Now that the Niche Site Challenge is dead, I’ve decided to focus my attention on three other forms of passive income – Amazon KDP, Amazon Merch on Demand, and Etsy. I’ll post an income report for each of the three projects at the beginning of every month. In these income reports, I’ll not only report my income for the previous month but I’ll also go over what I did that month to improve my income and make goals for the next month. Up first is Amazon KDP.
What is Amazon KDP?
KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing and it’s a way of publishing books to sell on Amazon without having to go through a professional publishing company. Amazon allows you to publish multiple types of books. These include coloring books, activity books, scrapbook paper, cut and collage books, log books, trackers, journals, diaries, guest books, novels, ebooks, and more. The possibilities are endless.
Why Amazon KDP?
I first joined Amazon KDP in 2022. I was looking to buy a specific type of book but I couldn’t find it anywhere. That’s when I heard about Amazon KDP and decided to make my own book. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos to learn how to do it and then jumped in. I published my first book on July 5, 2022. I wasn’t expecting to make money from it but it soon started selling. I watched a few YouTube videos where people are earning thousands of dollars a month publishing journals and activity books. Why couldn’t that be me? If I put more time into publishing books, then maybe I could be making thousands of dollars a month too.
Overall Goal with Amazon KDP
Before I go into details with my April income report, I thought I would quickly state my overall goal with Amazon KDP. My goal with Amazon KDP is to earn $3,000 each month or more, consistently every month. To do this, I would need to have 300 books published that are making $10 a month each. I’m sure I’ll need more than 300 books since not all books will sell and make money but we’ll see exactly how many books I’ll need as I get more published.
April 2024 Income Report
In April 2024, I sold 18 books for a total income of $36.64. I had 7 books in my bookshelf at the beginning of the month and I published 6 books this month for a total of 13 books. I published 3 coloring books, 1 log book, 1 journal, and 1 scrapbook paper pad. Only 3 books sold in April – an adult coloring book (8), a log book (8), and a kids coloring book (2).
I also spent money on advertising. I run a low-cost lottery campaign. I don’t do much with it. If I see that a book has a bunch of clicks but no sales, I’ll turn that book off for the rest of the month. I try to keep costs low. This month I spent $9.80 on 6 sales for an ACOS of 18.87%. I don’t think that’s too bad. Here is a screenshot of my advertising spend for April 2024:
Total Amazon KDP Income for April 2024: $26.84
Previous Month’s Earnings
March 2024: $17.58
February 2024: $4.52
January 2024: -$1.84
What Did I Do In April?
- Published 6 books – 2 adult coloring books, 2 log books, 1 kids coloring book, 1 journal, 1 scrapbook paper pad
- Learned about A+ content and added it to a coloring book page (still under review)
Goals for May 2024
- Publish 10 books
- Add A+ content to all coloring book pages
- Learn about Author’s pages and try setting one up for my brand
I’m going on vacation for two weeks in May but I’m confident I can still complete these three goals. As for monetary goals, I can’t control how much people buy from me but it would be nice to reach $50 in profit for May. I think it is totally possible to reach that number, especially since half of my books were just published in the past 2 weeks and haven’t had time to sell yet. I guess we’ll see what happens.
