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Did you know you can make money on Amazon by selling books without writing much?
Low content books have recently been gaining a lot of traction on Amazon Kindle. Self-publishers looking to make money can take advantage of hot Amazon low content niches and build a steady passive income online.
While most profitable low content books don’t require as much work as their contemporary counterparts, they still need attention to detail and high quality execution. Print-on-demand low content books are designed with a purpose in mind; this can be anything from assisting an executive with their daily planning to keeping kids busy in a fun way.
Let’s take a look at what goes into making a profitable low content book and the most popular low content book niches in 2022.
Low content books contain little to no words and are designed to be filled in by the user. Notebooks, planners, journals, etc. are all examples of low content books. They usually consist of repetitive pages with lined paper and have attractive front and back covers.
The aesthetic appeal of the book covers is what makes low content books stand out amongst competitors. A well-designed low content book that is also functional and marketed appropriately can help you make good money.
It may not seem so obvious but high-quality low content books do sell well on Amazon. In fact, some low content books like adult coloring books and gratitude journals have a wider audience than some fiction and non-fiction books on Amazon. These books can be made and published within a few hours, and if done right, they can be excellent money printers.
So what kind of low content books should you create?
You can choose from a variety of categories. Check the best sellers list on Amazon for some ideas. More on this later.
Low content books typically sell for $4-$12, with coloring books mostly priced around the lower end of this spectrum. The rule is simple, the more sophisticated a low content book is, the higher it sells for.
Depending on the type of low content book you’re selling, you may want to offer a spiral-bound version of your book. These usually go for a premium compared to regular paperback copies. Journals, planners, guest books, and books for recipes can all be published in a spiral-bound format.
Best-selling low content books sell over twenty thousand copies per month on Amazon. That’s more than $30,000 in royalties. However, not all self-publishers earn this much. It really depends on what niche you pick, how you market your book, what royalties you set, and and how much you sell your book for.
Rest assured, once you’ve found a profitable low content niche and created a successful launch strategy, you can expect to make good money selling low content books on Amazon KDP.
Yes, selling low content books on Amazon is completely free. However, publishers often prefer to invest in graphic designers to help create a book that stands out amongst the rest. Hiring experts to create your book will add to your expenses, but the publishing process itself will remain free on Amazon.
Bear in mind Amazon deducts the printing costs when processing orders for your book. The customer pays for the shipping, though.
Of course, if you are hiring a professional to design your book, you’ll have to pay them a fee for their service. A good book designer will cost you around $70/hr on average.
If you have the skills to design a low content book all by yourself, you are in the best position possible. You don’t need to pay anyone. However, you might still have to cough up a few dollars on a book design tool, providing you are not using a free one like Canva.
To determine the popular low content book niches on Amazon, we monitored over two thousand publishers selling different types of low content books, studying their BSR and organic performance in the search. Finally, we managed to identify and shortlist the 8 best performing niches.
Let’s take a look at low content books ideas that have proven successful in 2022 and are likely to work beyond:
Kids activity books seamlessly combine education with entertainment. They engage children with various activities such as coloring, drawing, handwriting etc. and are perfect for keeping them occupied.
During our study, we found kids’ activity books featuring regularly in Amazon’s top 50 bestsellers list. These books tend to be 150+ pages long, which makes sense since they are designed to keep children busy.
Most kids’ activity books are priced between $6 and $8 on average.
If you can find a way to create a gratitude journal that lifts people’s spirits night after night, do it! Gratitude journals are a big hit on Amazon. They are easily one of the most popular categories of low content books on the platform.
The average price of a gratitude journal on Amazon is $10 with an average page count of 140 pages.
Gratitude journals on Amazon are designed to spark positivity and have recurring themes of self-love, hope, relationships, and health.
You wouldn’t know adult coloring books were popular until you check out Amazon’s bestsellers. They can be therapeutic and provide a much-needed stress relief after an exhausting day at work or home. Swear coloring books and animal adult coloring books are some great options if you want to launch a book in this niche.
Adult coloring books cost around $8 on average and are around 100+ pages long.
There are puzzle books for both children and adults on Amazon. These consist of brain teasers, logic problems, math games, riddles, crosswords, find a word, and anything else that forces users to think.
Puzzle books are a great category to target. If you can establish yourself in the top 5 organic positions, you can easily net over 500 sales per month.
These books are typically priced between $6 and $12 and have an average page count of 130+ pages.
Food journals are for health nerds or people who have to monitor and regulate their diet throughout the day for medical reasons. They allow users to record what they ate, when they ate, and who they ate with, to encourage healthy habits.
Examples of low content books in this niche include 90 days meal and activity tracker, fitness goals journal, weight loss journal, and more.
A typical food journal on Amazon costs $8 on average and has around 100+ pages.
Everyone can benefit from a daily dose of inspiration. Inspirational journals usually contain motivational quotes and creative exercises to help you connect with your inner-self and appreciate who you are, while manifesting your goals and dreams to make them come true.
Most inspirational journals on Amazon are listed between $6 and $14 and have 120 or more pages.
Keeping a prayer journal helps people organize their thoughts as they pray. These journals are quite popular in the US. Bestsellers in this niche make more than 150 sales per month on average.
Prayer journals on Amazon usually sell for $6 or above and are sized around 140 pages. Interestingly, women's prayer journals sell more compared to men’s journals.
Password logbooks help you store username and passwords for your important online accounts in a safe place. They typically come with a removable cover band for security purposes.
You can create a password logbook in just a few hours. These logbooks typically sell between $5 and $10 and are 100-160 pages long.
To publish low content books on Amazon, you’ll need an Amazon KDP account. If you don’t have one, you can sign up here.
Once your account is ready, you can start exploring the various low content book niches on Amazon. Do you see any underserved ideas? What can you put out that isn’t currently there? Does the niche have enough demand? Ask yourself who you want to cater to with your book. Having a target audience in mind makes it easier to design a low content book.
There are multiple ways to go about generating low content niche ideas. You can start with the Amazon search bar. Think of a theme–health, business, travel etc. and combine it with keywords like journal, notebook, workbook, or planner. Amazon will show you some search suggestions. Pick what interests you and dive deep into the rabbit hole.
Struggling to brainstorm potential themes? Spend some time on websites like discoverahobby.com, and you are sure to find a few.
Alternatively, you can check out the printables market on Etsy. It’s a goldmine for finding untapped low content book niches. However, make sure that the book has enough demand on Amazon. You can use third party tools like ZonGuru’s Niche Rater to check the viability of a niche.
Talking about the actual production process, you can create a low content book in a couple of hours. You don’t have to do much on the content side. The interior does need proper attention but once you have a draft ready, you can get things moving pretty quickly.
The cover is where you’ll have to be at your very best, though. Experimentation and variety are must. For example, if you’re designing a notebook that can be purchased by companies for branding purposes, you can create five notebooks with different colored covers. This will make your book standout and give you an edge over your competitors. This is also what makes low content books so exciting to create and launch compared to traditional books.
Is there a way to design and create low content books for free?
You’ll certainly need tools during the book design process. There are plenty of good paid options available in the market but if you are looking for something free, you can try Bookbolt or Canva.
Bookbolt comes with a 3-day free trial and offers interior templates and built-in cover editors that allow you to experiment with numerous designs. The tool has a user-friendly interface and can be used to create both the cover and spine of your book.
Canva is another free design tool that is perfect for both casual and professional book designers. It comes with thousands of templates that you can use to create book covers on the go. It may not be useful for designing book interiors though.
If this is your first time designing anything, we would recommend hiring a professional for the job. Yes, it will cost you money, but it will save you a lot of time and hassle. Plus, it’s a safer option.
Once your book is ready, you can proceed to upload it.
Both your interior and cover files need to be in the PDF format before you can upload your book on Amazon. Therefore, make sure you export the files in the right format.
i) Next, log into your KDP account and click on “+Create”.
ii) Select paperback or hardcover depending on how you would like your low content book cover to be.
iii) Amazon will ask you to provide information about your book–language, title, subtitle, series number (if any), author, description, category, keywords, etc. Make sure you fill these correctly. Pay special attention to the title and the description. They should be search optimized for Amazon and must contain relevant keywords. You can use ZonGuru’s Keywords on Fire tool to find keywords related to your low content book niche.
iv) Upload your book interior and cover files along with the ISBN number.
vi) Finally, set the distribution rights, pricing, and royalties. Wait for Amazon to review and approve your book. This can take up to 72 hours, provided everything is in order.
Amazon offers upto 60% royalties on low content books depending on your distribution settings. If you choose to sell your book through non-Amazon retailers that are part of the company’s Expanded Distribution plan, you can grow your sales exponentially, but you’ll have to accept a lower payout of 40%.
All printing costs are deducted from your final royalties, while the customer pays for the shipping of the books.
You can’t just publish your low content book on Amazon and expect to crush it. You must put in the work to get your book out in front of your potential customers.
One way of increasing your low content book sales, and something we have already discussed, is to make sure your listing is fully optimized. This will boost your visibility in the search.
You can also try building a mailing list of people who might be interested in buying your book. Send them emails informing them of your upcoming releases and discount offers. Additionally, if you have the expertise or money, consider setting up a website or a blog to promote your book.
All these methods work great for generating organic hype for your book. They are cheap to execute and quite effective in terms of producing results. However, they can often take time to catch momentum. This is where you can take help of advertising and supplement your sales in the short term.
The advertising of low content books is very different from promoting traditional books on Amazon. While Amazon PPC campaigns work, we recommend renting out real estate on newsletters published in your space. They’ll save you a ton and bring more conversions at a fraction of the cost.
Pinterest advertising is another great option. You can mix it with Facebook and Instagram posting. It all really depends how much time you have to spare.
Finally, make sure to maintain an author page on Amazon and populate it with your blogs and social media accounts. This can be an excellent way to build a loyal following.
All in all, selling low content books on Amazon is a legit way to build an income stream online. In fact, it can serve as a launchpad for your Kindle Direct Publishing journey. Once successful, you can pivot into more challenging niches and explore fiction and non-fiction books.
ZonGuru provides you everything you need to start selling low content books on Amazon, right away. We have niche research tools to help you find profitable low content book ideas and keyword research tools to create an optimized listing. Sign up for a 7-day free trial and start your KDP journey today!
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