Self-Publishing Low Content Paperback Books with KDP

Curious about self-publishing low content paperback books with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)?  You probably see a lot of potential in this business. But what exactly are low content books and how do you get started?

It’s easier than you might be thinking. 

Publishing via KDP is simple, lucrative, and you only need a few things to get started – an Amazon account, document creation software like PowerPoint or Word, basic document creation skills (if you can type a sentence, you can do this!), an understanding of niche/keyword research OR a willingness to learn…

…and patience. 🙂 

What is Low Content Publishing?

Low content publishing is a method of publishing paperback books that have little – even no – content. 

These types of low content books include:

✅ Think about it – all of these books feature very little content. 

Some have no content at all!

And they can all be easily self-published on Amazon. It only takes a few minutes to enter some details, review a preview of your book, and submit.

Once your book is accepted, it’s live in the Amazon marketplace. 

Selling notebooks on Amazon is as simple as that!

What is the BEST Software to Use to Create Low-Content Books?

It is unbelievably easy to create low-content books when you have the right skills and the right tools.

I use PowerPoint and it’s THIS easy.

You can also use Word to create your interiors and a photo editing software to create your covers. But doing it this way is a little more labor intensive. 

When you create low-content books with PowerPoint, you can do it all – interiors, covers…and it’s very fast. So you can create, upload, publish, and repeat.

How Do I Know What Types of Books to Create?

The first step to creating low-content books that sell is to be a consumer. Take a trip to Target, Walmart, or Barnes and Noble and window shop their books. 

What kind of books are you drawn to? 

How many different types of low-content books do you see?

I’ll tell you: my best-selling books are in a niche of which I am an active consumer. I know it inside and out and that knowledge helps me create to the market.

Niche selection is a bit of an art form but step-by-step, you can master it. And doing so is the secret to creating books that SELL.

The other part of niche selection is research. 

I use several tools to help me research niches and keywords on Amazon but this one is my favorite, so far.

Selling Journals on Amazon

You can create a journal to sell on Amazon very quickly. 

Once you’ve created a PDF of your interior and one of your cover, you’ll list your book.

But how do you get your book to actually SELL?

If you’ve done your research and have created a high-quality book, you’ll see sales without doing anything else.

BUT!

I believe it’s important to drive sales yourself. You do this by marketing your book.

You’ll sell more notebooks and journals on Amazon just by spreading the word about your book.

Get enthusiastic about what you’ve created and let people know about it! 

You can share:

• On Pinterest
• On a Facebook page or in a group
• On Twitter
• In a blog post on YOUR blog
• In a guest blog post
• By word-of-mouth
• By offering your book as a giveaway or contest prize
• By cross-promoting in other books you’ve published
• In an email to your list
• In an ad on another site, on Facebook, in print…

…it’s all about spreading the word. :o)

Selling Paperback Coloring and Activity Books

Other popular types of low content books are coloring and activity books. These are super easy to create when you use PLR coloring pages!

✅ This is one of my FAVORITE resources for beautiful coloring pages with PLR rights. 

One thing you need to remember about using this – or any! – PLR:  you MUST change it SIGNIFICANTLY. 

To do this with coloring book PLR, you’ll want to add in custom pages you’ve created, other low content book templates, and you’ll want to get creative with how you use the coloring images you have. 

If you’re creating activity books, consider including PUZZLES! This tool creates them for you in seconds!

How to Publish a Blank Diary

Now, you might be wondering how to publish a blank journal. 

Blank books are considered “no content” books and DO sell.

In my experience, they don’t sell as well as LOW content books do, but they do sell nonetheless and if this type of book makes sense for your business or you feel inspired to create these types of books, go for it!

So the actual publishing process is the same but here’s something important to keep in mind if you are going to publish a blank book…

Your pages MUST have something on the page – they cannot be completely blank. 

So what I have done is:

• Added a frame or border around the page
• Added a small decorative image on the page
• Added prompts to the page

You get the idea. 

You just have to have something on the page.

Amazon says so. 

Designing a Planner to Sell on Amazon

Oooh, one of my FAVORITE types of books! I love creating and selling planners on Amazon.

Why?

Because I believe it’s possible to build an entire business just creating and selling planners!

Think about it.

There are:

• Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly planners
• Fitness planners
• Meal planners
• Business planners
• Financial planners
• Trip and travel planners
• Mom planners
• Household planners
• Blogging planners
• Women’s planners
• Success planners
• Combination planners

And endless niches for these types of books within these broader subjects!

Wrapping Up

If you’ve gotten this far, you’re off to a great start! Publishing low content books is a LOT of fun and once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you can publish hundreds, if not thousands, and start seeing income pretty quickly.

Over to you!

Comment below and tell me what your low-content publishing journey has been like so far.

I’ll be talking more about getting started with niche and keyword research in upcoming posts, so jump on my list to be notified of new posts and don’t forget that you can get awesome support in the Facebook group!

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