. This tool is amazing. 

So, what is KDP Wizard and what does it do?

KDP Wizard is a chrome app, that functions as a kind of full service software for people who are publishing through Kindle Direct Publishing, AND other stores. Really, this is for any publisher. Some highlights:

  • You can click to import all your books data to Airtable at once so you browse through and see all your books and their files, keywords, descriptions, all metadata, etc all in one awesome editable spreadsheet, perfect for file storage too.
  • A live display is overlaid over the KDP webpage itself, adding tons of new features that make uploading and managing data a breeze.
  • You can save keyword profiles just by entering a name and clicking save, and there's a live keyword count + more.
  • You can save price profiles with a single click, so you don't need to fill out the price section every time you upload a book.
  • A live HTML editor is overlaid over the description box, so instead of entering html manually you can click to add H1-H6, bold, italics, lists both numbered and bulleted, etc and most importantly you can save description profiles to autofill formatting.
  • You can copy and paste entire pages to Airtables or to another book listing, for example you can copy your eBook list to paperback.
  • You can, with a single click, export your KDP book to Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other retailers, more added regularly.
  • KDP Wizard makes the category selection searchable, so you just search and click your categories.
  • Your sales are automatically displayed next to the book itself, so as you browse your bookshelf you see each book's recent sales.
  • Save sales rank and customer reviews to your Airtable spreadsheet as well so all data is in one place
  • The fastest development schedule I have seen for any program, new features being added constantly, as of this review the program is only a couple months old and every week a useful new feature is added. I

If that is all you needed to hear click here to sign-up, for a more in-depth analysis and to see screenshots keep reading.

What features does it have?

To begin with, there’s the data organization and visualization, particularly the Airtables export. This sounds simple but is actually a religious experience, or at least it was for me. Amazon data is messy – the bookshelf won’t let you ever actually delete a book, and hardly any information is contained in one place, let alone the information for all your books at a glance. With KDP Wizard you can export all your books data to AirTables with one click. It really does extract everything, and I’m going to include a list below of all the data that is listed for each book listing on the spreadsheet, all in one spot. This gives you better data visualization and way way better search ability. The birds-eye view gives you the ability to spot a lot of patterns you never would of otherwise. One missing feature seems to be the ability to view eBook page counts – only paperback seems to display. I’ve messaged the team, and they’re adding that feature soon! The following is displayed for each book:

Title

Thumbnail

Type

Status

ASIN

Subtitle

Language

Language Name

Series Name

Series Number

Edition Number

Author

Contributors

Description

Length Description

Publishing Rights

Keywords All

KW1

KW2

KW3

KW4

KW5

KW6

KW7

Category 1

Category 2

Large Print

Adult Content

Print ISBN

ISBN 13

ISBN 10

Imprint

Publication Date

Cover

Paperback Cover File

eBook Cover File

Paperback Cover File Cloud Storage Link

eBook Cover File Cloud Storage Link

Interior

Paperback Interior File

eBook Interior File

Paperback Interior File Cloud Storage Link

eBook Interior File Cloud Storage Link

IncludesBarcode

InteriorPaperType

PageCount

CoverFinish

Trim SizeIn

Trim Size Cm

Bleed

Book Group ID

Product URL

Edit Details Page

Edit Content Page

Edit Pricing Page

Primary Marketplace

Primary Price

Primary Currency

Primary BSR

Primary No Of Reviews

Primary Avg Review Rating

PrimaryRating

Shared Sales With Identically Named Books

Last X Days Sales All Marketplaces

Sales US

Sales UK

Sales DE

Sales FR

Sales IT

Sales ES

Sales JP

Sales IN

Sales NL

Sales BR

Sales CA

Sales MX

Sales AU

Last Sales Update

Territories

Uploaded To

Expanded Distribution

Created Date Time

Last Modified Date Time

Notes

 

What else is there? Well, you can ONE CLICK EXPORT TO OTHER RETAILERS! This was a big one for me, because it actually provides a superb alternative to ebook distributors, that take 10% to send your book to all stores. This makes KDP Wizard a viable alternative to PublishDrive, Draft2Digital, Smashwords, Streetlib (read my warning before using, scratch that, just never use them) and every other major eBook distributor. Right now they only have one click import to Barnes & Noble NookPress, Rakuten Kobo & Google Play, but they’re working on more booksellers as we speak. So, they get thumbs up for this completely new (and in retrospect, blindingly obvious) feature, which could make re-uploading to other retailers even easier than updating a master copy for a distributor.

You can make eBook templates, by copying any book. This is awesome when you have most metadata required for one book the same as another book, for example a book in a similar category or perhaps an eBook version of a paperback, or vice versa. You can autofill prices, details, all of it. Screenshot below.

Copy Paste KDP Wizard

Another feature is that it’s secure, or at least claims to be so – the data is encrypted and sent to AirTable, and since you created and own your own AirTable account, theoretically there’s no way for them to access the data. Trust can only be gained after a long period of time where KDP Wizard shows that it is a trustworthy steward of our data, but for now, they’re doing everything right and on the surface at least, all appears above board.

Yet another detail, perhaps the one I am the most excited above, is the “profiles” feature for every section. So for example, you can save your keywords to a “profile” and next time you’re filling out similar keywords, you can pull up that profile. You can create profiles to auto-populate the description or any other element of the KDP data input process. You can do the same for pricing, descriptions, every aspect of submitting. 

It also has little details to help you perfect the book creation process. I LOVE that it shows the 50 character count on each keyword, so you know that you’re inputing the maximum amount of keywords allowed. I always used to have to use third party keyword counters, and even with KDP Wizard I still often use the keyword organizer I made for you guys here when I really want to pay complete attention to my keywords, but this is a game changer.

KDP Wizard has a built in rich text editor, so that you can use bold, italics, and all other formatting directly in your KDP description box! I mean come on, how is this the first company to recognize the enormous need people have for these kind of tools! It’s late 2019, nearly 2020, and I’m over the moon over a rich text editor. This is the kind of software where when you get used to it, you can’t imagine it not being there, and when it’s not turned on the whole KDP Dashboard and bookshelf just seems so incredible archaic and web 1.0 style. The big features are amazing but the little features matter – please don’t think these are minor time savers – put together, they cut in half the amount of time I spend submitting per novel. The process being so streamlined means you don’t have a million opportunities to get distracted, you just do it.

I mean just look at the description box alone and tell me this isn’t night and day compared to the regular description box: 

KDP Wizard Description Box
The Amazon KDP Description box with KDP Wizard
Normal description box
WITHOUT KDP Wizard

But wait, there’s more! (OK, I will stop channeling my inner Billy Mayes here)

You can also store your reviews to AirTable, and scroll through and see all your reviews for all your books in one place. 

You can, on-page just like every other feature, search for categories on Amazon – no more click through to 100 categories to see if any are relevant. P.S. Don’t forget about category keywords to sort your book into more Amazon categories and Top 100 lists.

KDP Wizard also moonlights as a yet another program, this time a digital asset management system. When you synch the books to AirTable, you’re not just synching it’s data. You’re also synching its cover file, and its document file, so you also have all the latest copies of your cover and manuscript in one place in the cloud, although currently you need to manually upload all .epubs or .mobis yourself. You can add any other file manually as well, depending on your needs. AirTables has an amazing reputation and great 2FA options as well, so this is a secure digital asset manager as well as the most powerful analytical tool, data visualizer and data entry assistant that exists for KDP. 

Since it’s a browser extension, it adds options on all the relevant pages automatically (overlay style), and you can always, at any time, enter KDP Wizard by clicking it’s extension icon in the top right, and you can instantly search your entire book catalog right from your extension dropdown no matter what website you’re browsing, as well as other useful functions right at your fingertips, a single click away at all times. This is a screenshot of what you see when you click the extension icon in Chrome (the icon is top right.)

KDP Wizard browser extension view

It also makes the KDP dashboard look cleaner – this is subjective of course, but to me it’s much easier on the eyes and less clunky.

I will leave it at that for features, you should have a good overview by now. The team is also putting out new features right now, at a really rapid rate. I’ve been using this product for a few weeks (edit: now months) and they’ve added at least one feature a week, and not small ones.

As you might know if you are a regular reader of Publishing With Love, I’ve published thousands of books over the years, and Amazon is the largest retailer I work with by far. I have never, at any point in my career, used software this damn useful. It just works. I’m not sure who the creator is, but it’s obvious to me that he’s either an author or a publisher – this extension feels so intuitive. 

How Much Does KDP Wizard Cost?

Right now there are two pricing tiers. KDP Wizard is 100% free for the lowest tier “Apprentice.” This tier is amazing for a free product, and many people will be happy with this one, even though I upgraded ASAP, and consider it the best value in terms of bang-for-buck that I will ever get in the publishing world. If you’re a bit more advanced, you might want to upgrade to the Sorcerer tier, which includes the full feature set. 

KDP Wizard Pricing Tiers

So, do you recommend it?

I think you know by now, but yes, I really do personally recommend it, and I personally am using this extension every day.

Pros

Free option + Great value paid option

One-click export from KDP to other platforms

You control your data

Safe & Secure

Much easier searching, one click on extension icon to search catalog

Advanced customization

You can turn any function you don't want off

Copy & Paste entire book metadata page

Create unique profiles for keywords, descriptions, whatever you want

Searchable category section, no more clicking around

Streamlined design, makes KDP dashboard look and feel modern

Cons

Automatic synch is still in beta, so you can only export 50 books per click, takes around 5mins for initial import

It has some minor kinks due to how new it is

Review Overview
5.00
Overall Score
Value For Money
Usefulness
Design
Support
Uniqueness

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