Online retail continues to grow at an ever increasing rate. Hardly surprising considering the vast percentage of the worlds population have spent much of 2020 and 2021 in isolation. The only way many people could shop, communicate and socialise was online!
In this post we look at the No Content and Low Content Books market and give you the know how to boost your Amazon KDP profits.
Discover how you can establish a successful and profitable online business, with little to no start up cost, and that enables you to target 2 highly profitable markets and a range of red hot consumer driven niches. Sound too good to be true? I am pleased to say it is 100% genuine and with a little effort and know-how you can begin today!
- How Do I Profit From Low Content And No Content Books?
- What Are Low Content Books?
- 5 Low Content Books You Could Create In An Hour!
- 1. Organisers – To Do Lists
- 2. Music Composition Low Content Books
- 3. Goal Setting Personal Planners
- 4. Quote Of The Day Journals
- 5. Making Life Easier And Organised
- Ready To Boost Your Low Content Books Profits By Using Amazon KDP?
- What Makes Amazon KDP One Of The Best Marketplaces?
- What You Need To Start On Amazon As A Self Publisher
- Stage 1 – PrePlan Your Product Page!
- Stage 2 – Upload Your Low Content Books Interior and Covers.
- Stage 3 – Set Your Book Price and Publish.
- Low Content Books Pricing Factors
- Recommended Tools, Free and Premium, That Make Massive Impact!
How Do I Profit From Low Content And No Content Books?
Now before you head off to another post thinking, “Books? That’s not for me. I can’t spell let alone write a book!” Don’t worry. This branch of publishing doesn’t require you to write much at all, maybe a few headings and a couple of sentences.
Yes, welcome to the world of No and Low Content Self Publishing. One of the largest platforms for self publishers is Amazon. With Amazon you can create, publish and sell your books, you can also have your books printed and delivered and you won’t pay a cent. For each book that is sold you take a percentage of the profits.
We aren’t talking the 1 – 5% commissions that Amazon Associates (or affiliates) make. You’ll make at least 20 – 40%. And remember you haven’t spent anything throughout the entire process! This is an incredible way to start a niche online business without any of the usual start up risks,.
What Are Low Content Books?
To avoid confusion, these books do actually have content. But they have very little text. So there are no chapters to write, no storylines to create and no editing nightmares to worry about. The term describes books that we use in our lives and add our own content into.
They can be exercise books, logbooks or notebooks we use at school or in the workplace, or they may be the journals and planners we use for recreation and hobbies. They also include activity and puzzle books for entertainment. The list is literally endless.
Examples of Low Content Books.
Example of a planner page.
These are templates that make life easier for the purchaser. In this example the planner is full of pages that help the buyer write perfectly scripted blog posts.
Example of Children Handwriting Practice.
These are templates that parents and teachers love!
You can add just letters of the alphabet, or sight words, or words around a theme.
Children then practice their handwriting by tracing them and copying the template. Easy to produce and extremely popular
Examples of No Content Books
Example of a Create your own comic page.
These templates are the outline storyboards and comic strip pages. With multiple of these you have great gifts for kids.
The create your own comics are extremely popular. Kids can spend hours drawing their own comic characters and designing the whole storyline.
Example of No Written Words content page.
In this example we see a children’s first dictionary or first phonics book. These are popular as they have images and then lines for children to write in.
All you need are the copyright for images, or images that you have commercial license for. Then just add in your lines.
You can see an example of a finished product called My Farmyard Friends Activity Book here.
You can see the self publisher materials here, these were used to create the activity book.
The above are just a few examples of both low content and np content books. While we produce a lot of children’s educational theme packs and finished products that doesn’t need to be you focus.
All you need do is think of a type of template that could be produced, and that would help people or make their life easier and then design your own templates, or buy ready made templates.
Late in the post I will show you where you can source preformatted templates free, and other premium (but very reasonable) images and ideas! It doesn’t need to be hard work!
5 Low Content Books You Could Create In An Hour!
Yes! It’s a true headline. I thought to ensure you don’t give up or think, “wow this is too much for me” I would provide you with examples of 5 different styles of book that are extremely popular, sell all year round and don’t need to be updated. This means they are searched for all year round and are in hot niches where the products are open trend and desired.
1. Organisers – To Do Lists
Very simple to produce. But exceptionally popular. The key is to come up with an eye catching interior that repeats throughout and then send time to ensure your cover is more attractive than the competition.
If you have a YouTube channel you will be very familiar with the concept of comparing other related video thumbnails and making yours that much better and more attractive. This is the same concept. In many ways your cover will sell your organiser.
Top Tip – Often these organisers sell better if you really niche down! So rather than “Daily Organiser” try to find an specific need and niche. For example “Finding Me Time For Busy Moms Daily Organiser”
2. Music Composition Low Content Books
For these books, which are very popular with students and those choosing gifts for students, you bundle music manuscript paper into a journal or planner format. This provides budding musicians a tidy and easy to organise planner for composing music.
This type of book is straightforward and is a great example of no content book. Again to sell these focus extra effort on designing your cover page to stand out from the rest.
3. Goal Setting Personal Planners
Our 3rd and possibly most popular type of book. These books take more time to design the interior, and are more popular if they contain a variety of internal pages.
So when designing these think about your audience. You might dedicate 10-20 pages for notes. Then 12 pages dedicated to a month each. Then 20-30 pages of daily task and goals tracking. Perhaps even some “daily quote pages”.
Build it out with useful templates. The key here is to always ask yourself, “Does this solve a problem? Does this help someone? Does this make life easier? better? etc”
4. Quote Of The Day Journals
Fantastic to produce and very popular with a range of different age ranges and groups. These can be produced as blanks where people find and write their favourite quote of the day.
Alternatively you can produce them and add an inspirational quote to each page, leaving room for the owner to add their thoughts and notes. You can also mix and match both styles.
The great thing with these books is you are continually building up your stock of internal page self publisher templates. So then each book you produce you can mix and match your predesigned pages to create new journal styles.
These also rend to be more popular if you design for specific groups of people. Examples of this are
“Gratitude Journals For Girls”
or even more specific,
“Happiness and Gratitude Journal With Coloring Quotes and Inspiration”.
5. Making Life Easier And Organised
In this example I have provided a really popular “write my own recipe” template. That doesn’t mean this is the only template you can use. This style of book is dedicated to any template that makes life easier.
In this example rather than someone having to style their own recipe cards or write them on scrap of paper you provide a template where they just fill in the gaps.
These style of books are evergreen sellers (sell all year round) and very popular with gift givers. Team them with an appropriate cover and you have a fabulous thoughtful gift that isn’t going to break the bank. They are very personal and are loved by people who receive them.
Other ideas are “meal planners”, “fitness trackers” and even better when niched down such as “Gardening For Green Thumbed Grandmas” or “My Dads Tall Tale Fishing Log”.
Ready To Boost Your Low Content Books Profits By Using Amazon KDP?
Now that you’ve made the decision to start your online self publishing empire, the first thing you’ll need is to set yourself up on Amazon KDP.
The KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing. And is one of the very top marketplaces for low content self publishers. Don’t be distracted by seeing Kindle in the title. For this exercise we won’t be publishing to Kindle but using their paperback book publishing.
And It’s easy to start. We will walk through the steps now.
What Makes Amazon KDP One Of The Best Marketplaces?
That’s simple. Statistics! ebook Market Share published figures that show Amazon sell 67% of all ebooks internationally and a huge 81% in the US marketplace. That is massive!
The other incredible fact is it is free to join, just fill in a short “join now” page and you’ll have access to all the tools and resources needed to get your book uploaded and online in minutes!
It is also completely free to use the Amazon KDP platform. You pay nothing and can publish as many books as you wish. The platform works on a commission system. So you can choose the price you want your book to sell for, and Amazon deduct their publishing costs leaving you with the remainder. Fantastic!
So easy. When someone orders your book Amazon print it, package it and deliver it. And then you have the profit placed into your account! As you’ll see later in the post they also make it super simple to choose the right price for your book so you know what your percentage is and what your profit will be.
What You Need To Start On Amazon As A Self Publisher
Again, super simple! You can open your account first if you’re not ready to upload your book materials, but for this post we will look at the process from start to publish! At most you need to have these 3 things ready.
- A KDP Account – You can open your Amazon KDP Account using this link.
- Your No or Low Content Books interior pages (PDF).
- Your Cover (Front and Back as PDF).
Other aspects that you may want to think about are details for your book product page. Having this already decided will make the publishing process quicker! Some of these aspects need a bit of research and we will cover how to do that later in this post. So keep reading and you’ll find out all you need to know about KDP research!
The first area you will see is the homepage. Here you can view your reports, get involved with the KDP Community and get great ideas about marketing your books once published. However for this post you want to select your Book shelf.
- Bookshelf – This is your individual bookstore and will contain all your books that are published or in draft.
- Then you need to select Paperback. This tells Amazon you want your book to be printed and the physical product delivered to customers (the other option, Kindle, is for digital ebooks)
Stage 1 – PrePlan Your Product Page!
You will see there are 3 sections in the publishing workflow.
- Paperback details – this is where you will add your book details and written description. This first step being to choose the language you wish your book to be published under (even if there are no words in it, the language to choose is the language used for your title and description!)
- Paperback content – this is the area that you will upload your cover and your internal pages.
- Paperback Rights and Pricing – Here you will see the cost for Amazon to print and deliver each copy. Then you decide the price you want to sell your book for. This determines your profit margin.
- Book Title – Add your book title making sure you have made this keyword rich (we will look at how to do this later in this post)
- Subtitle – you don’t need to add a subtitle, but I recommend everyone does. This is another way to get rich, searched for, keyword terms into your book product page.
Hint – if you do use a subtitle make sure you also show the subtitle on your cover page graphics. Some of the KDP quality editors will send it back for re-editing if your title and subtitle details are not an exact match for what is shown on your cover. They don’t all do this, so it’s personal style. But easier to do it right the first time, as nothing is more annoying than having to log back in and rewrite the details or redesign the covers!
- Author – You can add your own name as author or, as many self publishers do, publish under a pen name. Many authors choose to use their brand name as their authors pen name. It is a decision to make dependent on your personal preference.
- Contributors – This section is mainly used if the book is a joint publication by two or more authors. However you can also choose to use your name in step 8 as the author and then add your company or brandname as the contributor. (or vice versa). The benefit of using both sections is that each will generate a link on your product page that can send traffic to your brand page, book page and website. So I think highly worth considering.
- Description – this is where you describe the content of your book. Take time and complete this fully. Your cover image is usually what initially attracts people to your book, but the description you add will determine if people choose to purchase your book or someone else’s.
- Publishing Rights – This is a declaration to Amazon that you are the creator of the uploads and hold the copyright, or publishing rights, to the materials you upload.
- Keywords – You are able to write your own selection of keywords. You can choose up to 7 in total. Always use all 7! Hugely important as Amazon use these words to determine if your book shows up in the search results. We will look at KDP keyword research later in the post.
- Categories – You can only choose 2 categories. It is worth making sure you select wisely. The categories you choose need to match the categories from the Amazon marketplace. They are chosen by clicking the “Choose Categories” button and then selecting from the drop down values. This is actually less important than keywords, so you are looking for the “best fit” rather than an exact match.
Stage 2 – Upload Your Low Content Books Interior and Covers.
The second stage of the process is to take care of all the physical properties of your low content books.
- ISBN – This is yet another free feature offered by Amazon KDP. Many other publishing houses charged for an ISBN. If you already have an ISBN you can use it. But for most people, you will want to select the first option “Get a free KDP ISBN”.
- Publication Date – Leave this blank and your books publication date will be the date that it goes live on Amazon. The only time you might wish to fill this in is if you want your product to go live in a certain date and time, i.e. for a launch.
- Print Options – Here you choose your books physical print options in regard paper and ink colors. Most low content and no content books are white paper with black ink. Avoid large color combinations in your internal pages as this makes printing more expensive and reduces profit. However it depends on your book and what it is you have designed it to be used for.
- Trim Size – Choose the size you want your low content books page to be printed. Common options are 6 x 9 inch is a standard notebook size. 8.5 x 11 inch for kids activity books or adult colouring. There are many you can choose from.
- Bleed or No Bleed. It is important to know which to choose. If you have a lot of art or graphic elements you may wish to choose bleed. This means you extend the ink beyond the size of the page so when it is trimmed to publish there are no wide borders around the art. No bleed means there is a gap around the contents and this prevents your images or words being cropped.
- Cover Finish – Do you want your cover to be glossy or have a matte finish?
- Upload Paperback Manuscript. At this step you upload your internal PDF Pages. You need to have them as a single PDF document and in the correct order.
- Low Content Book Covers – You have 2 options in this section. The first option allows you to create your book cover from scratch. If you choose this option a new window will open and you will be able select from a handful of preset style options. You can then modify this by choosing from copyright free graphics, choose a color scheme, and add text as well as your logos. The second option is to upload a cover you have predesigned. This needs to be 1 file that includes both the front and rear cover and in PDF format.
- Book Preview – Once you have uploaded your low content books manuscript and cover you are unable to move to the next stage until you review the book preview. Simply click the Launch Previewer button. The page will start too generate a mock up of how your published books will look, the time it take to generate depends upon how many pages you have and how content rich the pages are.
This can take a few minutes so it’s a great time to go make coffee!
When the preview has loaded you can go through you book page by page and ensure everything is as you would expect. If any errors are flagged you will see them in left hand sidebar. You will need to fix the errors before you can move to the next stage. The most common error is books which have internal markings that cross into the bleed area.
If everything is fine. Press accept and you will return to the publishing cycle.
Stage 3 – Set Your Book Price and Publish.
Following the book preview you will see you are back on the book content page. You will also see that KDP has added a small section at the bottom of the page where it notifies you of the print and publication price for each copy of your book. You don’t pay this amount, it is to help you in the following stage and also so you know the amount that will be deducted from each book sale to cover the print costs.
Save the page and you will move to Stage 3.
- Choose Territories. The first step in stage 3 is to decide which territories you wish your book to be published. The territories are the Amazon marketplaces. You can choose all of them, or you can choose option 2 and select just a few. I’m not sure why you would do this, unless you live in a country that doesn’t allow selling in specific international zones. Most people will choose all territories because it give your book the chance to make more sales.
- Select Your Marketplace. This is a new feature for Amazon KDP. You choose which you wish to be your main market. I suggest selecting your local, or home, marketplace. It does not prevent you trading in all.
- Pricing, Royalty and distribution. This is where you set the price per unit for your books. You can choose any price. Amazon KDP will suggest a minimum and a maximum price. Make sure you look for similar books in Amazon, this will enable you to decide on a fair price that offers value to customers and profit to you.
Low Content Books Pricing Factors
a) Marketplace – Each book will have a seperate price that is based on the marketplace you selected.
b) List Price – In the list price box is where you add your price per book.
c) Printing costs – this shows you the cost for each book printed. This will be deducted from the price.
d) Amazon Rate – this is the percentage of the sale that Amazon take for the service and as their commission.
e) Royalty – This is your profit per book after all commissions. Usually this will be around $2 – $4 per book.
f) Expanded Distribution – If you select this option you will see the charge these other outlets will take.
g) Royalty – This shows your final profit for any books sold outside the Amazon network via expanded distribution.
Now the only thing left for you to do is press save and publish. The team at KDP will do a quality review and if no errors are found you will be notified by email when your book is live an able to be purchased. This will be within 24-36 hours. Congratulations!
Recommended Tools, Free and Premium, That Make Massive Impact!
If you decide that this is a business model you wish to pursue there are a range of tool that will help you stand out from the crowd and enable your production process to more efficient and a great deal quicker.
Obviously too such as Illustrator and Photoshop are terrific. But they have a huge learning curve and are expensive when you are just starting.
Don’t panic. There are numerous tools that are free or very reasonably priced and just as effective.
Number 1 – Book Bolt, My Personal Favourite!
I use Book Bolt for every book I produce. Easy to use and it has a range of incredible features that save at least half the usual time!
Book Bolt is a collection of tools, like an all-in-one. It enables you to do instant keyword research, helps you find the right categories, lets you spy on best selling books and the keywords they target. Book Bolt is a design tool for both your internal pages and your covers.
Plus it has a huge number of predesigned pages you can use off the self without worrying bout copyright. And it has a very handy browser extension so in just a few clicks you can upload your book details into Amazon KDP without manually entering all 25 steps we just talked about!
Now I guess you are thinking. This will be expensive. And very happily I can tell you it is incredibly good value. The cost is $9.99 a month. That is amazing! You can check out Book Bolt by clicking this link.
Now we believe in transparency so yes, we are an affiliate partner for BookBolt. It is a product I use every day and wouldn’t be without. So go have a look and if it interests you, you can decide whether you sign up or not. If you do buy through us, thank you. It helps us to keep JBOS going and recommending great tools!
Lets look at some of the amazing features you get in Book Bolt.
Book Bolt Designer
A simple to use, but effective visual design tool. Book Bolt gives you access to a large range of predesigned and easy to access template collections for you to create your final book design.
After that, you can start designing your covers. You can also upload any templates you made, clipart, or any other images. You can also draw, choose and add fonts, work with layers and design effects.
The pre-made interior designs allow you to make a huge range of different types of books. You can mix and match, switch from blank pages or add various sections like recipes or goal setting.
You can download all te designs in publish ready PDF. This means both your Cover and Interior are ready to upload to Amazon KDP.
Book Bolt Lister
You get access to the bulk listing tool. This is awesome as it allows you to bulk upload multiple book designs. This is a separate Chrome extension that’s included in the cost of Book Bolt.
Keyword Research
Even though the Designer is a fantastic feature the Keyword research tool is what will really kick start your business profits. The keywords found in Book Bolt are the search terms being actively searched for in Amazon now!
Book Bolt includes niche discovery and provides the search volume for each keyword built in. Unlike other keyword tools there are no limits so you cn research to your hearts content.
Doing this research will help you create books that rank and sell on Amazon.
And that’s just a start. You’ll find another 10 or more features to help you build your Low Content Books Business. If you are not sure about paying $9.99 a month you can use this link and sign up for an all inclusive 3 day free trial (no credit card required)
Number 2 – PuzzleWiz
This is great and can be purchased through the same Book Bolt link! Hint – if you are going to purchase Book Bolt do it first and you will the be entitled to a very generous PuzzleWiz discount.
Puzzle books are huge sellers! And PuzzleWiz creates complete puzzle books including your desired page size and however many number of pages you want to create. As soon as they are ready you can download them in ready to publish PDF format.
The team add new styles of Puzzles all the time. The Puzzles currently available to create are:
- Sudoku
- Nurikabe
- Crossword
- Word Search
- Hangman
- Cryptogram
- Word Scramble
- Missing Vowel
- Mine Finder
- Maze
- Kakuro
- Grayscale
- Outline
- Connect the Dots
Grab your 3 day free trail to Book Bolt and PuzzleWiz here.
3. Canva
Canva is an excellent tool to Crete covers, graphics and interiors. It has a free and a premium version. The free version has a huge range of items so for most people is enough to begin! You can access Canva here.
4. Envato Elements
Another wonderful source for almost every graphic product you can think of. Comes with the option of free or paid accounts. I pay the annual fee, simply because it provides me an unlimited amount of downloads. And there are thousands upon thousands.
Envato Elements includes photos, videos, music, sound clips, video elements, graphics, vectors, illustrations, ready to use templates, ebooks, WordPress themes, WordPress plugins, html templates, CMS templates, graphic templates, Instant Graphic mock ups, PowerPoints …and I could go on. But you get the idea!
Check out Envato Elements here.
I do hope you take the leap and start designing and publishing low content books. If you do please let me know and leave a comment below. I would appreciate it!
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