Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has become a popular way to make money selling journals. Think it’s too difficult to do? Think again. Gone are the days when an author had to write a 30,000 word novel to sell books online. Now you can create books that are virtually blank and make passive income on the largest marketplace. These are called low content or no content books and they’re the focus of this post.
Once you learn how to create the KDP interior and cover, and how to select a book with the best chances of selling, you’ll be ready to go. Follow my instructions below and you’ll be creating your first KDP interior and exterior in no time.
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Profitable Low Content Book Niches To Try
You may be wondering where to start and the first thing you want to do before anything else is keyword research. Finding a profitable book type and a profitable niche within that larger category can be the one thing that either gives you a good or bad chance of being found on Amazon.
Think about someone selling plain blank lined journals compared to someone selling frog themed blank lined journals. The person selling the journal for frog lovers is able to cater to a small subset of customers, or niche. If there is a large enough audience they may have a better chance of being found than someone selling blank lined journals to a very general group of people.
5 Popular Low Content Or No Content Books Sold Through KDP:
Amazon KDP Keyword Research
Once you’ve decided on the type of book you want to create it’s time to find a niche. You want to market your book to a specific group of people to ensure you have a good chance of being found on the Amazon search. I would suggest you start with hobbies and interests that you have yourself. Chances are this research will be easier when you start with something you know.
If you like to knit, chances are you’ll know what types of books may be the most helpful and what keywords someone may use when looking for a book on Amazon.
Start by going to the Amazon search bar. This will be the best free way for you to complete your keyword research so be prepared to keep notes in Google docs or on paper. Start by putting in a word related to your niche followed by a type of book. For this example we’ll try looking for knitting related journals.
As you can see many terms pop up, giving you ideas of the types of book that have already been searched for by other customers. Go to each one to see three things: 1) how many books show up in the results, 2) whether they are selling and 3) whether you can realistically compete with the books you find. Let’s see what we found.
This result gives us 5,000 journals, which means there’s a lots of competition in this niche. You’ll want to keep searching until you find a result with 2,000 results or less. Preferably 1,000 or less.
A search for a knitting graph notebook brings us 532 results, which means there’s much less competition. The next step is to make sure these books are selling. Each book is assigned a Best Sellers Rank (BSR). The closer this number is to 1, the better. A book with no sales rank has not sold at all yet.
What is BSR?
BSR is the best sellers rank. The BSR is a number that gets assigned to almost every Amazon product. It gets assigned once an items sells and it’s based on sales data.
The lower the number, the better and it changes constantly, based on how that item is selling.
As we can see, this book has a BSR of 947,366 which means it has sold, but how do you find out how many? A website called TCK Publishing has a KDP sales calculator that estimates the number of copies a book has sold. You put in the BSR and it gives you an estimate. According to TCK this book sells approximately 5 copies per month. Is this number 100% accurate? Who knows, it’s a good way to get a ballpark figure.
You can publish a book using this keyword but I would suggest you continue with your keyword research until you find results that bring in books selling with BSRs of 300,000 to 400,000. This means the books in that niche are selling more regularly and are an indication that you have a better chance of selling as well.
The next thing you want to do is look at the book to see if you can compete with the books that are already selling. Let’s think about a knitting graph notebook.
It’s basically a page of grids. This is definitely something you can create or purchase. This is the 3-step process you’ll want to go through each time you create a new book. 1) find a niche with 1000-2000 results, 2) be sure there are books with BSRs under 300,000-400,000, and 3) be sure you can create the types of interiors you’re finding. Let’s start creating your KDP interior!
KDP Cover Size Calculator
KDP has very specific sizes for each book you upload. This goes for the interior and exterior. KDP’s size chart for book covers:
The interiors must also be formatted properly. These are the proper page sizes:
When creating your interior you must be sure the page margins are correct, based on the number of pages you have. This KDP calculator can help you calculate the proper page size for your specific page size, paper color, and number of pages.
There are also calculators available on websites like Book Bolt and Tangent Templates.
What is Bleed?
You’ll notice that the page size depends on bleed. You should include bleed in your interior file if you have any images, backgrounds, or illustrations in your book that you want to reach the edge of the page.
Create A KDP Interior
Canva is an easy way to create a KDP interior because of the available elements, fonts, and ease of use. Once you know the dimensions of your interior, create a new document in Canva with those dimensions.
Free Low Content Book Interiors
Purchasing pre-made interiors is a great way to get a head start and to ensure they look professional. You want to try and customize them if you can to ensure no customer receives the same interior from different sellers and to meet your customer’s needs as much as possible.
Free interiors are available on websites like Book Bolt, Creative Fabrica, and Gumroad. You can also find great interiors on Tangent Templates, Etsy, and Creative Market but they’re not free. If you want to have someone create a custom cover for you, check fiverr or Upwork. Be sure they have the proper dimensions or the design will be rejected by KDP.
Create KDP Cover In Canva
It may be helpful to start out with an ebook template in Canva, resize it to your proper size, and then redesign it. You cannot use their ebook templates “as-is” as your KDP cover.
If you’re not a designer and aren’t sure where to start, take a look at the books selling in your niche. Don’t copy any of them, just get an idea of the type of cover you may want to create. Do they use cursive fonts? Do they use actual photos or illustrations? Is the font large? Etc.
Try your hand with making a cover in Canva. You can use the templates with a free account.
KDP has a cover template that you can download and use to be sure you’re using the proper dimensions.
Canva also has ebook templates that can help you get started. Just be sure you use the proper dimensions for your cover.
KDP Royalty Calculator
Knowing how much a book is earning for each sale can be challenging. This information depends largely on the type of book (hardcover vs paperback), the number of pages included, and your sale price. KDP will charge a base price that includes their cost to print the book. This cost includes a fixed cost as well as a per page cost. When you set the book’s sale price the difference is your royalty.
These are the base costs for books sold on the U.S. Amazon market, 120 page journal.
Please stay with me while we do a little math!
Black and white paperback: 0.85 + 0.12 per page
Color paperback: 0.85 + .07 per page
Black and white hardcover: $5.50 + .12 per page
Color hardcover: $5.50 + .70 per page
Example of KDP Royalty Calculation:
This is how you would calculate your royalties for a 300-page paperback sold in the United States:
The fixed cost for a 300-page black ink paperback sold on Amazon.com is 0.85 USD, and the additional cost per page is 0.012 USD.
0.85 USD fixed cost + (300 page count * 0.012 USD per page cost) = 4.45 USD (printing cost)
If you in turn charge $6.99 for this book, your royalty for each book sold would be $2.54.
Tips to Get Your First Sale on KDP
You don’t have to spend any money to get started with KDP and there are great free resources out there. Here are some of the free and paid tools I use for my KDP account. They can each help you to make money selling journals!
AMZ Suggestion Expander
This is a free Chrome extension that gives you suggested keyword phrases when you enter a word in the Amazon search bar. Very helpful when you need to find a niche.
Helium 10
This free Chrome extension allows you to see the sales history for your book or a competitor’s book. It also shows you their BSR so you can see whether a book is selling.
DS Amazon Quick View
A free Chrome extension that allows you to see the BSR of books and the categories they belong to.
Get 50 KDP Niche Ideas
How to Start and Grow Your KDP Business
Book Bolt
Free interiors are available and there is also a paid plan that allows you to create custom interiors and covers. Book Bolt also has a tool that is helpful for creating activity books with ease so if you’re interested in activity books, check them out.
Tangent Templates
This is a paid tool that has great interiors and many helpful tools for your KDP business.
Optimize Your KDP Listing
Be sure to include your keywords in the title of your book. Rather than “Blank Lined Journal” be sure to use a more niched-down longtail keyword like “Lined Knitting Journal Notebook 8.5 x 11” for example. Reach as many people in your niche by including several keywords in your title. Also include the keywords in the tags that KDP allows you to include in your listing.
Complete your KDP Description
Complete your listing with a clean explanation of your book, keeping in mind this is your chance to entice people to buy your book. Use bullet points when possible to keep your reader’s attention.
Add your book to relevant categories. If you contact KDP by email, you can ask that they add your book to additional categories so don’t stop at just two!
Use A+ Content Marketing
KDP now allows you to add marketing graphics to promote your books. Creating attractive graphics in a software like Canva can really help you stand out. When a customer clicks on your book they’ll see your graphics. See a tutorial on A+ plus content HERE.
Is KDP Worth It?
In my opinion Amazon KDP is definitely worth a shot. Are any of guaranteed sales? Unfortunately not. BUT, it’s free and easy to join, you can create interiors and covers using a free tool like Canva, and you have access to the world’s largest marketplace.
You have nothing to lose and a lot that you could gain. Once you create a book and list it, you have the potential to receive royalties on that one book for weeks, monthy, or even years. You can make money selling journals on KDP. What kind of journal will you try first? Let us know in the comments below!
Book Bolt Review: Is It Worth It?
See how this tool can help you start or grow an Amazon KDP business!
