If you thought the only way to make money selling books was to be a world class author who cranks out 400 page thrillers like Stephen King every week, I've got great news for you.
Thanks to Amazon's print-on-demand service, Kindle Direct Publishing, you can make money selling books with little to no content as quickly as today!
What?
I know...it sounds crazy but it's absolutely possible and in this article, I'm going to show you everything you need to know about it so you can get started making them ASAP.
What Is Low Content Publishing?
Low content publishing aims to help companies who have limited money produce good-looking content. Writing isn't a simple job. Sometimes a good product takes a few weeks to develop.
But even that doesn't mean there is anyone willing to sell my work.
When you think of a wealthy author, what comes to mind? It's likely you thought of a New York Time's best selling author like Tucker Maxx, Stephen King or J. K. Rowling. You probably aren't thinking of someone who publishes books that are essentially blank
But thanks to something called Kindle Direct Publishing, the average Joe can make a fortune selling low content (or "no content") books on Amazon. This comes with little overhead and minimal writing skills.
What Are Low Content Books?
Low content books are essentially books that are meant to be filled in by the recipient. It is intentionally left "empty" by the author so it can be used as a sort of tool.
Popular low content books include things like:
- Blank Journals and Diaries
- Composition Notebooks
- Children and Adult Coloring books
- Food Journals and Workout Logs
- Budgeting Notebooks
- Puzzle Books
- Recipe Books
- Paper Games (i.e. Mad Libs)
- Guest Books
- Schedule Planners
- And More!
Basically, if the book is intended to be used and not read. It is filled out by the person using it and not the "author" then it is considered "Low Content".
These could be as simple as a blank journal or as complex as a workout log with guided routines for literally years.
If you are like most people, you have probably bought plenty of books like this in your lifetime. You can imagine just how much money you can make just by publishing your own Low Content books on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).
How Do People Sell Low Content Books?
There are plenty of ways to go about making and selling Low Content Books. Just like in most cases with e-commerce, the easiest way for people to sell low content books is by creating and selling them through Amazon.
The quick and easy process of creating one of these books, paired with the extremely low overhead cost, creates an incredible sales opportunity for anyone with good design skills and a good idea of what keywords to rank for.
What Is Amazon KDP?
Amazon started as an online book store, Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) was founded as their way to enable private writers to start selling their content quickly.
Amazon KDP is the platform that Amazon uses to generate and publish digital and paperback content for private label sellers on Amazon. Getting started with making and selling Low Content books is as easy as hopping over to the registration page and filling out a few forms (Get Started Here).
With Amazon KDP, anyone can publish a book to be sold on Amazon, even low content books that are really easy to create with almost no overhead. The only cost that you'll need to consider is that Amazon takes a royalty of at least 30% of all your sales.
Is It Profitable?
Publishing Low Content Books is an incredibly profitable business model for several main reasons:
- Little to no overhead
- Low learning curve
- Passive income potential once published
- Can start making money quickly
Compared to actual books, it takes a minuscule fraction of time creating one of these low content books. With next to no overhead expenses, you can easily enjoy exponential returns on your investments of time and a few dollars.
The Cons of Low Content Publishing
Since Low content publishing business model is so quick and easy, the market has become very saturated and the competition is very steep.
Going in blind, you will quickly get absorbed into the pack and see little success. A low content book publishing business model has to be built on two things:
Consistency And Quality
Many aspects of Amazon's Marketplace have become saturated over the years, but that doesn't mean that it is impossible or even terribly difficult to get started with an Amazon KDP account. You can sell a low content book on Amazon fairly easily, but you are gonna have to be competitive and put out your best every time if you want all your books to sell.
Side Note: Get Set Up With Book Bolt
The longer you work on low content books, the more you will realize that you need an efficient way to research niches, collect keywords, and generate designs within Amazon KDP. That is where Book Bolt comes in.
Book Bolt is in many ways a KDP Swiss-Army-Knife. It is a low content publisher's best friend, and I would highly recommend checking it out if you are interested in getting started with Amazon KDP.
Book Bolt is a one-stop-shop for all of your Amazon KDP needs. With Book Bolt, you can:
- Run Keyword Research
- Get Sales Rank Data
- Find Awesome Templates for Your Covers
- Hundreds of Interior Page Templates For Any Book Type
- Access to Training, Tutorials and Free Webinars
- "Spy" on other sellers with KDP Spy
- Customer Driven Research That Helps You Make The Right Decision Every Time
Newbie Monthly
$
9.99
/mo
Pro Monthly
$
19.99
/mo
If you are serious about succeeding with Low Content Books, I would really consider getting set up with Book Bolt. There are also annual plans that can save you 20% per year when compared to the monthly plan.
How To Publish Through Amazon KDP
This is gonna be a bit of a long winded process, but it is important to get this part right. Since the low content book publishing process is so easy, the market is very saturated. That doesn't mean that it is impossible to make money, you just need to make sure that you're making good stuff.
Step 1: Create an Amazon KDP Account
This first step is only necessary to read if you have not made your own KDP Seller account yet. If you have done so, continue to step 2
This part is pretty quick and easy. All you have to do is head on over to the KDP Account set up page, and they will ask you about your personal info and how you would like to be paid.
Click the link here and it will walk you through the registration process.
Step 2: Decide Which Kind of Book You Want to Make
This is the first and obviously most important step; deciding what kind of low content book you want to create. What you choose to create will determine your design, your keywords, and everything else.
With so many options, it can certainly be a little daunting to pick one type of book.
It is also important to do some preeminent research once you have a general idea of what kind of content you want to make. You will want to ensure that it is a decent sales opportunity.
Step 3: Do Your Research and Gather Keywords
This is where it is really useful to have some experience with Keyword research. Your low content book will only do as well as its exposure, and the best way to optimize exposure is by ranking for the right keywords.
The quickest way to do this is by going directly to Amazon and looking up keywords that best describe your content.
In the example above, I want to make a banana themed notebook, so I went to Amazon and looked up "Banana Notebook". The dropdown menu is chock-full of suggestions which we can use as potential keywords!
There are other extensions and tools that can help, but this is the quickest and cheapest way to run effective keyword research.
The paid alternative, in my opinion, is definitely gonna be Book Bolt. It is definitely the most straightforward and effective method for finding good keywords.
As you can see here, with BookBolt, I have immediately know what the most profitable keywords are.
Also, another great use of Book bolt is that you can use it to get a feel for the competition. Look up the most successful members of that niche and see what they're doing that you can emulate.
- What is their design like? (fonts, formatting, color scheme)
- What unique features does their book offer?
- What Keywords Are They Ranking For?
- What is their target audience?
Again, there is a big difference between emulating content and plagiarism. You shouldn't just try to make a carbon-copy of someone else's hard work, but you should learn what aspects of their content put them in the number one spot.
Step 4: Design a Book Cover
Designing your book cover is very important because it will be the first thing that customers see on Amazon. Your cover is just as important as your keywords in getting people to click on your book. You can have all the keywords correct, but if your cover is too boring or ugly, then all that research was wasted since nobody is gonna click on your product.
I personally use Canva for all my design, and it is easily one of my favorite graphic design tools out there. If you want to really dive into publishing and selling low content books, you should definitely invest in that software.
In Book Bolt, you also have access to a comprehensive book designing tool.
The BookBolt Designer is a great resource that is a great tool for creating your cover and your interior pages!
Also, when you make your cover, make sure your title is on the cover! Also, make sure that it is the same title as that which you put into Amazon KDP. This will really shoot you in the foot if you put in conflicting titles.
When you are done designing it, save it as a PDF.
Step 5: Design the Pages Themself
This is where you are gonna spend most of your time, depending on what you plan on making. If you are doing something simple like blank journals, then you would be better off making your own interior pages in Canva.
Just like with the cover, we can also use the BookBolt Designer to create interior pages.
Book Bolt provides you with literally hundreds of templates for any type of low content book out there.
If you can find templates that are affordable enough to make sure you can maintain positive margins, then you could just eat the cost of those templates and churn out low content books as much as possible.
Whatever you choose to do, make sure you save your work as a PDF.
Step 6: Publish Through Amazon KDP
This will be the last step when you create low content books; the actual publishing process.
The process is pretty self explanatory, but here are a few important things to remember as you file a request to Amazon to have your content published .
- Choose "Paperback" when selecting what kind of publish option. Your best bet is to sell your content as paperback books.
- Make sure your written title matches what is on the cover page
- Apply as many of the keywords to the product description as you can without sounding robotic
- Affirm that you own the copywriting rights and hold necessary publishing rights
- Use both category description slots for maximum exposure
- Don't use the cover generator; upload your pre-made cover
- Printing the interior in color will make your fees go up by a whole lot
- Don't price gouge. As long as you can maintain a positive margin, the most important aspect is consistency and sales velocity
- It will take Amazon about 1-2 business days to find out if Amazon has published your book.
Just as with any application, don't lie as that will only shoot yourself in the foot and harm your standing among Amazon KDP. Also, don't feel pressured to fill out optional boxes.
And there you have it. That is all you need to know about getting your book published with Amazon KDP and start essentially self publishing low content books.
It might not be the only form of passive income that you can live off of, but it is definitely a valuable niche that anyone with an eye for graphic design and a knack for keywords should get into. In less than a day, you can create a low content book that can generate you a few bucks a pop.