You can make $700 to $67,000 per month selling journals on Amazon. The Kindle Direct Publishing provides a platform for publishers who want to sell digital and print books. With this, you can design and upload your products digitally and then use the company’s print on demand service to have them in paperback or hardcover formats.
Selling journals on Amazon is an easy business model to learn but you’ll have to start right to make any money online. Competition can be massive since there are thousands of journal sellers on the website. Standing out can be a challenge, especially for beginners with little to no following online. Plus your monthly income heavily relies on how many journals you can sell each month.
Individuals wanting to learn about low content book publishing can look up YouTube videos to find information about the business model. Another option is to check out paid courses, such as Sophie Howard’s Kindle Publishing Income This course teaches self publishing strategies for people who want to make money online without writing a single book. Specifically, the course has a Low Content Masterclass where they teach students how to create and sell activity books, planners, and journals.
In this article, we discuss how much money you can make selling journals on Amazon. We also give you tips on how to start, the possible costs, and the challenges you can expect to face. Finally, we share another business model that’s a better, superior way to make money online than selling journals.
How Much Money Can You Make Selling Journals on Amazon
You can make around $2.00 to $4.00 for every journal you sell on Amazon. TikToker and Amazon KDP publisher Valerie Thompkins earns $3.58 for every $9.99 journal she sells. On YouTube, Monique of Journey With The Hintons says journal sellers can earn at least $2.64 per book from selling a $7.99 journal.
In any case, an Amazon seller has to be wise in pricing their products to maximize potential profits. “Sometimes (a journal) that's $6.77 might sell more than something that's $6.97,” Monique points out. “So you just have to be really strategic about how you do this.”
How much can beginners make by selling journals on Amazon?
Beginners can make $700 per month selling journals on Amazon. Robin Eriksson, an Amazon KDP seller based in Sweden, says anyone can easily earn $700 to over $1,000 in book sales from having one successful book. “Amazon KDP operates on royalties and printing costs,” he writes in his Robinesson blog. “You can calculate your profit by setting a competitive price, considering shipping costs, and offering excellent customer service.”
How much can experts make by selling journals on Amazon?
Experts can make $5,000 up to $67,000 per month selling journals on Amazon. In a Business Insider feature, we read about Sue Irven and her husband Manny who began self publishing low content books during the pandemic after being laid off from their jobs. Today, the couple earns $5,000 to $10,000 each month, with $17,000 being their “highest profiting month so far.”
Sue encourages others planning to explore the Amazon marketplace “to start early and just keep designing.” She also adds, “The more designs you have listed, the higher your chances to make sales everyday.”
Meanwhile, YouTuber and Amazon seller Shanice Daniel-Kalio of Shanice DK Designs shares how she earned a total of $67,532.91 in January 2023. A teacher by profession, she started publishing journals as a side hustle. According to her, she has already been selling on the platform since October 2021.
Eventually, her journal My Thoughts On How To Be Better Each & Every Day went viral online and made it to the top of Amazon charts. Shanice sold 35,531 units in a month alone, royalties. “It's truly a blessing,” she writes in her YouTube description. “And I believe with time you will see results on your own journey.”
How To Start Selling Journals On Amazon
1) Choose a niche
Picking a specific niche allows you to target a customer base. There are many different types of journals out there on Amazon and you want to focus your efforts on the most profitable niche. This allows you to narrow down your market and avoid significant competition. Some examples of popular journal niches include:
These journals typically cost between $6 to $12 with an average of 140 pages. In any case, look up what’s trending on Amazon to know which journal products are most likely to sell among your potential buyers. Take note that trends change from time to time. So it’s always important to do your keyword research and stay updated with what your competitors are doing.
2) Start creating and formatting your journal
As a journal publisher, you can use various software tools to create and format the interior page of your journals. For example, Canva offers free editable journal templates for their users. Similarly, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Powerpoint also provide basic formatting features. Meanwhile, software such as Atticus, Creative Fabrica, Kindle Create, Reedsy, and Vellum can be ideal for advanced formatting.
3) Create a book cover
Your book cover plays a significant role in helping you make money selling journals online. A good cover creates a positive first impression among potential buyers, plus they set your product apart from others. So you have to make yours catchy and relevant to your market. Some graphic design tools you can use for creating covers are Affinity Photo, Book Bolt, Canva, GIMP, Krita, Over, Paint.Net, and Photoshop.
4) Market and advertising
For the most part, your marketing and advertising strategies will determine how much money you can make selling journals on Amazon. A popular way to promote your low content book on Amazon is through KDP Select, a program that gives authors everywhere the chance to “reach more readers through Amazon and Kindle promotions.”
Other methods to market your journals and increase your sales are Amazon Advertising and Author Central. According to the Amazon website, Expanded Distribution is “not supported for low-content books, regardless of the ISBN option you select.” Meanwhile, Publisher Rocket can also be a good tool for uploading books and creating ads.
Costs of Selling Journals on Amazon
1) Printing ($30 to $50)
Printing journals can cost you an average of $30 to $50 per month. This can go higher or lower depending on how many journals you manage to sell each month. Other factors include the type of ink and the number of pages used for the product.
BookBird’s online Amazon KDP Royalty Calculator shows us this breakdown computation. If you’re a low content publisher selling a 140-page paperback journal for $7.99, printing will cost you $2.53 (31.7%) for each book sold. This means selling 12 to 20 copies in a month will cost you at least $30.36 to $50.60 in printing costs.
Furthermore, the platform also deducts 40.1% off your price as Amazon fee (an estimated $3.20 per copy), leaving you with 28.3% as your royalty (at least $2.26 per copy).
2) Marketing and advertising ($50 to $500)
Marketing and advertising your journals can cost you $50 to $500. Publishing your journal on Amazon is just the first step. You can’t expect thousands of people to come buying your products without doing anything. While it’s possible to spend as low as $5 on ads, top publishers consider ads as a wise investment to attract attention from prospective customers online. To make money selling journal products on the platform, you’ll have to gain enough traffic from Amazon searches and other channels (social media, email marketing, etc.).
3) Outsourcing ($500 to $2,000)
Outsourcing can cost you $500 to $2,000. In some cases, you may have to hire specialists to do certain tasks for you. For example, outsourcing to a professional graphic designer may be necessary if you don’t have the time or skill to create book cover and interior pages for your journal.
In such cases, you can find freelance graphic designers on platforms such as Fiverr, PeoplePerHour, Upwork, and others. Graphic designers often charge between $25 to $150 per hour, so expect to spend around $50 to $2,000 per project, depending on its complexity.
Why Making Money on Amazon Through Journals is Hard
1. It's extremely saturated and competitive
The Amazon marketplace is extremely saturated and competitive. Anyone can easily create and sell low content books on the platform. For example, doing a quick search of “journals” on the site brings over 80,000 results. Thousands of authors and publishers are on Amazon, hoping to make money selling journals. It can be a constant challenge to generate sales, especially for those who are new in the business and don’t have a large online following.
2. Amazon now has stricter guidelines
Over the years, Amazon KDP has implemented stricter policies for low content book products. For example, the platform now has a review system in place for examining low content books to ensure they comply with updated guidelines. As such, authors and publishers need to come up with valuable content for their products to be allowed on the site. Those who steal templates from others or violate existing regulations may have their seller account shut down.
3. Marketing can be costly
While authors and publishers can use free social media channels to promote their products, spending on advertising is often necessary to gain competitive advantage over thousands of other journals listed on Amazon. A report by Influencer Marketing Hub tells us that successful Amazon advertising campaigns usually cost “at least $50 to $100 per day.”
Of course, spending this much money on ads can be difficult for sellers who are only earning $2.00 to $4.00 per journal sold.
4. Low content books aren't as profitable as high content books
Generally, low content books (journals, diaries, planners, notebook) and mid-content books (activity books, coloring book, puzzle books, recipe books, workbooks) are not as profitable as high content books (biographies, novels, textbooks).
In addition, low and mid content books are usually priced between $6 to $12 per book title while high content books often range between $10 to $20. Publishers can potentially earn higher and generate better ROI, although producing high content books require greater effort and risks.
Conclusion: Is Selling Journals on Amazon Still Worth It in 2024?
Selling journals on Amazon is still worth it in 2024, if you’re doing it as a side hustle. It’s a good way to make money publishing books on Amazon KDP without being a writer. You can earn anywhere from $700 up to $67,000, depending on the number of journals you sell, your niche, and the effort you put in. Also, you’ll have to be a good marketer to stand out in this competitive industry. You’ll have to promote your products consistently on social media and through paid ad channels before you can expect to achieve passive income on Amazon.
Sell Digital Assets Instead: Why Local Lead Generation is the Best Online Business
In many ways, local lead generation is a superior business model than selling journals on Amazon. With lead gen, your income is not dependent on how many journals you can sell month after month. You won’t have to deal with difficult months where people aren’t buying as much. Plus you’re not competing with thousands of other sellers selling almost the same products as you do.
Instead, you are building area-specific business websites, ranking them using specific keywords, and then offering them for rent to a potential customer - a business owner - who needs organic leads and traffic. As such, you’re only competing with 10 to 15 local businesses in the same niche. As you implement proven SEO practices, you can easily outrank other sites and boost yours on search engine results. You can then look forward to earning good money online as your clients pay you each month for your service.
Take this website, for example. I built this Grand Rapids tree care site back in 2015. I’ve done very little to no maintenance work for it since achieving top ranking for it. Today, my happy client continues to pay me $2,000 per month. And since I own several of these sites, I make an average monthly earning of $52,000 with my digital assets.
Additionally, we also have a lead generation coaching program where we’ve had over 7,000 students and counting. If you’re someone who wants to learn how you can start your own lead gen business, contact us and we’ll guide you in your journey. You’ll see it’s possible to make this business model work for you within months of using our repeatable and highly effective 3-step process.
