You’re sitting on a beach, drink in hand. The sun is gently dipping into the ocean as seagulls circle overhead, staring at the crumbs from your fish tacos. You woke up that morning and checked your sales from Amazon publishing and the money is still rolling in. 

What would it feel like if seagulls were your biggest problem in life? If you had a steady stream of passive income? What if you could live the life you’ve always dreamed?  

Unbelievable? Nope. Not if you’re willing to put in the work up front. This isn’t any kind of get rich scheme either. You can make money online with Amazon publishing. In fact, it’s one of the best ways to make money online in 2023. We’ll show you how.

Amazon’s Revolutionary Self-Publishing Model

We all know the power of the Internet to connect people around the world so we can have fiery debates about the color of a dress. Or its ability to show you an infinite stream of cat videos after that one time you searched for “cats” back in 2008.

But know what else is on the Internet? Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform—or as insiders so lovingly call it, KDP.

Amazon’s KDP program for self-publishing is one of the Internet’s best kept secrets that’s really not secret at all. Authors around the world are tapping into the power of Amazon’s book publishing platform to share their work and make money online. And so can you. You can publish your book on Amazon for free and reach millions of potential customers on the platform. And all while sitting in your comfiest chair at home, or working remotely from whenever you want as a digital nomad.

For years, the only way to get your work published was to go through the traditional publishers. Think Harper Collins, Random House, Simon & Schuster. You had to find an agent willing to take you on. Someone who really believed in you. Then that agent had to spend what could sometimes take years to sell you and your book to the big publishing houses.

No more. Now you can forget about those stuffy publishing houses and just insert your own name as the publisher. With Amazon’s self-publishing tools, it’s never been easier to get your work out there and start earning extra money.

How Amazon KDP Works

Publishing on Amazon KDP is easy and totally free. Within 72 hours, your book can be available to millions of people around the world on Kindle stores. Amazon also gives authors a lot more control and rights over their work. So you’ll be able to tweak your book even after it launches.

Amazon KDP pays authors up to 70% royalties for every eBook sale. So if you sell 1,000 copies of a book with a list price of $9.99, you’ll pocket just under $7,000. And with programs like KDP Select, you can make even more with Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

The first step to self-publishing on Amazon is to have a book to sell. A digital product. Maybe you’ve already finished your masterpiece or you’re just in the early stages of finding a topic or doing market research. Either way, you’ve gotta have something to sell. It doesn’t have to be the next War and Peace for the modern age. It can be a humble cookbook, a self-help guide, a book on how to train your mini Golden Doodle to do a handstand.

There’s honestly a market for anything these days and many experts actually recommend finding a unique niche to focus on so you aren’t going too broad and competing with the big dogs. Write about something you know a lot about or have personal experience with.

Once you have your book, make sure to edit it and proofread it. You can do some of this yourself or hire a freelancer on sites like Fiverr and Upwork. Just make sure your book is polished and also formatted correctly.

Now your book’s ready for publishing. And see how nice it is to not have to spend the next three years shopping for an agent?

Publishing on KDP is way easier than you might think. You basically sign up for a KDP account, fill out the details for your book, choose categories (or genres) and keywords so people can find it and then upload the manuscript and book cover.

Make Money Online with Amazon KDP

Now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for. How do you actually make money with Amazon publishing?

Part of the process of self-publishing on KDP is setting your book’s list price. Amazon has two different royalty plans you can choose from. (Royalties are simply the percentage you’ll get paid for each sale.)

1. 35% royalty rate for eBooks priced between $.99 and $1.99.
2. 70% royalty rate for eBooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99 and that meet some other requirements Amazon outlines.

We obviously recommend setting your book price between $2.99 and $9.99 to unlock more royalty money. So if your eBook sells 100 copies at a price of $9.99 (with the 70% royalty), you’ll get $699.30.

And keep in mind that the KDP platform gives you access to a huge market of people across the United States, Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, India, and many other countries.

We have a guide on how to make money with Kindle.

Here are some of the top ways authors are making money online through book publishing:

Kindle eBook sales

‍We already kind of walked you through how this works. Basically, once your book is available, you’ll make passive income every time you make a sale. And the more ways you market your Amazon book—whether by going on podcasts to talk about your book, running ads, or doing social media campaigns—the more you’ll sell.
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Kindle Select or Unlimited Page Reads‍

Besides Ebook sales, you can enroll in the Kindle Select program. This will allow you to make Amazon revenue streams based on page reads. Think of it like Spotify but for book publishing.
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The fine print is that you have to give Amazon exclusive rights to selling your book for at least 90 days. For every page that someone reads on their Kindle, you get paid a certain amount. The rate is based on how many subscribers are in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program every month so it varies a little.
So, if the page count rate is $0.045 per page, and your book has 100,000-page reads, you’ll make $450.
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Kindle Select also gives you access to special promotions that can help more readers find your work. One promotion is called Kindle Countdown Days. For seven days, Amazon will boost your royalty rates up to 70% for eBooks that are $.99 or $1.99.
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100,000-page Kindle Vella‍

This is another way you can make money on Amazon. You publish your book with Kindle Vella one short episode at a time. Readers buy tokens to unlock more chapters as they read. Authors get 50% of the money that comes in from the tokens. Vella is a great way to see firsthand which chapters are most successful with readers and to connect with readers in a fun, gamified way.

Unleash Your Inner Authorpreneur

Now is the best time to get creative and get after it. Self-publishing on Amazon is one of the best side jobs to make money online from home. It can truly set you up for your dream life.

Now that you know how to make passive income on Amazon, what are you waiting for? Do the work upfront and it will pay off in the long term.