01 Aug Make $1,000 a Month with Amazon KDP for Beginners
My goal is to give you the exact roadmap to get to $1,000 a month for beginners.
In 2020, I wrote a book a month for a year and created $3,335 a month in passive income and replaced my social security income.
I then wrote two books about how I achieved this: 28 Books to $100K and Digital Retirement.
I had a lot of people reaching out to me asking for my help so they could learn how to create multiple streams of passive income like I did by writing one short book a month. So I created my signature program and launched it in January 2023, which teaches others everything I did from A-Z, and that program is Digital Retirement Academy.
In my opinion publishing with KDP is low-risk, has low-start-up costs, and also low competition.
In this article, I'm going to teach you how to make money with Amazon KDP following the system I use every month to write books (I'm also writing a book a month again in 2024).
I want you to know that when you start out, it is slow in the beginning, but after a while the snowball effect kicks in. That’s what happened to me when I wrote a book a month for a year. You can see how my income increased each month here:
You can publish 3 types of books:
- High content – nonfiction books (low competition)
- Medium content – coloring books, puzzle books (medium competition)
- Low content – Journals and planners (highest competition)
The value is not coming out with “new” information, it is organizing it in an easy-to-understand format that is unique. I focus on high content, quality books.
So, to get started, here are the steps I recommend to make money with Amazon KDP:
- Find a High-Profit Topic: Download DS Amazon quickview and research your “topic” and locate the Bestseller Sales Rank (BSR’s). Now it's time to find a high-profit topic. Go to the categories and the bestsellers list and look at books and book topics to see what you want to write a book about. Once you have a list of topics/keywords. For example, decluttering, then you can do your research to see if this is a high profit topic. This is critical that you write books that are in demand and have an audience. Here are the criteria to look for:
- Find other books with a Bestseller Sales Ranking of under 80,000; then find at least 3 books that make $500 plus per month on average that is not written by a celebrity author. If you find 3 books that fit this criteria, then the keyword is profitable. You can also go to Publisher Rocket and check the keywords to see the demand and the average monthly earnings. If you find books making at least $500 a month and that have low reviews, that’s great because now you know you don’t need a ton of reviews for your book to be profitable. Another tool you can use to do your research and to see how much books are making is called KDSpy.
- Create the Book – Next, you want to write your outline and decide on the title of your book. Spy on other competitors’ chapters on top books, read the customer reviews on those books, the good and the bad. Also use ChatGPT to create an outline for your book and come up with great titles and subtitles. I used ChatGPT for my bestselling book “Write Your Way to $100K” and it has been a very successful book for me. Once you've done this, it's time to create an original outline for your book.
- Short books are best. 10,000 to 20,000 words are good for nonfiction. People like short books that they can finish fast.
- Come up with your book title and use the keywords you researched in the title and/or subtitle. Look at competitors, but don’t copy. Ask ChatGPT to come up with titles and then double check those to make sure no one is using that title.
- You can write the book yourself which will cost you time, or you can pay someone else to write the book and that will cost you money. You can go to a website that some people use called “Urban Writers” to find a low cost writer or you can also look on Upwork. Additionally, Fiverr even has gigs where they will write no or low content books for you. You can use Book Bolt to create low and medium content books.
- Now it's time to format the book for the eBook and paperback. I recommend paying someone to do this unless you have experience.
- Get a professional cover and do not do it yourself. You can use fiverr or 100covers.com
- Publish Your Book – Write a compelling and provocative book description. Gather everything you need to publish your book (your cover files and formatted manuscript for both the eBook and paperback). Once you have all the files as well as your keyword research, then it's time to upload and publish your eBook and paperback. I would price the eBook at .99 cents so you can get 5 reviews and then it's time to set up a bestseller launch.
- Book Launch – Before you set up your launch, you must get 5 reviews (the reason is when you hire book promoters, many of them require at least 5 reviews, plus books that have more reviews make more sales). Next, pick a launch date in the first 30 days of publishing and do a proper book launch. The reason you want to do the launch in the first 30 days is because in addition to hitting bestsellers list you can also hit “hot new releases” lists and that can only be done in those first 30 days of publishing. For your launch, if you have an email list and a big social media following, you can promote it yourself or if you need help, I recommend hiring book promoters. I always hire at least 5 book promoters for all of my launches. Here are some you can take a look at: https://davidgaughran.com/best-promo-sites-books/
Congratulations! You are now a published bestselling author. If you have a high content book, you can also then publish an audiobook to make even more money.
Repeat these steps and write more high-quality books to make money with Amazon KDP! Of course, you can also add on a course to the back end of your book and make a $100K+ like I did with Digital Retirement Academy.
Publishing is my favorite way of making money! If you are ready to make your first $1000 a month and beyond, consider joining me Digital Retirement Academy