People say it's the easiest way to make money online.

Upload simple e-books, and Jeff Bezo's Amazon.com will start paying you every month.

But, is it that easy?

The first time I heard about Amazon KDP was around November 2019.

Someone who commands my absolute respect sent a mail to his list telling then about a profitable business opportunity for people willing to do the work.

Since then I've read of Michelle Obama and how she self- published her book on Amazon. Titled "Becoming"

And J.K. Rowlings - world's only billionaire author, and the story behind how she self-published the Harry Potter series.

With the "self-publishing" move, she literally turned the tables.

Instead of publishers and book promoters paying her royalty.

She was now the one paying them royalties. Long story short - it was a masterstroke.

Then there's also the normal everyday guys making earnings from Amazon KDP.

Rob Cubbon uploads diaries, journals etc - earns 3,800/month.

Money.com describes his type of books as "wordless books"

Because they contain very little words - think of the regular diary you see around. Only that his has inspirational quotes and art on its pages.

Also Kelli Robert's. Her books on Amazon did $18,000+ last December. The Christmas holidays playing a positive role in earnings.

Below is a link to an article about how them and others earn in Amazon KDP. If you want to start Amazon KDP, I suggest you read this article first.

Here ==> http://google.com/amp/s/money.com/amazon-kindle-direct-publishing-journals-planners/%3famp=true

It's very balanced, and

It shows how profitable Anazon can be. And at the same time how easily you could be wasting your time with no warnings to show for all your work

And I've read of some other guys here on Nairaland who make some serious earnings with KDP.

Anyways, away from that and back to the email we were talking about

In that mail, he talked about how a guy named Gbenga who was doing $2000 to $5000 monthly... in passive income... since 2014 till date... from ebooks he published on Amazon.. And how any serious person can do it too.

It sounded good. This could be profitable for me too, I thought to myself.

Afterall I'm good at writing.

What is a 30 page e-book that I cannot put together in under 2 hours. Or 2 days if it is an unfamiliar topic. That I will not write and publish on Amazon and start earning. Lol

if I cannot write... I simply outsource.

Anyone with this type of thinking will surely want to jump into Amazon KDP.

But,

Is Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing as profitable and as easy as it sounds?

Exactly how much work is involved?

How much investment in money and time is required?

And very importantly,

how does the whole publishing thing work,
that all I will do is publish a book that I probably will research from google,
and sales will be coming in without any form of promotions / advertisements from my end?

No matter if I choose to keep on publishing or not

Here's what I found out:

True. Amazon KDP is simple. And straightforward. And has a very low entry barrier.

And therein lies its attraction and difficulty at the same time.

Here is how it works.

If you publish a book on Amazon, Amazon will do the whole selling job for you.

For every copy they sell, they take their commision and give you the rest as royalties.

Amazon has advantage when it comes to selling online.

Because:

For one, their website gets traffic in the region of 2 billion visitors per month. Its among the top 20 most visited websites in the world.

Secondly, they are a trusted brand. They are known for selling quality products. People buy from them without fear of getting scammed.

They have been selling online for over 20 years. Twenty years is a long time in the tech industry. They've got the experience. And the technology.

That is why Amazon selling a few copies of your book and taking a commission is not a challenge for them at all.

And they have the incentive to sell for you.

Look at it this way. They sell for tens of thousands of publishers... and take a commission from each sale.

That small commission per publisher multiplied by all publishers from their platforms equals big earnings for them.

And Amazon earns a lot across different aspects of their business using this "Sell-for-people-and-take-a-commission" model.

In 2019 they did 221 billion in revenues (across all aspects of their business... not only Amazon KDP)

That is why when once you publish a book on Amazon, and you DID YOUR RESEARCH RIGHT... your books will sell.

You dont have to write the book yourself. You can outsource.

You dont have to use your real name. You can use a pen name

You dont have to run adverts.

You don't have to own a website, promote on social media or do blogging.

Amazon will do all the selling.

All you do is upload books in their kindle store.

And at the end of the month, they send your royalty.

Royalties are calculated in dollars. Converted to your local currency, and sent directly to your bank account.
(Of course you must have a Payoneer account - it's free to open one).

That is why you dont have to even sell much books before earning what will amount to substantial money in Naira.

The above is 100 percent true. But its not the full story.

It's just an oversimplification of the process.

It's the sweet part most people hear, and they jump in without fully knowing what is required of them

Here's the remainder of the story:

Because there’s no investment needed, pretty much anyone can join KDP.

This means there is plenty competition.

From the outside, it can seem as if you're just going to slap a bunch of books together... throw them up into Amazon... and start earning hundreds of dollars,
or thousands of dollars monthly... all from that work you did ONCE

The reality is a lot of effort has to go into research.

Because you cant just say "Oh I love this topic. I can easily write about it." And you make a book about it and you upload on Amazon and hope for the best.

Do you know if people are looking the information you put inside that your book?

This is the most important question in Amazon KDP.

And you can only answer it by research.

Research is one of the most important stage (if not the most important).

And what do you research?

Keywords.

There are other things, but keywords is the 20 percent that brings the 80 percent result

Someone searching for books to buy on Amazon is a lot like some searching on Google.

You type in the search box and you get results.

What people type into the search box are called key words.

You have got to spend some good time figuring what types of books people are interested in... and exactly what words these people use to search for those books

When you do,

Only then can you publish a book, and sit down for months, and even years... then Amazon will be sending your royalties as long as your book sells....

(Contd below)

(Contd)

The summary of this keywords gospel is...

Your best chance of selling is when you create a book people are already looking for.

And you find out what people are searching for through keywords research.

Researching for keywords can take up to 3 hours... per book... especially if you're just starting out and do not yet have templates to fall back on

That's where the work is. And the truth is it's boring for most people.

Because of this, they skip this stage and just go ahead to write any book they like.

Some people plagiarize other people's work - huge mistake -

... and few months later with many published books and zero sales, they say Amazon doesn't work. And they jump to the next easy looking opportunity.

Oh! Did I forget that most people who earn thousands on Amazon do large volumes?

By large volumes I mean publishing well above 50 e-books.

That's not to say people don't publish one book and blow.

But it's rare.

Because statistically... for most publishers... one book can realistically rake in $50 to 200 (25k thousand to 100k thousand Naira per month.

(Side note: in 2010 or thereabouts, 30k was $200. Now a whole 100k is now 200 dollars... hmmmm)

Back to the gist...

If you want to earn more, you've got to write more books.

That's the reality for MOST Amazon Publishers.

And that's one of the things those who are newly starting Amazon KDP are not fully aware of.

People who are already doing well in the system can easily put together a book that will sell in hours.

Because they already have their own templates. And have mastered the stages in the sequence.

They can hit 30 books or five times that in a month if they want.

But for those who are newbies, they'll need time to figure things out.

And without guidance from someone in the system. It'll be a long, frustrating and dollarles road.

That's why many will not make the Amazon dollars:

1. They won't do the research

2. They won't do the volumes.

In summary:

Amazon is a low entry opportunity with huge earning potential.

It's systems are straightforward. Its simple to master. But its not easy.

It's not easy in the sense that things will not happen overnight... within a twinkle of an eye like most people believe.

Amazon KDP success clearly goes beyond writing books.

It is more about finding the right books to write.

There are different systems to research books that have a very high chance of selling.

The good thing is that theres a lot of information on google about research on Amazon KDP.

If you've got lots of time, and do not mind trial and error... and making mistakes here and there... you can figure things all by yourself using google.

There is also lots info here on Nairaland.

Another option is to learn from who have done it before, and who can allow you access to already existing, working templates.

This shortens the learning curve drastically.

If you want guidance from someone who has seen success in Amazon KDP, you can checkout this article

[url]iknowexperts.com.ng/amazon-kdp-pim[/url]

PS. There are quite a number of programs on Amazon that follows the same system as KDP - one of them is Merch by Amazon.

You upload shirt designs on Amazon. Shirt production companies around the world buy the designs and you're paid a royalty for each sale.
It's a little hit harder than Amazon KDP if you ask me.

You'll need graphic design skills and mad research skills to be able to do this.

However, it pays.

If you're up for it, check here ==> [url]merch.amazon.com/landing[/url]

PPS. If you want to get into Amazon publishing, those 3 articles will be a good read.

So you know exactly what you're getting into. And not feel theres some easy money on Amazon up for grabs

Here ==>

[url]google.com/amp/s/money.com/amazon-kindle-direct-publishing-journals-planners/%3famp=true[/url]

And

[url]iknowexperts.com.ng/amazon-kdp-pim[/url]

Thanks and God bless for this invaluable info. Do drop your Whatsapp contact. I have some pertinent business offer for you.

It's hard o. Only one sale for over a month. I wrote 5 books!

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OYENIYIJK:
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Na you ooo boss