Low Content Book?? What is it?
Maybe you are reading the term ‘low content book’ for the first time. You do very well aware of genres like suspense, fantasy, science fiction, but never come across the low content book.
These are the books that consist of mostly images and have the least amount of content. For example, puzzle books, calendars, planners, calendars, logbooks, etc.
A low content book and no content book are generally considered synonyms.
Amazon KDP Low Content Book
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a publishing platform where both physical books and digital books are published. Kdp Low content books offer a great opportunity to publish and sell your books on Amazon, and start earning easy $500 weekly.
This model is a fantastic alternative to traditional publishing. You save a lot of time, money, and effort by self-publishing. Many people became millionaires as a result of Amazon KDP low content books.
Mistake 99% Authors Commit on KDP And How to Avoid It
Low content books are easy to produce. You need some basic skills of graphic designing or use some software and you can create a couple of low content books weekly.
Seeing the income potential, the majority of people do just that. They start creating books after books blindly, hoping that some may click and start getting sales. This is the mistake I am talking about.
The point majority of authors miss is that the research part precedes the book creation part. Niche research and keyword research build the foundation of your success in KDP. Ignoring this part guarantees your failure.
I explain the research process in detail and in step by step style here in this post. It is extremely important that before creating and publishing your low content book, first you do niche research and keyword research.
For this blog post, how to create and publish your first low content kdp book, 3 steps are mentioned below so that you can understand and implement them easily.
3 Steps to Create and Publish Low Content Book
Step 1. How to Design Low Content Book Interior
Step 2. How to Create Book Cover
Step 3. How to Publish Low Content KDP
These steps are described in detail in this post, but first an important lesson.
Important: Research Top 5 Low Content Books in Your Niche
Before start designing kdp low content book, you MUST do some research on the books already ranking on Amazon in your niche.
In Amazon “ALL” search bar (and not in Books search), write the name of your niche, you are interested in.
Check the results and open the first 5 books ranking in Amazon (i.e. showing on Amazon first page) in separate tabs of your browser.
Also, check the Product Details of these 5 low content kdp books and note that these books must be published as ‘Independently Published’ and not published by some publishing company. Independently Published means that the publisher is an individual uploading book on KDP.
Now do some in-depth study.
- Study the book titles of these top 5 books.
- Closely observe how they use keyword in the title. Then craft the best possible title of your book.
- Do the same exercise for subtitle too.
- Repeat this practice before writing book description.
- Also identify what keywords they use in their descriptions.
- Also note following things in these top 5 kdp low content books
- Book size?
- Page sizes?
- Number of pages?
- Bleed or no bleed?
- Margins for cutting?
After doing this basic research, you are now all set to start working on your low content book interiors.
STEP 1. HOW TO DESIGN INTERIOR OF A LOW CONTENT BOOK
Before start designing your book, there is a term you should understand first; as this affects your design and page size. While working on Amazon KDP, what you would see again and again here is ‘Bleed or No Bleed’.
What is Bleed or No Bleed?
The terms confuse many beginners; although it is quite simple.
Normally books leave a blank margin on borders and these are called ‘No Bleed’. It’s easy to remember if you have this equation in mind:
No Bleed = Having blank margins on pages
Look at the image below:
While some other no content books leave no margin and extend to the margins of the page. This is termed as ‘bleed’.
Bleed = No margins left (end to end)
An example would clarify it more.
For bleed; if your page size is 6” x 9”, then your page size would be the same as 6” x 9”.
For no bleed; you have to add 0.125” to the width and 0.25” to the height (as margins for borders).
So with bleed, the page width would be: 6” + 0.125” = 8.125”
And the page height would be: 9” + 0.25” = 9.25”
The image below show detail of all page sizes:
Design Your Low Content Book Interior
In this era of AI (artificial intelligence), designing a book is an easy part. Different online tools and low content book software are available to design book interiors.
For kdp no content book interiors, you can use any of these 4 programs.
a. MS Word
b. PowerPoint
c. Canva
d. A Hidden Software
Below I explain the process of each of them in detail – so whatever your favorite method of creating the interior is, you can follow it.
a. Designing A Low Content Book In MS Word
Designing the low content kdp book interior with MS Word makes the work easy as everyone is already familiar with the program and so it doesn’t require additional time to learn.
Low content books are of many types, but among notebooks, planners, and workbooks, and many others, lined journals are the most popular books. Here, I am creating a lined journal as a demo.
Page setup
In Word, create a new blank document.
Go to the ‘Layout’ menu and select ‘Page Size’. From ‘More Paper Size’, write 6″ in width and 9” in height and click the OK button.
Set Margins
To set margins, go to Page Layout > Margins > and Select Narrow
Let’s Design Interior
For creating a lined journal, go to ‘Insert’ and select ‘Table’ from the drop-down menu and go to ‘Insert Table’. Select 1 column and 40 rows under Table Size in the insert table popup.
Optional: You can add a background image or watermark,
go to the Design tab > Watermark dropdown > Custom Watermark.
You can use whatever photo you like, including some great designs. Cool graphics can be found at Creative Fabrica and Creative Market. Just double-check the license on anything you use.
When you’re happy with the way your interior looks, save the document as a PDF. That’s all!
b. Designing Using Powerpoint
Powerpoint is the software that makes the task of creating low content book much easier.
Plus it has some other benefits. It is simple and easy to use and you can design book interiors with its shapes and tables, and you can even duplicate pages (slides) and export them as.pdf files.
You can also use it to create material in a variety of ways. For example, you can use it for blogs and social media graphics, as well as videos and low-content books.
Google Slides is also an option for designing book interiors and it is also free, but in comparison to PowerPoint, it lacks in functionality.
Using PowerPoint for Amazon Low Content Books
First select page size:
Go to Design Tab > Click Slide Size > then go to Custom Size
How to Create Lined Pages in PowerPoint
You can create lined journal with PowerPoint very easily. There are two major techniques to create lined pages.
• First, create a table and then remove the outside edges.
• Second, create a text box and then add lines to it with the shift and underscore keys.
Creating Dot Journal Pages in PowerPoint
Create a text box
Go to font and change the Calibri size 10
Type several periods in the text box
Highlight these periods or select them.
Change the spacing of the characters from ‘Normal’ to ‘Expanded’.
c. Designing With Canva
Canva is easy to use and is popular for graphics and design work.
Go to Canva.com and sign up free. Then on the top right corner, click the button ‘Create Your Design’ and there is a button of ‘Custom Dimensions’.
Now enter the width and height of the book, adding margins for bleed too.
For example, I am taking the size of 6” width and 9” height (the most common sizes for journals or notebooks). The size in Canva is pre-set in ‘px’ (pixels) and you have to change it to ‘in’ (inches).
Before entering 6 in width space and 9 in height, you have to add margins for bleed – as discussed above.
So the final size of pages you should write in Canva, are:
Width: 6” + 0.125 = 6.125
Height: 9” + 0.25 = 9.25
After clicking ‘Create new design’, a blank page appears – with some icons or some elements on the left sidebar.
On the left sidebar, click elements and then go to search (in the elements) and write ‘lines’. The results show a variety of lines designs, from where you should select a simple and straight line.
Click on this line, and it will appear directly on your page. Click 4 to 5 times and then arrange these lines in the center of the page. Instead of keep doing this, select these 4/5 lines and again paste them on your page.
When one lined page is ready, then simply press the button ‘duplicate’ on the top right and the whole design will be copied on the next page. So you just have to design one page only, and after that, all you have to do is to press the duplicate button according to the number of pages you desire for your book.
When this low content book interior is complete, give the file a name and then click the button ‘Download’. Many options will appear and you should select ‘PDF Print’.
The file will be saved in pdf on your computer which you have to upload on Amazon later.
d. A Hidden Software
If design work or graphics isn’t your cup of tea, and you want to automate this task and focus more on making money, then Book Bolt is the software for you, not many beginners know about it.
Book Bolt has hundreds and thousands of ready-made interior designs available, and all you need is just to enter the number of pages you want in your book and paper size, then hit download and…
.. WooHoo! Your book is ready!
Yes, kdp low content book creation can’t be made simpler than that!
And this is just one aspect of Book Bolt! The tool is of great help to book creators in lots of other ways.
Click the image below to check out all features of Book Bolt.
Step 2. HOW TO DESIGN KDP LOW CONTENT BOOK COVER
To design a book cover, you need to understand these 2 things:
a. How to calculate book cover size
b. How to design a book cover
a. How to Calculate Book Cover Size
While designing your book cover, the most important task is to calculate the size of book cover. The size of book cover depends on:
- Page size
- Number of pages
Obviously, the book cover with page size 8.5” x 11” would be different from 6” x 9”.
Similarly, if the book has 80 pages, its spine would be thin as compared to the book with 120 pages.
Calculating Book Cover Size Manually
To calculate the book cover, my first advice is not to panic.
Measuring book size isn’t rocket science that you can’t comprehend.
Simply it is..
Book Height = 9.250″ (height of book remains same for front and back cover)
Book Width = Front cover page (6.125″) + Back cover page (6.125″) + Spine
Now you have to add spine to the total width (12.250″ from 6.125″ + 6.125″).
To calculate spine width, go to the site diggypod; enter the number of pages, book size, and the software will automatically calculate the actual book size in a second.
So, the total width of the book cover would be: 12.392″ and total height 9.125″.
Calculating Book Cover Size Using KDP Template
Another option to calculate book cover is to use KDP cover template by clicking this link:
https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/cover-templates
Select your book size under trim size.
Type your page count in and then download your cover template outline.
Unzip the folder and select the PNG file.
Upload this PDF in photo editing software like Microsoft Paint or canva.com or photopea.com.
I love Canva as this makes the design work like child’s play.
b. How to Design Low Content Book Cover
For designing a book cover, you have 5 sources to get ideas.
i. Amazon Top 5 Book Covers (as discussed above)
ii. Creative Fabrica
iii. Creative Market
(Note: Be careful to check the licensing before downloading graphics from Creative Fabrica and Creative Market.)
iv. Etsy
v. Pexels
(Make sure that Pexel images you select do have a license with “Free to use” and “No attribution required”.)
From the above sources, download the ones you like in png format. You are not going to use it as it is or copy it, but instead, just take these images as inspiration and try to create something of your own.
Design Book Cover Using Canva
Go to canva and enter your book size (as described above) and you’ll have a blank page.
Now on the left menu bar, you’ll find ‘Upload’ and upload the book cover designs downloaded earlier.
Next, move 2 things from the uploaded area to canva design area.
i. Drag the background image first to the design area and adjust it so that it fits the whole area with the image.
ii. Drag template image over to the background image and adjust to fit the whole area.
On the top right side, you’ll find a checker button for transparency. Click this and you’ll see a bar. Decrease it until you start seeing the background image below the template image.
Click on “Elements” at the left bar and you’ll see different design elements. Click the box and stretch it to create a rectangle to be used as background of the book title.
Now click on “Text” at the left bar to add text to design your book title. After adding text, set the font style and font size you want to use.
Once the design part is finished, click the template layer and set the transparency bar to the maximum so that the background image gets vanished.
Then delete this template since it is no more required. Your book cover is now ready.
Click the download button and select the option of ‘PDF Print’.
STEP 3. HOW TO PUBLISH LOW CONTENT KDP
Amazon makes it very simple to publish your book. You just have to go through 3 tabs and enter some details there. The 3 tabs are:
a. Paperback Details
b. Paperback Content
c. Paperback Pricing
First login to KDP. On the top menu bar, go to the ‘Bookshelf’ and then click on ‘Paperback’.
a. Paperback Details
Paperback Details page will open where you have to fill in the following information.
Language: Write English or any other, if you are using it.
Book Title: Write the title and subtitle of your book here.
Series: Leave it blank if this is a lined notebook.
Edition Number: Skip this if you are creating your first book.
Author: Write your name as the author. You do not have to use your real name if you don’t want to.
Contributors: This is optional. If there are some contributors, write their names here.
Description:
The description is the most important part as it appears on Amazon along with your book when customers are viewing it.
Here the maximum limit is 4000 characters.
In the first step, I explained how to research top 5 books and observe closely get ideas how these top books are describing details.
Similarly, read descriptions of these top 5 books and see how they mention details there.
Remember to use some keywords here. Amazon algorithm does not pick up these keywords, but Google does. So your keywords may get picked up by Google and they show your book in Google search.
Emphasize the benefits readers would get from your low content book. Don’t focus on your book features.
PRO TIP
In order to beautify your description in Amazon, use any HTML editor to generate Html code of your book description.
Publishing Rights: Check that you own copyrights of the book.
Keywords:
This is your opportunity to include long tail keywords in order to be found among the thousands of other books on the Amazon Marketplace. Aim for a phrase of three or more words. Create phrases that users would type into the search area.
There are many keyword research tools are available to assist you in coming up with these terms. I discuss some tools in this post here. Using long tail keywords is a great strategy for this purpose.
Categories: Choosing a category for your low content book is quite simple as you are creating a book in a specific niche. To validate your idea of category, check your first 5 to 8 competitors categories (who are creating the same book as yours), and see which one has the most appropriate category.
Adult Content: This is pretty self explanatory.
Save and continue to the next page. This would take you to the Paperback Content page.
b. Paperback Content
Print ISBN: Amazon facilitates the process and assigns you a free KDP ISBN. Click the “Assign me a free KDP ISBN” button.
Publication Date: Skip this as you don’t need it.
Print Options: Foramazon low content books, select the following options:
- Black & White Interior with Cream Paper
- 6 x 9 inches (or whatever your book size is)
- No Bleed
- Matte
Manuscript: Finally, you are at that point where you upload your manuscript of the book (that you created earlier). Upload the PDF file of your book.
Book Cover: Click “Upload a cover you already have” and upload the book cover (PDF).
Book Preview: Click “Launch Previewer.” This will take about 5 minutes, so show some patience.
If you are satisfied with book preview, click on Save and Continue to go to the last part.
c. Paperback Rights & Pricing
Territories: Do you like to sell your book worldwide or to specific locations.
Pricing & Royalty: Set the price of your book at this point. The royalty you’ll receive on each sale will be calculated automatically. You earn 60% of the list price after deducting the printing cost.
For selling low content books on amazon, it is important to note that simple-lined journals do not sell for a high price. You should price your book between $6 and $9, generating you $2 to #4 royalty per book.
If you select ‘expanded distribution’ your book will be available in physical bookstores too.
When you’re satisfied with your royalty rate, you’re ready to publish!
Final Thoughts!
So, after going through the whole process, you’ll realize that Amazon KDP low content book creation is an easy process but it isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes time and patience to develop your book collection, but once you have a few sellers, things start to snowball.
Discover some unique niches with high demand and create a number of low content books for that niche. Another option is to stick to evergreen niches; this may be saturated, but if you can get a couple of good sellers, it will be worth it.
In this blog post, I walk you through a detailed step-by-step process of how to create amazon low content books. I hope, if you follow the steps, you’ll soon publish your first amazon kdp low content book. If you found this article useful, be generous and share it in your social circle.
