Are books passive? Do books keep selling once they're out, or is set-and-forget publishing a myth? Dave and Patty take opposite sides and hold them. Dave argues that a backlist keeps working for you when the series is strong, because read-through and back matter send new readers back to book one. Patty argues that nothing about selling books runs itself, and that "passive" is the word scammers use to sell courses.

You'll learn what changed at KDP in 2026 that makes "forget" expensive. The price band for the 70% option moved on 7 July 2026, and there's now a weekly limit on new titles. You'll also hear why KDP Select's automatic renewal is the one switch you shouldn't forget, and how a simple quarterly check-in keeps book one working as the front door to your series. Three demo authors bring three problems: one lonely book, a five-book series left on auto-renew, and a plan to publish twenty AI standalones.

Plus Scam of the Week: a made-up composite ad that promises 50 AI books a week, "set it and forget it" and bonus reviews. Dave and Patty walk through the three red flags that give it away: KDP's weekly title limit, Amazon's review rules and what the FTC says about earnings claims.

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Topics: are books passive, do books keep selling, set and forget publishing, backlist marketing, series read-through, KDP Select auto-renew, KDP 70% royalty price range, self-publishing scams

Voices are AI-generated (ElevenLabs) versions of the hosts, Dave and Patty of Publish at Scale. Scripts are written with AI and checked against a dated fact sheet. Not affiliated with Amazon, Kindle Direct Publishing or Anthropic. No income claims: results depend on your books and your work.