8. If I Were You: The Next 90 Days
The single most important thing
Confirm that KDP still makes publishers reprice one book at a time, then get 20 publishers paying (40 if full-time) for bulk pricing and promos before you build anything beyond v1.
- Segment: KDP publishers with 20+ titles: rapid-release fiction authors, small presses, multi-pen-name publishers.
- Job: "Change prices and royalty options across my whole backlist, run promos that switch back on their own, and tell me what I've got wrong."
- How: start with done-for-you repricing on a screen-share, for a fee. Build the extension from what you learn. Automate only what you've done by hand at least 10 times.
The plan fits ~15 hrs/week. Full-time targets are in brackets.
Week-by-week
| Weeks | Goal | Exit criteria |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kill check. Log into KDP and confirm there's no bulk price, rights or scheduled-price option. Read the current KDP terms and the Chrome Web Store policies. Set up a KDP test account with 5–10 draft titles. | No native bulk option found. If there is one, stop and re-plan around promos and cross-store pricing. |
| 1–2 | Discovery. 15 [20] calls with publishers who have 20+ titles. Ask about the July 2026 royalty change, their last promo, how long repricing takes, and whether they use a VA. | You can state the top 3 pains in their words, with hours and royalties attached. |
| 3–4 | Done-for-you reprice. Offer "we fix your backlist pricing and 35%/70% options" on a screen-share, $49–99 per backlist. Keep a spreadsheet of every edge case (marketplaces, formats, KDP Select, list-price rules). | 6 [10] paid. If fewer than 3 will pay, the pain isn't strong enough. Change the segment (presses only) once, not the pitch. |
| 3–6 | Build v1 (Chrome and Edge, MV3): the free 35% finder, bulk price and royalty edits with preview, undo log, filters, spreadsheet import and export, human-pace execution, selector health check with anonymous failure reports, and ExtensionPay licensing. | v1 runs end to end on your test account and on 3 design-partner accounts, with no data leaving the browser. |
| 7 | Chrome Web Store submission. Narrow host permissions (KDP domains only), a clear single purpose, a privacy policy, a "not affiliated with Amazon" notice, refund terms. Publish the "how it works and why it's safe" page. | Listing approved. Free finder live. |
| 7–8 | Launch into communities. Post the free finder in author groups with a live demo, and publish 4 guides ("KDP 70% royalty up to $12.99: how to update every book", "change KDP prices for all books"). Open the affiliate programme (30% recurring). | 200 [400] free finder runs. 10 [20] paying accounts. |
| 9–11 | Build the retention features: the promo scheduler (queued changes applied with one click when the user next opens KDP, plus a reminder) and the monthly backlist health email. | ≥25% of paying accounts schedule a promo. |
| 12–13 | Measure and decide. | 20 [40] paying, ≥60% month-1 renewal, ≥30% on annual, zero breakages unfixed after 24 hours. Hit it: keep going. Miss it: see the kill criteria. |
Automation-first from day one
- Support: docs for every question asked twice, canned replies, and an in-extension "what went wrong" message that tells the user what to do.
- Breakages: the health check reports failures automatically. An alert reaches your phone. Run the full flow on the test account after every alert.
- Billing: ExtensionPay handles trials, renewals and cancellations. No manual invoicing.
- Content: one guide a week, reused as a group post and a short video.
Kill criteria (write these down now)
- KDP already has bulk pricing: stop, or move straight to cross-store pricing if the discovery calls showed wide authors want it.
- At day 90, fewer than 10 paying accounts, or month-1 renewal below 50%: the wedge is wrong. Don't add features. Change the buyer (presses only) or the job (promos only).
- Any credible report of a KDP account flagged for using a user-driven pricing tool: pause sales and investigate before anything else.
The one thing to stop doing
Stop treating this as "an extension for any seller dashboard".
It feels efficient ("the code is similar"), but each dashboard has its own terms, its own buyers and its own breakage schedule. Seller Central now bans browser automation. Etsy's terms bar extensions. Merch is full of upload bots. Meesho pays ₹29. Every hour spent on a second platform before $5k MRR is an hour not spent making the KDP product unbreakable.
A close second: don't build background automation, however often it's requested. "Start my promo at midnight while I sleep" is the feature that turns a user's tool into Amazon's idea of a bot.
What stays on the long-term roadmap (only after proof)
- Several KDP accounts and pen names per licence (Press plan). Team seats for assistants.
- Metadata audits and bulk keyword edits, once pricing is stable.
- A "price change effect" report from the user's own KDP report downloads.
- Cross-store pricing (Kobo, Apple, Google Play), if ≥30% of payers publish wide. It's the feature Amazon won't copy.
- Then, if you want out, a sale of the business with a clean handover pack.