One of the biggest reasons people are hesitant to start a business is that they don’t want to invest a lot of money into something that they’re not sure will pan out. It sucks for a business to fail; it sucks even more if you lose money because of it.
For a lot of us, even a startup cost of $100 is more than we can afford to lose. I get it; I felt the same way when I started to sell low-content books on Amazon KDP. After all, I wasn’t sure if any of my books would sell. I didn’t want to spend money if it was a hopeless endeavor.
By the way, I’m here to tell you that it’s NOT a hopeless endeavor, and you absolutely can make books that sell. But I would encourage anyone to find that out for themselves before investing a lot of money into this business model.
Here’s how I started a KDP business that NEVER lost money, and how you can too:
Start for free.
1. If you haven’t already, sign up for a free account at https://kdp.amazon.com. You’ll need to provide some basic info, but you don’t need to pay a cent.
2. Instead of buying a paid keyword research tool, use Amazon to do some free keyword research. This simply means typing ideas for books into the search bar and seeing what comes up. Are there 100,000 results that come up? Or are there only 1,000? When you’re starting out, you want to go with the keywords that have fewer results, because there will be less competition.
You can also download free keyword research extensions like Self-Publishing Titans.
3. Use a free design software to create your first books. You can use the free version of Canva to create simple interiors for notebooks and simple covers to go along with them. The first few books I made and published on KDP were extremely simple.
So far, how much money have you put into the business? $0.00!! So even if these books never sell, you haven’t lost any money.
Next, wait for your books to sell.
And in the meantime, make more books. The more you practice niche research and cover design, the better you will get.
Once you’ve sold some books, Amazon will send you the royalty money in about two months. You don’t have to open a separate bank account for your business earnings yet, but keep track of how much you’re earning.
After those royalties hit your bank account, you officially have a PROFIT! That’s right, your business is profitable! Go ahead and pat yourself on the back.
(By the way, the first royalty check I got was only for $3.10… but hey, it was still $3.10 in profit!)
Decide how to use your royalties.
After you’ve made a chunk of change, you can choose if you’d like to use that profit to invest in your business, either through design or research software, ads, or something else.
I didn’t purchase anything for my KDP side hustle until I had been doing it for about 6 months and had made $300. The first thing I decided to invest in with my profits was Canva Pro. After one free month, that was an expense of about $13 monthly.
After I had made about $1000, I purchased Publisher Rocket, a keyword research tool that made it easier to see what kinds of books people might be searching for.
At some point I started running ads, keeping a close eye on how much I was spending and making sure that I never spent more than I was comfortable with.
Now, I consistently make at least $1200 from KDP every month. I still pay for Canva Pro and Creative Fabrica, and I do have a budget set aside for ads. My KDP business has ALWAYS been profitable and it always will be. I don’t ever plan on spending all of my profits on investing in some new course or ad program.
Should you invest money in your KDP business from the beginning?
Now, there are some people who will choose to spend money on publishing right off the bat, and if that’s you, more power to you! Literally.
Spending money will give you more power to make attractive book covers and interiors (by using Pro elements on Canva, for example, or by hiring a professional to design your book), more power to find niches that are selling (by purchasing niche research software like Publisher Rocket), and more power to get your books seen by potential customers (by paying for Amazon ads).
But for those of you who are worried about investing money upfront, you can totally start for free and still make a profit.
Could I have grown my KDP business faster if I had invested in purchases from the beginning?
Yeah, probably.
But I don’t regret the way I did things one bit. I’m 100% convinced that by keeping my costs low (or nonexistent) for my first six months to a year of selling on KDP, I was able to hone my book-designing skills and stretch my brain when it came to niche research.
When you don’t have a lot of money to spend, you have to be creative. You have to think outside the box and do things that others aren’t doing. When it comes to KDP, that means being creative about the kinds of books you create and the niches you come up with.
Perhaps most importantly, because I didn’t have any expenses or losses, I was able to fully enjoy the profits I made, however little, which encouraged me to keep going. If I felt like I was losing money, I might have quit before I saw any progress. After all, I didn’t have a lot of money I could afford to lose.
Free Resources
If you’re interested in getting started with KDP, here are some free resources that helped me out a ton in the beginning:
YouTube channels:
Plus: Why Self-Publishing is One of the Best Businesses For Introverts to Start
Best of luck!
