Books on Amazon: how to make money on digital goods

Perhaps you have dreamed of publishing your own book, but were afraid that the process of publishing, printing, and selling copies would not be very successful and would be problematic? 

Fortunately, modern technology continues to delight us with new opportunities, so now the process of publishing your own book can be less stressful and even very profitable.

In this article, we’ll talk about how to make money on digital goods with Amazon.

Why should you try selling books on Amazon?

First, let’s figure out why this activity is a top idea for making money:

• Amazon Kindle gives you access to a huge audience that is genuinely interested in books. So even if you are a beginner, you can safely upload your product there.
• You can publish for free and not pay a cent to show it to the world.
• You can publish an unlimited number of works.
• The publishing process is easy and straightforward, as it only consists of three steps. You also have complete control over your own product. You set the price, choose the cover, launch advertising, and so on.
• There are several royalty options: remuneration for each page read or for the sale of a printed copy.

How to sell a book without a book?

It sounds interesting and quite realistic. The whole trick is in the print-on-demand model. Thanks to it, the author only needs to prepare the book in electronic format and simply upload it to the system. No prints in advance, no thousands of unsold copies. Amazon does everything for you, and here’s how:

• First, printing and delivery of the product only take place after the buyer has placed an order.
• Second, all the important steps (accepting payment, printing, delivering the product to the buyer) are handled by Amazon.

The advantage is that for you, the book is always a digital product. So you don’t have to worry about printing 500 copies in advance and not selling them.

How do you get started?

First, you need to:

• choose a niche and topic for your future book;
• prepare the text;
• check the material for errors and edit it if necessary;
• create a cover;
• create a file according to the platform’s requirements.

If you have done everything correctly, after these steps, the book will be uploaded to the Amazon system and will be available for purchase. 

But there is an important point: it is not enough to simply upload the book to the system. In order for it to start appearing frequently in search results and become competitive, you need to launch a promotional campaign and get the first reviews for your product. 

You can create the first activity under the offer using test sales and advertising on Amazon, as well as external traffic. 

A few more important points

On Amazon, you can sell books in several formats:

• E-book and subscription;
• Printed version of the book, delivered to the buyer.

On Amazon Kindle, the main income comes from sales of the printed format. In this case, the margin after printing is ≈ 40-45% of the book’s price. 

Popular niches you can choose from

• novels;
• poetry;
• business and investment;
• mysticism;
• thrillers;
• biographies;
• children’s literature;
• textbooks;
• cookbooks;
• comics.

In summary

Selling books on Amazon is really profitable. If you are a creative person and are used to writing for your own pleasure, then it’s time to show your work to the world and earn good money from it.

This option is also great for those who have been thinking about publishing their own book for a long time but don’t know if it will be successful and don’t have a large budget for printing. This way, you can promote your own brand and eventually reach a new level.