If you’d told me a year ago that I’d make over $3000 a month selling notebooks on Amazon, I’d have told you, politely, to go away. But the truth is that notebooks and low content books are quite easy to sell.Β
In order to do this, all you need is an account at KDP. (Disclaimer: $3000+ profit in a 30-day period just before Christmas.)
Selling notebooks and low content books on Amazon is not only great fun, it also improves two very important e-commerce skills:
- the ability to design a good product image (a book cover)
- the ability to choose keywords and niches that will come up in searches on Amazon to garner organic sales without the need for advertising
Here is more detail about what I’ve sold on Amazon in the 30 days leading up to December 13th, 2018:
So much for the stats. What are we talking about here? What sorts of notebooks and low content books sell well on Amazon?
The evergreen niches
A secret to selling t-shirt designs on Merch By Amazon is evergreen niches. And evergreen niches do very well with notebooks on Amazon as well. So think about peopleβs passions. Start with sports, professions, and hobbies.
An example of an evergreen niche is entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is a hobby or profession that people are extremely passionate about. (I think we can all agree with that!) Entrepreneurs often like to scribble down ideas in a notebook.
So I created this notebook, The Little Notebook Of Big Ideas, for the entrepreneurial niche.
Niche down!
The easiest way to sell on Amazon is to narrow your product’s potential market down as much as possible to a small niche that’s so small few other sellers would bother with it. So, start thinking about obscure sports, professions and hobbies.
Entrepreneurship, golf, and guitar playing are all great niches. But they are hugely popular and that therefore guarantees huge competition on Amazon.
As you can see above, a search on Amazon for “guitar notebooks” brings in a massive 2,000 results. Two thousand competitors! And, not only that, there is a “Sponsored” result in the top row, meaning sellers are advertising to get into this niche. Not a great choice, especially if you’re starting out.
So let’s think of an evergreen niche that’s more obscure than guitar playing. An example of a more obscure, and therefore less competitive niche would be a notebook for stuntmen. How many stuntmen do you know? How many people do you know who play the guitar? You get my point.
As you can see above, a search for “stuntman notebook” on Amazon only produces 22 results. So this is a niche you can easily compete in. Have a look at what’s there and see if you can create something better. Are there any negative reviews about the notebooks already for sale? What do they say? Is there a corner of the market that other sellers have so far missed?
Try to find niches and searches on Amazon that only generate 100-400 results. I show you how to do this in greater detail in my course.
Designing great looking products
You don’t have to be a designer to do this. As you can see, I’m having a lot of success with black backgrounds and simple red and white sans serif book titles β with both notebooks and t-shirts.
In my course I explain how to design covers with Canva. So you don’t have to use expensive design applications such as Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.
More ideas for logbooks
We’re not just talking about notebooks here. We’re talking about low content books. This means books like gratitude journals, training logbooks, calendars, etc.
Anything you can record information about, you can make a logbook for.
I’d done a bit of work in the quit smoking niche. The smoking habit can be hard to break. I know. I tried and failed many times. So, I created this journal / logbook for a 90-day journey (the brain can reset itself and shake off the influence of a drug after three months.)
This book, 90 Days To Quit Smoking, explains my own method which allowed me to stop smoking easily after 15 years without any bad side effects or cravings. After that, you can decide to give up smoking when you want and keep to a 90-day log and gratitude journal for the next three months.
But some no content book ideas are just plain stupid. Let me put that another way. I can’t imagine buying this book. Heck, I can’t imagine anyone buying this book. But, with a Book’s Best Seller Rank of 10,000, we know that this notebook is selling over 200 copies every month!
A 6 x 9 inch, 110 page, blank lined notebook. The publisher couldn’t even be bothered to center the title text properly on the cover. And yet it makes over $300 every month. Not as stupid as it looks!
Wanna find out more?
Here’s a video of a dashingly handsome man in a cool t-shirt.
In the above video I talk about two examples of notebooks or low content books that sell on Amazon.
The notebooks that I sell tend to be one of two sizes, 6 x 9 inches or 8.5 x 11 inches, the latter being Letter Size. The two examples in the above video are:
- The Big Notebook Of Great Ideas in the larger size
- The Little Notebook Of Big Ideas in the smaller size
Income potential
I can’t give a prediction on income. The last thing I want to do is to think in these terms. Selling books on Amazon is a full time thing for really, really tiny minority of people compared to the millions that are selling on there. Also you never want to rely on one platform. So I’ll only ever consider this as a side business.
I nearly sold over 100 books in one day!
I’ll probably make more than $4000 in the 30 days leading up to Christmas. But, this is another important point about notebooks β a lot of them are bought as gifts. So, I expect sales to fall back considerably in January.
You can do it
In my new course I show you exactly how you can research profitable niches and how to design and create the notebooks using free software.
In the course you will receive two FREE editable Word templates AS WELL AS two Google Slides templates to get you started creating the notebook interiors plus a link to a Facebook group where we can help each other grow our publishing businesses.
mitch says
Thanks for sharing Rob! I’ve been through your course and it is excellent. Straight forward, easy to follow and gets right to the point. I hope this weekend to be getting our first book ‘out the door’ and listed online and then go from there. I’ve been looking for a way to take the creative skills I already have, but apply them a bit more passively and this looks perfect.
Joe says
I agree with you about the course!
Just submitted my first book to learn the process and now going to do lots of keyword research for the next lot of books.
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Joe, and best of luck with the new books!
Rob Cubbon says
Best of luck, Mitch. Yes, get the first book out the door first and then the others will be done quicker and quicker and soon you’ll have a lot more up there. π
Diane Darling says
Great info as always Rob. Thank you! I’m going to explore re-launching my networking journal.
Rob Cubbon says
That’s great, Diane. Let me know if you need any help.
Glenn Murphy says
Hi Rob, really enjoyed your course on creating low content books and journals. I just uploaded my first book and I have a question for you…The cover pdf I uploaded looked great and did not show the template layer (I had turned it off before saving as a pdf), however, the KDP Preview shows my cover image with the template showing through, is that normal? I’m sure Amazon will let me know, but thought you may give me the answer a bit quicker. Thanks for everything, I’m excited about this.
Rob Cubbon says
Hello Glenn, if you are enrolled on the premium notebook and low content book course then there is a private Facebook group where you can ask questions like this. I know not everyone is on Facebook and I really hate FB myself but it’s the easiest way of doing this! If the previewer showed the template layer then it’s on the PDF. I’d just upload it again. I hope this helps.
Anne Marie says
Thank you Rob. Super great information. So, I’m a graphic designer and I can design the covers and interiors without an issue. I’ve designed 90 books since April 10 but haven’t made a sale. Could be a patience thing. I really want to do this because I’m kind of nutty about journals anyway. I honestly cannot resist a cute journal, so it makes sense to design them. I do very well on other POD’s, so I’m hoping I have what it takes for this. I’m probably doing something wrong, so I’m off to take your course. I tend to jump in, back up, and then learn the ropes. π Very glad I found you.
Rob Cubbon says
Hello Anne Marie,
Thank you for your message.
I would like to start seeing sales. No sales means, almost definitely, that you’re not targeting good keywords. You should revisit the keyword research content that I’ve put out on this blog, in the free course and in the premium course as well.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
Anne Marie says
Thanks Rob. I actually started seeing sales the next morning after this post. However, I am still planning to take your course. Just waiting for the first. π
Rob Cubbon says
Awesome!
Doug says
Hi Rob,
I enrolled in your notebook course. Are you still seeing a steady increase in sales since January 2019 in this business? Thank you for all your help!
cheers,
Doug
Rob Cubbon says
Hey Doug, sorry I didn’t see your comment there. Sales were sluggish in the early part of 2019. I think I worked out why. I’m gonna make a video on this soon.
Sheena says
Thanks for this insight Rob! I will definitely be giving more time to finish my low content book and have it published on kindle. I am so grateful to have met you and your blog site! God Bless You always!
Rob Cubbon says
You are very welcome, Sheena. π
Sharon says
Hello. Your site looks really interesting. Going to have a scout around as I’ve got several journals on Amazon but still early days.
I have a question – What do you do with all the covers you create, do you keep them in your computer? I’m just wondering about storage. I think they take up a lot of space but thought they would be handy should your Amazon account be closed for some reason. I’ve heard of this happening to someone. Also, Surely they can be uploaded to other Self publishing sites?
Any other good sites for low content books that you can recommend?
Thanx
Rob Cubbon says
Hello Sharon, thank you for your comment and I’m glad you find my site interesting. I don’t have any trouble with storing covers. I do most of them in Illustrator which doesn’t create large files and if I had trouble storing data, I can always put stuff on an external storage disc which are very cheap these days. I would keep them though, because they are useful as you go on to create more books, you can base your designs upon your previous popular covers. Yes, you can sell the paperback books you sell on Amazon anywhere else at any time! π
Lucie says
You are a complete idiot! By exposing this loophole, you have shot yourself in the foot, now you’ll never make any decent money publishing notebooks because the AMAZON market is over saturated with idiots doing the same thing, thanks to you! Try learning to keep your big mouth shut, stupid FOOL!
Rob Cubbon says
Thank you, Lucie. You’re assuming that I was the only person telling solo-entrepreneurs about low content publishing. I wasn’t by far and there was plenty of information about it even before I started. You’re also assuming that I’m somehow upset and loosing money because of the supposed “saturation” of the low content book market on Amazon. You would be able to see from my website over the years that book publishing is just one of many online income streams I have and isn’t the biggest. My issue is that is takes up a lot of my time. I can spend a similar amount of time now and try to increase that income stream but I believe that my time will be spent better and I will earn more money elsewhere this year. I think I did the best I could have last year given the time I had at my disposal.
Yes, there will always be idiots doing the same thing online and saturating a particular sub-niche. But, they are easy to ignore and bypass if you’ve been in this game for as long as I have.
I have been running an online business for nearly 15 years and I’ve been making good money in that time. You can see it in this site. You can even look up Rob Cubbon Ltd in Companies House in the UK and check out my annual reports if you don’t believe me. And that isn’t my only income.
In my life, I’ve done many stupid things. However, I have to say that, when it comes to money and business, I’ve been very sensible and not stupid.
Sharon says
Hello Rob. Once again thank you for the information and for being such a gentleman after the previous Horrible individual commented. There is room for everyone who is willing to put in the work, and we can clearly see who the losers are!
However, I have a small dilemma. When KDP reports reflect a low content paperback sale, how does one find which title it is? I. have asked this before but don’t seem to get an answer. I have to search through my titles to see which one has sold. Can you direct me please?
Rob Cubbon says
Sharon, hello. You can only see in the KDP reports by clicking the “Generate Report” button. There is some third party software like GetBookReport.com that will do this for you. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
Catherine says
Hi. firstly, thanks for the great videos
Second, have you made a video on steps on how to upload notebooks and planners to KDP. I have been trying to upload without success. Please assist. regards, cate
Rob Cubbon says
Hey Catherine, thank you for your comment. This video shows you how to Publish Paperback Books on Amazon through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmWEB0naIPU I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.