How To Make Money Self-Publishing On Amazon: A Simple Guide

Have you always thought about starting some kind of online thing to make money—but you just weren’t sure where to start? Should you drop ship T-shirts? Start a website? Or maybe an online consulting business? Or … buy and sell rare Beanie Babies? (Hey, that’s not a bad idea.)

The Internet is a wild place. And as the years go by, it seems to get crazier and crazier. Especially with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). But just because the Internet can sometimes be complicated, that doesn’t have to stop you from living your dream. There are a ton of awesome ways to make money online.

Our simple guide to make money self-publishing on Amazon will teach you the three main steps:

1. Writing a book
2. Publishing it 
3. Marketing it

We think Amazon publishing is one of the best ways to make money online in 2024.

Passive vs. Active Income

First, let’s talk about money. (Who doesn’t like talking about that?) 

The beauty of starting an online business with Amazon is that it can bring in passive income vs. active income. What’s the difference, you ask? Good question. 

Active income is the kind you have to work a 9-to-5 job to earn. You’re trading your time for a paycheck. And it usually ends up being a grind that gets older faster than that Gouda cheese you accidentally left on the counter last night. With active income, you have to actively work to earn it. 

On the other hand, let’s talk about our best friend—passive income. It’s the kind you can earn while you’re laying out on the beach working on your tan. You earn it through assets that generate wealth for you no matter what you’re doing. Even while you sleep! 

You can earn passive income through things like dividend stocks, real estate investments, online businesses or digital products or courses.

This is where Amazon’s publishing empire comes in. Amazon kindle publishing is a legit way publishers can cash in on their work by selling ebooks. And it’s a lot easier to do than you might think. 

Let’s look at how you can make money online with Amazon--built for people like you.

KDP Stands for “Cold Hard Cash” (Well, Not Technically)

There’s a little something called KDP we think you need to know about. KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing and it’s Amazon’s self-publishing platform for independent publishers. Maybe you’re thinking of writing something, or maybe you’ve already written three books and are just trying to figure out what to do with them so they don’t keep collecting dust on your computer. 

We think Amazon’s KDP program for self-publishing is one of the best parts about the Internet. Sure, there are some reasons why self-publishing is bad. However, many independent writers are leveraging the power of this platform to spread their work far and wide and make a living. Publishing on Amazon is free and you can earn up to 70% royalties on your book sales. You can also reach a global audience of millions of potential customers. This is why we believe this is the best side hustle for Amazon.

Gone are the days when you had to beg for an agent to graciously take you on. And then wait years for the agent to find a big-name publishing house to get your work out. And then wait even longer while the publishing house inspected every comma and word in your manuscript to see if it would be appropriate for readers. No thanks.

Thankfully, Amazon’s KDP has given people a way better solution. Just publish your book—your way! But before we get into any tips for self-publishing on Amazon, you have to have a book.

Something to Sell

We’re not gonna lie to you. You will need something to sell. A book, since we’re talking about publishing. But don’t sweat this part. You don’t need to write the next War and Peace novel (1,225 pages!) to be successful with online publishing. It doesn’t even need to be fiction.

You can write your memoirs or publish a cookbook of unique recipes that are different from anything you’ve seen out there now. Or maybe there’s a really interesting family story about a relative who lived an incredible life during World War II—turn it into a book!  

The sky’s the limit. You just need to find some kind of niche. This way you're targeting a smaller and more specific audience. 

Bigger is not better in this case—and by bigger we mean broader. Just one example to explain what we mean. Let’s say you wrote a cookbook titled, 30 Amazing Recipes! Okay, cool. Amazing is a great word, but what are the recipes focused on? Crockpot stuff? Desserts? Tips on how to grill steak? Potential customers won’t know. And your book would be competing against some of the top books in the market that are most popular and probably celebrity-backed. 

Instead, think of something like 5 Ways to Slow Cook Shrimp that Will Blow Your Friends’ Minds! Maybe that’s not the best title, but it’s what we came up with on the fly. You get the point…

Narrow down your focus if you want to earn money writing books. Here's why. This will set you up for success and help you reach a specific audience. It will also help a lot when it comes to putting together a marketing plan.  

Now you have your book. What next?

Publish It!

Amazon has made it super easy for authors to publish their work as an ebook (or you can also offer it hardcopy). You can do it in about five minutes if you have all the files ready. (We also put together a longer guide on how to publish your book on Amazon. But for now, we’ll give a brief overview.)

First, create a KDP account and follow the steps to fill out all your information and payment details. This account will be your main dashboard to upload your book, set the list price and handle all the other details.

Next, you’ll create your Kindle eBook and Amazon walks you through three sections: Details, Content and Pricing.

You should plan to have some of these things ready for the publishing process:

• Author name and bio
• Book title and description
• Language your book is written in
• If your book is a series

Then you’ll have the opportunity to pick your categories and keywords. This will help your book be found by the readers interested in your genre. 

Once you go through these steps, you can upload your manuscript and preview how it will look. 

Congratulations! You’re now a published author—no query letters to agents necessary.

Get the Word Out

The final step is to market your Amazon book. For some publishers, this is the fun part. Telling people about your new book. (If you’re on the shy side, this might be the worst part.) 

Marketing can involve:

• Buying ads through Facebook and Google to reach a wider audience 
• Posting about your book on social media and launching campaigns
• Working with social media influencers to spread the word
• Starting a weekly newsletter to build an audience and grow your list of potential customers
• Being interviewed on podcasts to talk about your book 

Amazon also gives you tools to run promotions, analyze your metrics and see how your book is performing. You can use those to see how well your marketing is doing. Success on Amazon is all about standing out from the crowd. 

So, you’ve got your book, you published it and now you’re marketing it like a pro. Awesome! Time to write the next one… Or maybe take a little break (or a nap) and enjoy the fruits of your labor. In the next section, we’re going to take a deeper look at how tasty those fruits can be—in other words, the results and sales of your eBooks.

Real-life Example

So far, we’ve looked at a basic, beginner’s guide to making money through Amazon publishing. Now let’s look at a real-life example from a student of our Amazon publishing course. They did it as a total beginner, just like you. 

Brianna Ramirez published a book titled, “Complete Dog Training for Beginners: Raise the Perfect Puppy in 30 Days!”]

Brianna’s book is ranked #11 in the Dog Care & Health books category and #39 in the Dog Breeds category.

Now let’s estimate how much she is making. Using this great free tool called Kindlepreneur, we can estimate she’s selling about three books per day. We know the book is being sold at around $20 per book, so she’s bringing in a 70% royalty on $60 a day. This is a profit of $42 a day—or about $1,300 a month. And remember, this is just from one book. 

Are you starting to see what’s possible? Imagine if you had $1,300 coming in every month in passive income. And then imagine if you wrote another book, or another 3 books. It’s not hard to see how this can add up fast.

Brianna started just like you—with no experience writing a book. Just a lot of motivation and hard work to get going. She took our course and got these results. You can do the same!

This is just one example of how awesome KDP is. There are many more everyday people who have taken the Audiobook Income Academy and seen great results. (Our reviews over at Trustpilot show how many have been helped with this self-publishing material.)

Dream Big!

If you haven’t started online publishing yet, what are you waiting for? Seriously. The best time to start an online publishing business is now. With the right education, you can build a thriving Amazon business without having to get a Master’s Degree in Business & Marketing. 

Our practical (and free) workshop will show you step-by-step how to make money online with Amazon publishing. We’ll walk you through the four steps to making passive income on Amazon that anyone can do. 

By joining our course, you’ll also be part of a group of other self-publishers who are working toward the same goal—financial freedom.

‍Sign up for our free workshop and get started on building your dream life now.