Many people believe that Amazon's KDP business is doomed, and they think they are correct because they aren't making any progress with it. Some even believe the industry is oversaturated and has a high barrier to entry. While they are right that the barrier to entry is getting high every day, Amazon KDP business is a strategy game, and you only make sales based on how effective your strategy is. Putting together a strategy can be difficult, but using another person's proven strategy which still gives a positive outcome can save you time and money.
Sean Dollwet is an Amazon Kindle Direct Publisher millionaire, he has several books on Amazon that have made him hundreds and thousands of dollars. In describing himself He said,
"I built a multiple six-figure KDP account which I eventually sold for $820 000 and now I'm building my second kdp account".
He has a course where He teaches how he was able to achieve his feat, and he also has a YouTube channel to his name where he shares what he has learned from years of online business successes and failures.
Below is a screenshot of one of the online business bills of sale to show that he is a successful online entrepreneur.
How did he about how Sean was able to make about $4 300 in monthly sales, his strategies, and the costs associated with the entire business setup? Please keep in mind that this review will be based on Sean's July report.
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Let's dive into this article...
His Strategies
Sean suggests amassing a large collection of low-content books (at least twenty-five) to generate a reasonable income. For example, in July, he decided to promote a total of 25 books, with the book categories broken down as follows:
- 3 coloring books
- 3-word search books
- 3 lead generation books
- 8 Spanish books
- 6 high content books
- 2 audio-focused books.
Before moving any further let us see the meaning of the above book categories.
Coloring Book
This is one of the most popular low-content books for both children and adults. Coloring books are no longer just for kids; adults are becoming interested in them as well. Coloring books appear to help many adults who are looking for different activities to keep them busy or to relieve stress. Adult coloring books may contain profanity, nudity, or complex images, as well as mandala designs, plants, flowers, and abstract elements, whereas children's coloring books may contain animals, landscapes, shapes, castles, princesses, or almost anything else. Children's coloring books can be educational or simply for entertainment.
Word Searches Books
Word search books are also among Amazon KDP's most popular low-content book categories, and they are always in demand. It takes very little time to make them, they can be sold at reasonable prices, and one can still make a reasonable income with them. However, because they are so popular, they are also extremely competitive.
While word searches may not appear to be the most stimulating activity, they can be beneficial to the brains of the elderly. Because the process of solving a word search involves looking for a "clue" of a few letters to find a word, this activity can help seniors sharpen their reasoning skills. The length and position of the word must be considered, and senior players must think deeply to provide the correct answer. This exercise activates multiple parts of the brain; however, some seniors struggle with word searches. This is especially true for people who have dementia or other brain diseases.
In that case, caregivers can create their word searches with shorter and simpler words. In some cases, this may improve brain function over time, and at a point later a senior who has undergone the process might try harder word searches and perform better.
Another group of word search users is students because they are great gamification tools for building vocabulary skills and engaging students. Not only do they improve word recognition, but they help support learning context clues. When you read about dinosaurs, it makes sense that you will find related words like fossils, bones, footprint, or extinct that you will also learn easily.
Lead Generation Books
These books are written with the readers' interest in mind; however, the main purpose is to obtain the reader's email address to build an email list. Having an email list makes it easier to sell other types of books that the reader might be interested in.
Spanish Books
Sean is not from Spain, but Spanish is a language that is gaining popularity on Amazon KDP, and you don't need to know Spanish to write a book in English and have it translated, which is the simplest way to do it.
Audio-Focused Books
These are books written specifically for audiobook conversion; they can also be published on Amazon KDP, but they are best suited for listening.
High Content Books
High-content books are typically nonfiction or fiction books with hundreds of pages of content; however, not everyone is a brilliant writer capable of producing such. Some people may not even be fluent in English, making it more difficult to begin publishing this type of book.
One option is to sign up with The Urban Writers and outsource it to an expert. This platform has a large number of experienced ghostwriters who can write high-quality books on any subject.
Now that we have a basic understanding of the categories of these books, let's look at how each one performed. Starting with the audio-focused books, Sean said,
"The audio focus books are making just a little bit Amazon, but not so much, and I don't do any marketing, it's just sitting there and getting some sales here and there which is pretty good. I made my return on investment easily just from being on Amazon and it just went live on Audible which is the focus for this book so it should make a lot more money in the coming days".
Lead generation books are doing well, and as previously stated, the goal of these books is to acquire email subscribers, and Sean currently has slightly more than 2 000 subscribers. Thanks to these books, he is also making some money.
Concerning the Spanish books, Sean said that:
"One book is picking up a lot; while another generated a revenue of $300 this month of June, and it is about to make around the same amount or a little more in July. The other books are a little slower, but frankly speaking, this is how translated books drag before making some significant sales. But it doesn't cost a lot of money to translate, and that is why I recommend everyone to translate at least your best sellers into different languages starting with Spanish because they could do well".
While generally commenting on his strategy, he said:
"I have a few high-content books, but the rest of my books are low content and I believe high content makes way more than low content as you can see here so if I want to make a bigger income from it then I will need much more volume. It is not fair for me to compare high-content and low-content books".
Sean also hinted at his next point of action, which:
"We're going to start bundling our books and that's going to give a big boost in income because we're essentially making a free book out of the content that we already have, and with bundles, you can sell your bundles way higher than a single book because of the added value and a lot of people like bundles more than single books".
The Result for July
Below is the snap⁰shot of Sean's Amazon KDP dashboard. He has made a total of $4 334.59 so far.
Important to note is that his June total revenue was $3,000, and so far, he has made over $1 300.00 which does not include ACX's revenue.
He made $87 from audible; therefore if you add KDP and ACX earnings, you will get a reasonable amount of sales that is around $4 500 which is about $1 500 more than June's revenue. According to Sean, his high-content books generate more revenue than his low content.
Ebooks Promotion
Sean spent $2,158 on Amazon advertisements for his high-content books, accounting for approximately 95% of the total revenue of $4 522. According to the screenshot above, you may have noticed that the amount he spent on ads in July was greater than the amount he spent in June. Sean released more books in July, so he decided to spend more money on advertising while also offering a huge discount on the new books. To get as many sales and reviews as possible, the price at the time was $0.99.
Sean always launches his books in this manner, and once he begins to accumulate reviews, he can begin optimizing the ads for profitability. He also gradually increases the price by removing the discount so that he can start making money from the books, but in the beginning, he runs the ads at a loss, as all advanced publishers do.
For example, Sean's two high-content books, which he released a few months ago, have already received 100 reviews, the majority of which are organic. The only thing he did was solicit about 40 reviews at first, and then he let the book sell on its own. This results in high ad performance, which increased to over 100 reviews.
The more reviews you get, the better the ads perform, and your book sales will rise as a result. Also, keep in mind that the more books you sell, the more reviews you receive; thus, promoting more books is the best strategy for increasing revenue.
Income Analysis
- The number of books published: 25 books.
- Money made on KDP: $4 435
- Money made on ACX: $87
- Total revenue: $4 522
- Ad spend: $2 158
- Total income: $2 364
Conclusion
To summarise this post, we've seen how Sean gradually expands his Amazon KDP business, potentially increasing his monthly revenue by over $1500 each time he adds more ebooks to his collection. He has published over 20 low-content books, including coloring books, word searches, Spanish translation, lead generation, audio-focused books, and high-content books. These low-content book categories have helped him earn regular monthly passive income; however, it is important to pay close attention to high-content books, as these are the categories of books that generated the majority of Sean's income. You don't have to know how to write because you can hire a company like Urban Writers to ghostwrite your high-content books for you.
