If you’ve dreamed of becoming an author, one of my favorite side hustles is watching authors become entrepreneurs and sell ebooks on Amazon.
This book is a result of a TikTok video going viral and helping a father become a best selling author on Amazon. If you haven’t seen the story, it’s a must watch!
I am so excited to have my friend Ana share how she published her books on Amazon.
We both started our online journeys around the same time, and it is so exciting to see where her online journey has taken her.
Please enjoy today’s post!
Are you an infopreneur, blogger, or content creator with wisdom to share, looking to add an extra income source to your online business?
Because writing and publishing Amazon eBooks can be a great way to generate extra income in your business on autopilot.
In this article, I’m going to show you how you can generate up to $2,000 per month (or more) by self-publishing informational eBooks on the Amazon platform.
And I know that’s possible because the students from my Ebook Bestseller Bootcamp course have achieved it – even without their own audience. (The trick to that is shared at the end of this post!)
Why Sell Ebooks On Amazon vs Your Own Site?
Over the course of my blogging career, I’ve published several eBooks – both on Amazon and on my blog.
There are PROs and CONs to both methods.
But what I’ve discovered is that Amazon is a great marketing tool and it adds to your visibility as an author, on top of being a way to publish and sell eBooks.
Here are a few more reasons why you would want your eBooks published on Amazon:
- It adds extra credibility to your expert status, because not every blogger is also an Amazon-published author.
- It’s a marketplace that gets a ton of traffic and has a built-in audience. The latest statistics show 310 million active Amazon users! In other words, you have to do less work to get people to find your book, since it’s a search engine designed for people ready to buy!
- You can enroll in Amazon KDP and get paid for pages read. On top of the traditional eBook sales, if you enroll your books in the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing program, their Kindle Unlimited users can access your eBook for free, but you get paid per page read. (Think of it like Spotify royalties for their artist.)
- You can run in-house ads to drive more traffic and sales. Much easier to set up than Facebook ads for example, and if set up correctly, you could be making passive sales each month!
- You are targeting people with an intent to buy! Amazon is visited by people who are primed and prepped to buy. They want to invest in a good book or informative guide! So there isn’t a better place to promote your digital products!
How To Get Your Ebooks Listed On Amazon
Becoming a self-published Amazon author is a well-kept secret, but it’s in fact incredibly easy to do and it’s an opportunity available to everyone!
All you have to do is go over to the Amazon KDP platform, create an author account (it’s free) and upload your manuscript when you’re ready.
Publishing non-fiction books has never been easier and they will even convert your final manuscript for your eBook into a Kindle eBook that their users can read on their phones, Kindle readers or tablets.
There is no limit to how many eBooks you can create either.
As long as you have something to share that people want to learn about, you can earn money from your written content when you package it up as an eBook.
Understanding KDP Royalties For Ebooks
Enrolling your eBooks into their KDP Select Program is optional, but it’s an extra way to monetize with Amazon.
You earn higher royalties, reach an international audience, and you get paid per page read based on their budget.
Right now, that sits at $42.9 Million that gets split into the KDP authors – so it’s not shabby at all!
But there are some caveats that come with it. Here’s what you need to know about enrolling your eBook into this program:
- Your eBook has to be exclusive to Amazon. You won’t be able to sell it on other platforms, not even your own website.
- Your eBook has to be priced between $2.99 and $9.99, if you want to earn 70% royalties instead of 35%.
To keep their prices competitive, and allow their users to find affordable eBooks, Amazon requires you to price your eBooks accordingly (when you are a part of their KDP select program).
So for example, if you list your eBook at $7.99, you will earn $5.51 per sale.
If you want to go over that, you have to take a cut in royalties.
So for example, if you want to list your eBook for $12.99 instead, you will only make $4.55 per sale. It’s not worth it!
When selling eBooks on your own website, you can price them a lot higher.
But what Amazon lacks in pricing requirements, they make up in volume of sales!
How To Make $2,000 Extra Per Month To Sell Ebooks On Amazon
Selling eBooks for profit doesn’t have to be something that only traditionally published authors are able to do.
In fact, you can get started and add this as an additional income stream to your business this month!!
All you need is 3-4 eBooks that bring in $500 in sales each – or just one bestselling eBook!
But just like any other platform, Amazon rewards authors that are consisten.
You can get more established by creating and publishing multiple eBooks in your niche that are relevant to your audience’s needs.
And don’t forget you get some extra income from KDP royalties, even for those who had free access to your eBook! Win-win!
How To Research & Validate Your Ebook Ideas
A subtle – but very important – part of launching eBooks that sell, is to cater them towards a specific audience in your niche. It’s not just about writing eBooks that you want to write…
If you want your books to sell, it’s important to make sure you create useful guides on topics your audience is actively interested in.
Here are a few ways to research eBook topics and validate your own ideas, before starting to write them:
#1 – Look at the Amazon bestseller list for eBooks
Want to know what sells on Amazon? Look on Amazon. A simple but effective strategy.
Amazon publishes weekly round-ups of their most sold and most-read books, which include up to 20 titles that are popular.
Additionally, they also share a Top 100 Kindle Books list that you can use for inspiration.
You can take it a step further, and make your search more focused on your niche, by looking up the Top 100 Amazon Best Sellers in a specific category – like Self Help.
#2 – Fill in a gap – address the negative reviews
Once you get a few ideas for topics that are popular and close to your audience’s heart, you can start coming up with your own eBook ideas to sell eBooks on Amazon.
And the best way to do that is to look at the negative reviews from books that are already out there, and address the “gap in the market”.
Create something better than what’s already out there!
For example, when looking at the Self Help category, I came across this book on overthinking and sorted the reviews to star from 1 start reviews up. And I came across this review:
If I was an educator or business owner in the self-help niche, I would consider that as an opportunity to write a self-help book on how to stop overthinking for teens or young adults.
Customer reviews can not only help you find gaps in the market and a unique angle for your own books, but they can provide great insight into your audience’s struggles and wants.
Because odds are that there are hundreds of eBooks out there in your niche and chosen topic already.
But you can take note of where those books fall short and create truly epic guides that leave no room for bad reviews!
#3 – Use Helium 10 to verify the profit potential
Once you’re closing in on a few ideas, you want to validate them by figuring out if there’s an interest in the specific problem that your eBook solves.
Sometimes it’s not enough for a book to be an Amazon bestseller. You want to actually check how many copies they sell each month, and how other books on that topic do.
And I have just the tool for that – Helium 10.
This tool allows you to spy into the analytics of any book or product on Amazon and compare between them.
So not only are you validating your eBook idea, but you’re making sure it’s an ebook that has profit potential.
In the pregnancy niche (for UK sales at least), I see 4 books that are doing really well – all on slightly different topics: like a modern midwife guide to pregnancy, pregnancy without guilt, baby sleeping guide, and even a “yoga for pregnant women” book.
If I was in this niche, I would either:
- Write a similar guide on guilt-free pregnancy tips. That book sells 200 copies per month and makes £2,400+ (which is $3,000) per month.
- Write a yoga for pregnant women book, along with a couple of other eBooks in less competitive niches. That one sells around 50 copies per month, generating £460 ($600), which means you need 3-4 books in this niche to reach that same goal!
Of course, you also need to take into consideration your own qualifications and expertise. But this is just an exercise to show you that you can monetize that expertise by sharing useful guides.
And the math speaks for itself! This is just an inkling of what’s possible.
Is selling ebooks on Amazon profitable?
It can be. As you can see, you can easily earn at least $2,000 a month (or more) selling your ebooks on Amazon.
I’d consider that pretty profitable!
What type of ebooks sell best on Amazon?
While we’ve talked a bit about different niches and how to find ideas for the books that you write, there are a few types of ebooks that sell best on Amazon. These include:
- Memoirs and Biographies
- Self-Help
- Religion and Spirituality
- Health, Fitness, and Dieting
- Politics and Social Sciences
- Children’s Topics
Again, any ebook can do well on Amazon if marketed correctly, but these are the most popular topics that people look up.
Is it hard to sell eBooks?
No, it’s not hard. Although, it can be time-consuming.
And, you’ll want to make sure that you follow the best practices for writing and publishing your ebook on Amazon.
The longer you work on it, the easier it will get!
How To Sell Ebooks On Amazon
Even if you’ve never written a book in your life, you can sell eBooks on Amazon.
If you’ve never written an eBook before, I know the prospect can be daunting. But you can write an eBook in as little as 30 days, even if you are a first-time author!
Once you have your final topic picked out, start creating your eBook and then follow the Amazon directions found in your author account to format your eBook for Kindle and publish it.
Want to learn my exact process for turning my ideas into tangible eBooks? Enroll in my Ebook Bestseller Bootcamp course.
Here’s what you’ll learn inside:
- More tips on how to come up with profitable eBook ideas
- My strategy for pre-selling your eBook, so you get paid while writing it
- How to design and format your eBook
- How to create a show-stopping eBook cover
- A full guide to listing your eBook on Amazon Kindle
- How to create and execute a book launch
- How to market your book and make sales on autopilot
- A lot more!
Join over 2,000 eBook authors and learn how to create an eBook from scratch.
I’ll even show you how to create a paperback version of your book that you can then list on Amazon or have featured in Barnes & Nobles and other bookstores!
And if you’re looking for more ways to generate income, be sure to check out Kristin’s guide on some of the most Epic Side Hustle Ideas.
Related Reading:
- 37+ Legit Ways You Can Side Hustle Right Now
- How I Made Over $4,500 From Side Hustles
- 25 Ways to Earn Extra Income
Author Bio
Ana Skyes is a blogging coach & strategist, helping women build a successful online business with smart blogging strategies that she shares over on her blog, Youtube Channel, and inside her premium courses.
Since 2016, she has helped hundreds of infopreneurs create and launch their own blogs and become self-published authors and she is dedicated to helping you do the same!
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