How to Make Money with Kindle Publishing: 3 Success Stories

Entrepreneurs and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing go together like Bert and Ernie, peanut butter and jelly, Batman and Robin…

With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), you can easily upload your manuscript and have it available for purchase on Amazon in as little as 24 hours with virtually no overhead costs. And the royalty checks will keep coming in, even if you don't log into your account. What other business venture can legally accomplish that?

In this blog post, we'll show you how you can make money with Kindle Publishing as well as introduce you to Koorosh Naghshineh, Carolina Pla, and Samuel Arnold, who followed our self-publishing blueprint and are collectively earning thousands and thousands of dollars each month directly through KDP with absolutely no prior publishing experience.

If a retired professor, single mom, and college student can do it, so can you.

We'll cover their strategies, tips, and best practices so you can learn from their experience and apply it to your own self-publishing journey. From finding the right topic to staying focused, we've got your back to help you start making money with KDP ASAP (okay, enough with the alphabet soup).

Note: If you want the blueprint to start earning supplemental income on the side with Kindle Publishing, sign up for our free webinar. We’ll show you the exact steps to make money on the platform-- even if you are a beginner. Sign up now.

How Can You Make Money with Kindle Publishing?

The blueprint to making money with Kindle direct publishing is simple. There's writing, editing, and formatting that needs to be done, but none of it has to be done by you. There are plenty of talented professional ghostwriters, editors, and graphic designers out there who are looking for creative opportunities and want to work with self-publishers just like you.

Once you have a completed manuscript, all that's left is clicking a few buttons before your work goes live and the royalties start trickling in. Here's the gist of the process:

1. Create a Kindle Direct Publishing Account: If you already have an Amazon account, you can use that to sign in to KDP. If not, you'll need to create a new account.
2. Upload Your Manuscript: Amazon provides easy-to-follow guidelines on how to format your manuscript for KDP.
3. Set Your Price: When setting your price, keep in mind that Amazon takes a percentage of your sales. You'll need to set your Kindle book price high enough to make a profit but not so high that it's out of the budget for your ideal readers.
4. Publish Your Book on Amazon: Once you've uploaded your manuscript and set your price, you're ready to hit the publish button. Amazon will review your book to make sure it meets their Kindle publishing guidelines, and then it will be available for sale on the store, typically within the same week.

Read our guide to discover the steps to publish a book on Amazon.

Is It Easy to Make Money with Amazon Kindle Publishing?

If becoming a billionaire was easy, we'd all be vacationing on our yachts by now. Self-publishing, like any business, takes focus and drive. At its best, self-publishing with Kindle can bring in more than a full-time income, and at its worst, it can be another failed side hustle.

Ready for some tough love?

The publishing on Amazon process is simple, but cutting corners simply doesn't work. If you or your freelance writer produce a questionable manuscript with a questionable book cover, your potential readers won't be very happy, and you probably won't be rolling in the dough anytime soon. But the same could be said for any other business, too. Who wants to go to a seafood restaurant that's best known for its food poisoning?

The system works if you work the system.

Just ask James Kofford. His heart wasn't into self-publishing, and it took him two years before he decided to knuckle down and focus on producing the best book on Amazon he possibly could. Within three months of his laser focus, he was earning $600/month in passive income through Kindle Direct Publishing.

How Much Money Can You Realistically Make with Kindle Direct Publishing?

Self-publishing can bring you absolutely whatever income you desire. Really.

Need a side hustle for some extra Christmas money? It can do that.

Looking to replace your full-time income without working full-time hours? Yep.

Want to grow a publishing empire and sell it for multiple six-figures? It can do that, too.

Check out our self-publishing program to get access to our proven system. Many folks have seen results like these:

Casey Moss was a full-time farmer who wanted to travel the world with her fiancé. With no prior experience, she made $2,000 in her 3rd month of publishing.

Amber Lloyd was a project manager who made over $1k in royalties in the first month after publishing her book on Gut Health for Women.

Fred Green is a father of 3 kids who became a best-selling author with just one book! He made $8,531 in a single month from just that ONE book, and the passive income is still rolling in.

These kinds of results just don't happen with the traditional publishing model.

Note: Listen to their self-publishing success stories on our Student Success Hub.

How Long Does it Typically Take to Start Earning Money with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing?

So, how long does it take to earn money on KDP? There will always be special cases where someone made $10k in their first month of self-publishing, and their book sales have only increased. These results are mind-blowing and well-deserved, but probably won't happen for every independent author and publisher out there.

The amount of time it takes to start earning money on KDP can vary depending on a number of factors, including the quality of the book, the marketing strategy, if you use Amazon Kindle advertising, and the author's brand. However, many successful authors in our community have made their very first sales within a few weeks of publishing their first eBook, paperback book, hardcover book, and/or audiobook.

If you've got a good title, good quality writing, a decent cover design, and a solid book description, you will attract potential buyers and readers. Simple as that.

What are Some Tips for Making Money with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing?

A strong Kindle marketing strategy can bring in more money every month by getting your book in front of new readers. Here's a quick list of tips for maximizing your royalties and passive income:

• Run promotional campaigns like a free promotion to build up your book reviews
• Reach out to book bloggers to see if they'd be interested in reviewing your book
• Have a social media plan to hype up your new book during launch week
• Use relevant keywords on your book page to make your book stand out and show up in search engines

What are Some Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Kindle Direct Publishing?

The most common mistake we see is giving up in the process without seeing it through. Publishing has never and will never be a get-rich-quick scheme. You will always get out what you put into it.

There's a particularly dangerous disease going around these days (no, not that one). We're talking about Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS). The people who are distracted by every shiny new tech or side hustle will never be successful because none of these paths are getting 100% of their focus.

Getting lost in the SOS is a regret we see too often. We've heard dozens of students say their biggest regret is that they didn't start their self-publishing journey sooner. Publishing on Amazon is worth it, and it’s better to start now and figure things out. 

On the other hand, another big mistake is trying to rush the process. Publishing as many books as possible is not the answer to unlocking money on Amazon...publishing as many quality books as possible is. It’s a balance. If done correctly, publishing on Amazon can be a side hustle that earns you hundreds or even thousands of dollars in passive income every month.

Choosing a Profitable Book Idea

Amazon is a lot like outer space. There are galaxies and galaxies of opportunity, and when it comes to Kindle publishing, you can make money creating anything from eBooks and paperbacks to hardcovers, novels, comics, cookbooks, children’s books, journals, poetry books, and textbooks. That being said, some niches are more profitable than others.

First and foremost, you'll need to choose a book idea that you're passionate about and that you believe will resonate with readers.

Pro tip: The more passion you have for your book, the more likely you are to put in the time and effort needed to follow through with the idea and make it a success.

But passion alone is not enough. You also need POC.

POC is a term we coined for Proof of Concept, and it consists of three parts:

1) Proof that people are searching for this topic, and this idea is already making money.

2) Proof that there is low-to-medium competition in the particular niche.

3) Proof that there is a gap or a unique angle you can take to set your book apart.

Not many people are searching for "gardening in outer space," so that concept wouldn't pass POC. If you want to check for yourself, type this keyword into Amazon. You'll see that there's not a single published Kindle eBook or print book on the subject.

Note: As a self-publisher, you are always 100% free to write, publish books on anything you could possibly think of, and write eBooks to sell online for free, but why risk a dud when there's already a proven process for determining POC that's already facilitated millions of dollars of sales through Amazon Kindle publishing?

Carolina struggled to narrow down her topic and eventually chose to write about something that she didn't have personal experience with but enjoyed researching. It paid off big time, eventually creating a full-time passive income. We've had students find success in everything from pet training to the paleo diet, travel guides, grief, divorce, farming, crocheting, and more.

Carolina Pla's Publishing Success Story as a Single Mom

Carolina had three sons under the age of two when she became a single mom and turned all her focus to raising her kids. As they grew up and became teenagers, Carolina wanted to start writing and putting her attention towards building a new identity for herself.

As a former poker player, Carolina knew the importance of playing the long game and staying focused. She took the time to buy six of her competitors' books to gauge how to make hers different. She also put extra care and attention into her book outline, citations, and formatting. Her first book started making $1,000 per month. Now, Carolina has published multiple books within the same niche under a pen name, building her authority on the subject.

Here's Carolina's advice to all the other busy moms out there who are trying to juggle and balance it all:

Make a priority list and then break it down into bite-size pieces. If there's a day where you haven't gotten the best sleep, be kind to yourself. Every small task is worth celebrating, even if it's just clearing off your table.

Meet the College Student Making Nearly $4k Per Month with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

As a 20-year-old, Samuel was serving in the military in Switzerland. He knew he wanted to try self-publishing, but it had to wait two more years because the timing wasn't quite right for him. When it finally came time to self-publish, things moved very quickly for him.

Within a month of going live on the Amazon website, his three books brought him $3,754, and English wasn't even his first language. Now, he's experimenting with a mix of high-content and low-content books, with his sights set on publishing full-time.

Samuel heavily focuses on the customer research part and then outsources the rest of the writing, designing, and formatting. This gives him complete freedom over his schedule, and he knows that freedom of income is bound to follow as long as he sticks to the process.

From Retiree to Doubling His Monthly Income Selling Books on Amazon

After retiring from the University as a cybersecurity professor, Koorosh's daughter convinced him to take the publishing leap. After joining our program, Koorosh went through all the learning materials and attended all the live workshops with our success coaches, and his first book was published less than six months later.

After a family member started struggling with health issues, Koorosh decided to publish books to try to help other families going through the same thing. His first book doubled every single month that same year until he was making over $1,100.

As time went on, Koorosh decided to scale his business by investing in help with an author website before deciding to learn how to do it himself. Now, as a self-published author, Koorosh is enjoying his "retirement" without the boredom and stress that typically come with leaving a career field you've spent your life in. The financial benefits are just the icing on the cake.

Where Can I Hear Other Stories about Making Money Self-Publishing Books?

Head on over to our Student Success Hub to hear directly from fellow authors, publishers, retirees, and single parents who have completely transformed their lives with their author earnings. These are everyday people from all walks of life who wanted to make money online from the comfort of their homes without all the headaches of inventory management, shipping, and working for someone else.

Start Making Money Self-Publishing Books Online Today

Getting your books on Amazon doesn't have to cost a penny, so what do you have to lose?

Here's everything you can gain by starting your Kindle publishing journey today:

• Monthly passive income from book sales, whether you log into the Kindle app or not
• Complete freedom over your time and schedule
• The ability to travel to see friends and family whenever you want
• The self-confidence to put yourself first

This isn't science fiction. If you want to make sure this is the right path for you, join the thousands of people all over the globe who have attended our ultimate Kindle Direct Publishing webinar and then went on to make money through publishing eBooks and audiobooks.