Today I'm excited to share a new way to earn money on Amazon.
And it doesn't require shipping out orders or even sourcing inventory.
I'm talking about self-publishing your own low content (or even NO CONTENT) books on Amazon.
Now before you start to panic about your less than stellar grammar skills, this kind of self-publishing doesn't actually require you to “write” a book. Which is great news because that's definitely the hardest part of self-publishing books!
On Amazon, you can create and sell low- or no-content books. And because it takes so little time to create these empty books, you can upload as many as you want.
Once you have enough books for sale, you can start to create a nice passive income stream.
It's all possible with Amazon's print-on-demand KDP service. I'll show you how you can use KDP to start creating (and selling!) your own notebooks, journals, and planners on Amazon.
Already know what type of low-content book you want to create, and just need someone to guide you through the process of creating and selling them?
Well, good news!
We've recently released our Low Content Book Creation Course and have helped lots of people just like you launch hundreds of low-content books using our strategies.
Check out the Low Content Book Creation Course Here
What Is Amazon KDP?
Amazon KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing. Despite the name, KDP handles both digital (ebooks, and kindle) and physical books (paperback and hardcover).
KDP is the place to go for self-publishing your own print books. Especially if you want to create low-content books like guided journals and planners, or no-content books like composition notebooks.
If you've been around on Amazon for awhile, you might know this service by its old name, CreateSpace. But now it's all handled under KDP.
Amazon KDP is a great alternative to the traditional publishing method. By self-publishing, you save yourself a lot of time and steps. You can have your book listed for sale that much faster.
KDP is a Print On Demand service. This means that your KDP books aren't printed until a buyer orders one. This is great news for you as an author because it means you don't have to hold or store any inventory.
If you want to self-publish your own book (whether that's a novel or a journal), you just have to upload all of the book information to the KDP author dashboard. This means you provide a cover image, the interior contents, a title, and your keywords. After that, Amazon does the rest.
When an order comes in, Amazon will print your physical book and ship it off to the customer. They even handle any customer service issues or returns. After that, you get paid in the form of a royalty payment!
Yes, you get paid a royalty and never even have to touch your book or store boxes of books in your garage.
You can even get a lot of sales because Amazon is still THE place to shop for books.
That means your uploaded books are getting placed in front of the eyes of Amazon's hundreds of millions of customers.
No (or Low) Content Books
As you can see, using KDP to self-publish your own books is something that you can easily scale.
You only have to upload your book one time and then you can get multiple sales on it.
Your only time investment is the time it takes to create and upload the book.
So if you create a book with almost no content in it, you're saving yourself even more time.
Books with low content are super fast and easy to create!
Typically, a low-content book will have just a few page layouts that repeat over and over. Like, a weekly planner that uses the same weekly layout over and over, just the date changes.
It's considered low-content because you are not doing a bunch of writing or creating to get the book published.
With no-content books, it may be just a single page repeated over and over with zero writing in it.
A lined composition notebook, for example, would require absolutely zero creativity on the inside of the book, so it is considered no-content or zero content.
With both low-content and no-content books, your main differentiator and creativity come into play with the covers you create.
Examples of No Content Books
Let's take a look at some real low-content and no content books that are selling on Amazon right now.
Seeing these live examples should help spark some ideas for your own low content book creations!
I've included a photo of 4 different book covers for you to look at.
As you can see from The Blank Comic Book Notebook example, the cover designs don't have to be that elaborate. That book is actually a really hot seller on Amazon!
These 4 books are mostly geared at children which means you can have a little fun with the design if you want.
Of course, you could also design journals for moms, office workers, graphic designers, or any other niche you want.
The contents of the book are really up to you.
The Unicorn Composition Notebook has blank, wide-ruled pages inside.
The Music & Lyrics Notebook includes blank staffs for writing music and wide-ruled pages for writing lyrics.
Some journals marketed for adults may include prompts or inspirational quotes on a few pages.
That's why these books can be “no content” or “low content”. You can pick whichever option makes the most sense for the buyer.
Related Post: 30+ Low Content Book Ideas You Can Create Today
Books That Are Considered Low Content or No Content on Amazon
- Journals (blank or with prompts)
- Notebooks
- Blank sheet music
- Sketchbooks
- Doodle Books for kids
- Writing/Composition books for kids
- Planners
- To-do list books
- Log Books
- Trackers
Want to see over 300 hot low-content niches that are selling well on Amazon right now? Check out this spreadsheet I've put together to help you find your first (or next) best seller!
Coming Up With Your Low-Content Book Design
Designing your books is actually pretty simple (depending on how little content you want to include).
You'll need to come up with:
- A concept for your book
- A cover design (front and back)
- Interior pages (at least 1)
For the concept of your low-content book, you want to decide what type of book you want to create.
- Do you want to start with a simple lined notebook?
- Would you like to create a planner for a specific group of people?
- Or, maybe you have been looking for a way to keep track of your favorite hobby and want to make a logbook for it?
Once you've come up with the perfect concept for your book, you'll move on to thinking about your cover design and the interior page design.
For your cover, you'll want to really think about who your target audience is. I've found its best to really niche down for your covers. Have a very specific customer in mind for each book that you create.
Remember, you can use the same interior pages for multiple books by just changing the cover. So, you can be as specific as you want with the cover.
The lined notebook below is for school nurses. This is more specific than just ‘nurses' in general, they really know who their target audience is!
This would make a perfect gift for the first day of school and the nurse would (hopefully!) get a smile from it.
Using the same concept, the author could use the same concept for many different nurse specialties.
You can feel free to have fun with your designs or you can keep it simple.
Some book covers are just text with no artwork or images and they still sell.
So even if you're not that artistic, you can design your own book covers just by using some fun fonts.
How to Create and Upload Your Low Content Books to KDP
If you're ready to get started selling low-content books on Amazon, you'll need to have a few things ready.
- A KDP Account [sign up here: https://kdp.amazon.com/]
- No Content or Low Content interior pages for your books as a PDF
- Artwork or designs for your book cover
You should also be able to do some basic keyword research so that you're creating designs that people actually want to buy.
There's no point in making journals on a topic that no one is interested in.
Spend a little time thinking about keywords and strategy and you'll be starting off strong.
Don't have the time?
I've got your back! I put together over 301 ideas for interiors/covers that are selling well on Amazon RIGHT NOW! Check out the low-content niche ideas spreadsheet today.
Or need help knowing how to research? It's all covered step-by-step in my low-content book creation course!
For the design of your interior pages and cover, there are two tools I recommend.
- Canva
- Google Slides (not pages!)
If you are already a designer, you can use fancy tools like Photoshop, but it's definitely not needed for someone getting started with low-content books from scratch.
The design of the low content book interior pages will be simple.
To start, they may just be lined notebook pages.
After you have all of the cover and interior page designs in place, it's time to upload your books into KDP. You'll need to provide some basic information about your KDP Print on Demand book:
- Book type (this needs to be Paperback not Kindle eBook)
- Language (English)
- Book title + Subtitle
- Author (you can use a pen name if you'd like)
- Description
- Publishing rights (Amazon wants to know if you own the copyright and publishing rights for this book)
- Keywords (this is how people searching on Amazon will find your book in the search results, so don't skip them!)
- ISBN (KDP will assign you a free ISBN)
- Publication Date
- Print Options: You need to choose your paper color & type, the size of the book, and some options for the finish
After you have everything approved and finalized in KDP, you get to set your price.
As you price your item, Amazon will show you what the printing cost will be and then what your final royalty payment will be.
For the typical low-priced book, the royalties aren't massive. But even if you're making $1-$4 per book, that's all from work you only had to do one time upfront.
If you create a book that gets a couple of sales per day, it can add up. And if you create multiple books that get a couple of sales per day, it really adds up!
Design Low Content Book Interiors Using Canva
I mentioned above that one of my favorite tools for creating low-content book covers and interiors is Canva.
They have a free version and a paid version. You can get started with the free version, but if you want to use any of their premium elements, you'll want to upgrade to the pro version (you can get a free 30-day trial).
For a lined notebook page, you can just use the free version, because you are just using lines.
Here is a simple college-ruled 6×9 notebook page I created in Canva:
By adding another shorter line at the top, you can take this lined page and turn it into a notebook page with a spot for today's date.
Once you have the exact page design that you want, you will export the page as a Print Quality PDF (with as many pages as you want your final book to have) and that will be the interior page you upload to your author dashboard on KDP.
Designing Your KDP Book Cover In Canva
The cover is one of the more complicated design aspects for any KDP book, not just low and no-content books.
The reason it has people caught up is because the size of the cover has to be EXACT based on the print size of your book and the number of pages that you are including in the book.
You'll need to use the KDP Cover Template creator to download your cover template.
Once you get the template, you can use a Canva custom size page to create your cover.
You will actually be creating the front, back and spine all at once on the same page.
Once you get your cover template uploaded, it will look something like this:
You will cover the entire template with your cover background and keep all of your text within the white print sections.
I usually make my own borders to keep track of the sections, so my cover would look like this while working on it:
Once I am completely ready to upload the cover to KDP, I remove the borders and download a Print Ready PDF from Canva.
It looks like this when I'm ready to download it.
Finalizing Your Low Content Book
Once I upload the interior pages, cover design and add the book details, my low-content book will be ready for publishing on Amazon!
It can take a day or two for Amazon to approve the book, but once they do, the book goes live and people will be able to find and purchase it.
Start Your Low Content Book Creation Journey Today!
Want someone to guide you through the entire low-content book creation process step-by-step?
I've got great news!
I've recently released my Low Content Book Creation Course and have helped lots of people just like you launch hundreds of low-content books using my strategies.
If you never knew that becoming a published author could be this easy, now is your chance to get started!
KDP is a great added source of income.
It's the kind of thing you can work on whenever you have a few spare minutes and it's nice to have the sales roll in.
Have you ever sold these kinds of low-content journals or no-content notebooks on Amazon?