In today’s world, the arrival of the internet and new technologies has transformed how people make money online. Although it is not as simple as pressing a button to become rich, technology has revolutionized business, offering opportunities to create side incomes while comfortably sitting at home. Among the numerous options available, my favorite way of making money online is, of course, Amazon Self-Publishing.
For those who regularly follow this blog, you probably know that I’m all in on Amazon Self-Publishing: the reason why I haven't posted lately is that I was focusing on scaling my book business. In essence, my work consists of writing books and publishing them on Amazon, generating income through their sales.
But what kind of books do I write?
The answer is non-fiction. While my ultimate dream is to write fiction books, which I've discussed in previous posts, I focus currently on non-fiction, particularly practical guides and instructional content.
Very important for you to know: publishing a book on Amazon KDP is absolutely FREE: as long as you have the manuscript, the cover, a product description and a few relevant keywords, you are ready to publish your book on KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), and in about 72 hours it will be available on Amazon, ready to purchase.
As we will see, the only cost you will have are related to 1. Writing the book 2. Designing the cover 3. Getting Reviews 4. Amazon Advertising.
You can create a KDP account for FREE here: KDP Link.
Why Non-Fiction and Why Books?
To give you an example, I write books on business, cooking, and even coloring books.
✅ What I love about publishing books as a business model is that it fits so well with my personality. I am an engineer by profession, but fundamentally, I am a creative person. I always loved writing, even if I could never have imagined artificial intelligence would one day allow me to write books faster, more efficiently, and sometimes even better than I could alone.
✅ Another reason I am so fond of this business is that I genuinely believe in the power of books and their enduring value. A well-crafted book is not just a product: it’s a timeless gift you can offer to others. Books bring immense knowledge and value, and writing something that can positively impact someone else is incredibly rewarding.
✅ Furthermore, the business model behind self-publishing books is highly appealing: royalties from digital products. Just as a YouTuber earns revenue from advertising, or a musician from streaming their songs, publishing books allows me to receive royalties from a piece of work that keeps selling passively for months or even years.
Let me give you an example: recently, despite some previous issues with my Amazon account, I recently managed to earn over $2200 in 16 days from just one book (as you can see I have currently 9 books in this account, but 7 haven't really picked up speed yet and 1 is a passion project - and most of all: the results of this specific book are a great success study, they're not the norm for every book). What’s most amazing? It only took me three days to create that book—one day for the cover and two days to write it. I will show you later how much I spent in total to create the book.
Why Amazon Self-Publishing Works
One of the most powerful aspects of Amazon as a platform is that it’s already an enormous pool of traffic. People are actively searching for products to buy. This means that if you can match your book to what people are looking for, you have a good chance of making sales without extensive marketing.
Amazon is a marketplace that works for you. When I think of new books, I start by studying existing demand. On Amazon, you can see what books are selling well and use this information to create something that meets that same demand. It’s all about matching a product with a ready-made audience.
For example, you can type in some kewyords in the search bar and see how many results are returned, to have a good idea of the search volume and the demand for that specific keyword.
Finding demand for your products is a key for successful business, and Amazon has already a great demand for all sort of books. On top of that, it's a SEARCH BASED platform (like Google), so people on Amazon are already in the mood for searching and purchasing.
Another amazing aspect of Amazon is the simplicity of its royalty system, which allows you to earn a percentage from each sale without having to worry about printing or inventory. It truly is the ultimate passive income machine when set up correctly.
Most of all, boks are DIGITAL PRODUCTS that give you RECURRING ROYALTIES, just like CDs or online courses.
You create the book ONCE.
You have LOW COST of production.
You apply a MARGIN, not related to the cost of production
You can sell it potentially ENDLESS TIMES.
This is very different from a PHYSICAL PRODUCT like a t-shirt
You create the t-shirt ONCE for every SINGLE UNIT you sell.
You have HIGHER COST of production.
You apply a MARGIN, related to the cost of production
You sell it ONCE. Then you need to create another t-shirt.
Below, I’ll share with you the tools I use and the process I follow to study the market, publish my books, and achieve profitability. You’ll see that with some simple apps, this whole process is not only possible with a very low budget but also highly rewarding.
✅ What you are about to see, used to require a lot of time, money and work up until a few months ago. The possibilities that AI has opened are truly mind-blowing and they have created a revolution in all aspects of our life, including business!!
The Market Research Process
A major pillar of Amazon Self-Publishing is keyword research. This essentially involves understanding what topics are selling on Amazon and identifying what potential buyers want. Keywords are the exact phrases people search for on Amazon. For example, phrases like “Ketogenic Diet for Beginners” or “Native Herbalist Bible” are keywords.
To uncover the right keywords, I rely on several tools. Below, I'll list the tools along with screenshots of their interfaces to give you a clearer idea of how they work in practice.
One of my favorites is BookBeam, an app that lets you access the bestseller lists on Amazon across all markets. This app gives me insights into sales ranks that indicate how well certain books are performing. If a book has a bestseller rank under 100,000 in the U.S. market, it’s selling well. If it ranks above that, it probably isn’t selling at all. BookBeam helps me filter through all the available books and niches to find opportunities that aren’t oversaturated.
Below, you can see a screenshot of the BookBeam interface and how I use it to identify profitable niches.
As you can see, BookBeam is a real game changer when it comes to find profitable keywords. I select "self-published books" with ranking below 100,000, within the category Computer and Technology
Et voilà! A sub-set of the best seller list (belonging to the Computer & Technology Category) with 156 books with a great BSR!
The interface shows you estimated sales, date of publishing, number of pages, reviews and everything else you need at a glance!
The book "Iphone 16 Pro User Guide" caught my attention, I will check it out later to see if it's a good opportunity for me.
Step 1. Understand BSR. BSR is an Amazon metric which is an indicator of how much a book is selling on a market.
In USA = below 100,000 is a good BSR
In Italy, Spain and other markets (smaller than USA), it needs to be roughly below 8,000.
Based on what market you want to publish in, you can use the Kindlepreneur FREE BSR calculator to understand what a good BSR is.
Step 2. Check out one book you want to analyze on Amazon and Find the Best Seller Rank (bottom section of the page, or using Bookbeam Chrome Extension to see it directly near the book description)
Step 2. Track BSR of a specific book you want to analyze.
I also use Helium 10 to track the evolution of sales ranks over time. This allows me to monitor which books are maintaining their popularity and which are dropping off, giving me deeper insights into potential opportunities. I’ll include an example of Helium 10’s data visualization so you can see just how easy it is to track these metrics.
Another essential Chrome extension I use is Amazon Suggestion Expander, which provides suggestions for related keywords. This helps me see how much competition exists for each keyword, and it also helps identify correlated topics that could be valuable niches for my books. You can also see a screenshot below illustrating how Amazon Suggestion Expander helps me visualize keyword suggestions and potential competitors' titles.
Here is the link to Amazon Suggestion Expander (FREE)
Finally, the tool I find most invaluable for analyzing market profitability is Publisher Rocket. Unlike other apps, Publisher Rocket comes with a one-time payment model, and the creators consistently update it for free, which adds enormous value. Publisher Rocket gives me a detailed breakdown of keywords, showing me the books competing in a niche and the possible revenues. Publisher Rocket helps me make informed decisions about which keywords to target and I cannot recommend it enough: best value for money, for sure!
5 Months of BookBeam (which I use daily) are the equivalent of Publisher Rocket Lifetime, and I am pretty sure that the founder will soon release new gems (for FREE or with FREEMIUM Model regarding the only thing BookBeam can do that Publisher Rocket currently can't: the best seller lists)
Here is a video from the founder where it shows you some of the potential of Publisher Rocket
Let's Checkout Iphone 16 User Guide!
Step 1. Go to Amazon, select "books" and insert a USA Postcode (if you want to analyze and post on the USA market). BookBeam gave me a few business books idea, iPhone Guide stand out so I want to explore the demand for this type of books on Amazon.
Step 2. Now you need to check
how many books are selling with this title-keyword or very similar titles (you need at least 2 to consider the keyword a good opportunity)
that those books are self-published and not from big publishing companies, so they don't have to be famous authorities or it will be difficult to compete
that the books that are selling don't have hundreds of reviews, or it will be difficult to compete
that these books that are selling have a good BSR history and they are selling consistently
The BookBeam Free chrome extension shows me the BSR already on the main page, without me having to open all the books one by one. I can see already 2 books that have a good BSR. As you can see, one is making roughly $80 euro per day, the second almost double this amount (it also has a way better cover).
With BookBeam chrome extension you can also see at a glance all the BSRs of all the books in the page in one go and even sort them by BSR in ascending order. I can see 6 books currently with BSR below 100,000, so this is a great opportunity to create a book that sells!
Now I select one book, and I use Helium 10 Chrome Extension to check if it's been selling consistently for quite some time. This book is selling well since 2 weeks, as it's been recently published. I repeat the process with all the books that are selling to understand the market and the demand for iPhone 16 user guides.
I can also use Publisher Rocket to find out related keywords and opportunities.
These are all great suggestions and I can type them in in the Amazon Search Bar (books) to see how many books are selling under each of these keywords
I can also use the Competition Analyzer Function to see all the books that include "iPhone 16 guide" in the title
It allows me to easily see all the books that are selling, how much they are making (estimated), how many pages they have, and even in what Amazon categories are ranked.
I can also export the data in Excel, sort the book by BSR, understand how many iPhone 16 guides are selling and click the links to see their product page.
I can see 9 books that are selling on the topic in total, despite I didn't see them in the main Amazon Page I searched, as if they were ranked under other keywords.
Crafting the Perfect Book
Once I've found a niche I want to target, I proceed to design a book cover. Your book cover is the first thing potential buyers will see, and in my experience, having a professional cover is crucial. In the past, I relied on freelancers, but I was rarely satisfied.
That’s when I turned to Canva. Canva is a game-changer for designing professional-looking book covers. With a subscription costing only around €10 per month, you gain access to numerous design tools and images, allowing you to create book covers that appeal directly to your target audience.
✅ I used BookBeam find a book in the best selling list with under 100,000 BSR (I used 1 search of my available 32 monthly searches),
✅ I then searched on Amazon Books how many books are selling with that title or a similar title (iPhone 16 Guide). I used BookBeam Chrome Extension to do faster, but I advise to check all the books to have a feel of that keyword page. I saw a few books that are selling, and they don't have too many reviews
✅ I then analyzed all the books with Helium 10 Free Chrome Extension to verify the BSR is stable over time
✅ I then used Publisher Rocket to find ALL the books that are selling with similar titles (Free search)
✅ I then use Publisher Rocket to find related keywords to inspect on Amazon
Now it's time to write the book and do the cover.
Before doing that there are a couple of important things to do: the first one is to understand the format of my competitors' books, in this case it's 6x9 inches. The second one is understanding the approximate number of pages and then I will have to calculate the Royalty which is the amount of money I can make for each copy sold. Since there are also printing costs and other costs that Amazon will subtract from the book price in order to be able to handle printing, fulfilment, shipping and so on.
I can use the Bookbeam app or also the Amazon KDP royalty calculator.
$8.46 per copy sold is a great royalty! Let's go!
Below, I’ve added screenshots showing how I use Canva to design book covers, step-by-step. This should help you visualize the process, from selecting templates to adding the final touches that make the cover stand out.
How to Leverage AI to Make Money Online: Buyer Persona
Now it's time to create the book! I use ChatGPT to understand more about who is going to buy my book, help generate the initial draft of the description, tweaking it afterward to ensure it emphasizes the unique selling points of my book and appeals to my reader's emotions.
I can simply copy paste in Chat GPT the titles of my competitors....
...and ask for information about my customer avatar and possible selling angles...
Here are the responses:
Very Important: if you are a beginner, make sure you spend some time on Chat GPT and even on Google to understand the more about customer Avatar and marketing in general, so you can learn to understand what people want in every niche very quickly. If this sounds overwhelming, keep in mind that, up until a few months ago, only the things I have talked about so far would have taken you weeks of full time work and quite the budget in case you wanted to outsource the job. But now, with less than 200 dollars, you can do almost everything even in one day if you are very motivated. But, as I always say, you just need to do things very well, take your time to craft a great book and then you will be able to do what I have done multiple times: making thousands of dollars with one book in only two or three days of work.
✅ Essentially, you need to create a good book that people can buy but also add some Unique Selling Point to hopefully outperform your competitors: your ability to understand your potential customers is fundamental in this stage of the process!
Also make sure you open and study very well all your competitors books, so you can understand what they do and you can do it better. Are they giving a bonus?
What are they talking about in the book? Read the table of content or even purchase the kindle version to see what this is about!
Creating the Content
When it comes to writing the content itself, AI plays a huge role. I turn to ChatGPT to assist with generating ideas and drafting sections. For instance, if I’m working on a cookbook, I’ll ask it for 100 recipe titles, split into categories like breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. From there, I flesh out each recipe, format the text, and edit as necessary to ensure a high-quality, consistent voice throughout the book.
Below, you can see an example of the prompts I use in ChatGPT and the types of responses I receive. This helps illustrate the depth and variety of ideas you can generate quickly, allowing you to save a significant amount of time in the content creation phase.
Depending on your audience, you can create a book filled with color images, or you could opt for a simpler, black-and-white format if budget constraints are a concern. The idea is to balance cost, quality, and reader expectations. If I’m targeting a niche with less competition, I may go for a more basic design; otherwise, I make sure the book can stand out visually.
Once everything is ready—the content, cover, and description—I move to formatting. For this, I save my cover in JPEG for print, the book interior in PDF, and also create a Kindle version. It’s important to ensure all formats are ready before proceeding to publishing. Below, I've included screenshots of how I format files in preparation for uploading to Amazon.
✅ In this specific example, the iPhone guide will have a lot of pictures and a lot of step-by-step process, so I would advise to Model some best selling books and add some improvements.
Cover Kindle: JPG. You can export it in JPG from Canva or tell your freelance to do it in JPG.
Cover Paperback: PDF (same as above)
Book Paperback: PDF. Create the book in word and convert it for FREE using one of the many free tools available online like I LOVE PDF
Book Kindle: KPF. Download the Amazon Free Tool called Kindle Create
Checkout the book format specs you need based on the format your competitors are using.
Use it for Canva (unless you are outsourcing the cover, in this case your freelancer will ask for the specs)...
...and for Word....
No you can either outsource your work to a freelancer or you can do it yourself as I am doing lately, because I am very impatient, I would do everything by myself, I have very high standard and every time I request a freelancer for modification they charge me extra, so this way at least I can publish the book very quickly and then, if the book doesn't sell or has a low CTR, I can potentially invest $150 USD on a professional cover.
✅ Before drawing the cover, remember to ask Chat GPT to create a good Title and Subtitle for your book based on the keyword you have chosen and the Buyer Persona
The great thing with Canva is that you have THOUSANDS of images available that you can use without risking to use some images that is copyright protected and disappoint Amazon, which may suspend your book or even ban your account.
Publishing and Launching
Now, the next step involves finding keywords that you’ll use both in your book listing and for Amazon Ads. Publisher Rocket helps me identify the seven keyword slots Amazon provides during the book listing process. This is critical for targeting the right audience. You can see an example of the keyword suggestions provided by Publisher Rocket in the screenshot below.
I can use Reverse ASIN Lookup, to see the exact keywords my competitors are ranking for.
I can also use Amazon AMS Keyword Generator function or Keyword Function
The last step, is to ask Chat GPT to create a compelling book description and a nice Blurb for the back of the book. At this stage I have already decided the title and the buyer persona my book is for.
✅ At this stage you have completed the following
Keyword Research and Profitability Evaluation
Similar Keywords
Competitors' Analysis
Buyer Persona
Book Creation
Cover Creation
Book Description
Getting all the documents with the right format
KDP Account Creation
Keywords List Creation
You are ready to publish your book!
After publishing, I focus on getting reviews. Services like BookSprout or Pubby help me collect those all-important first ten reviews.
Pubby is a great and safe way to get reviews:
You review other authors's books
You earn SNAPS
You spend SNAPS to get reviews for your book
The account you use to review is separate from your publisher account
Once the initial reviews are in, I start running Amazon Ads. The ads boost visibility, helping my book gain traction and ideally make its way into a virtuous cycle where good reviews generate more sales, and more sales generate more good reviews.
Ads are very important to get sales, but this is for another conversation!
The Costs and ROI
So, let’s break down the costs. BookBeam costs €30 per month, Publisher Rocket is a one-time fee of $150, Helium 10 has a free extension, and Canva is €10 per month, ChatGPT is $20 per month. To this I would add $20 a month for Pubby to get a roughly 10-15 reviews. The total is $220.
This gives you virtually:
1. Unlimited Book Covers
2. Unlimited Books
3. Unlimited high quality market research
4. Unlimited Keyword research and Competitor Analysis
Since Publisher Rocket is the only one that has a 1-Off fee, while the others are recurring expenses, let's assume you write 1 book a day (make sure it's a high quality book!) and let's assume you create 1 cover a day without outsourcing it to a freelancer.
This would mean that creating one book from start to finish now can cost you $7.3 and, of course, your time (I haven't considered all the reviews needed for 30 books in this example, which would actually be one of the higher costs)
From the second month, since Publisher Rocket is already paid (and technically you can also stop using BookBeam, as you already know all the profitable keywords) creating one book from start to finish would cost you $2.3 and, of course, your time.
By the third month, if you truly have 60 books ready written on profiable keywords, I'd say you are set for a couple of years! If only 6 of them work, you can easily make 10k a month!
This is not just cost-effective but highly scalable when compared to other online business models.
Remember that up until 1 year ago, you would have spent at least $1,000 to get one book with a lead time of possibly 1 month, assuming there were no issues with deliveries multiple from freelancers!
If this is not an incredible opportunity and a great time to be alive, I don't know what is!
For me, the real magic lies in understanding the niches, grasping the audience, and providing them with the books they are searching for. While competition is fierce, standing out is possible if you focus on quality, creativity, and genuine value.
If you want to learn how to leverage AI to make money online, checkout my other posts. There are many other ways to make money online, but self-publishing remains my favorite. I hope this post inspires you and gives you the tools to create your first book and kickstart your online publishing journey. If you want to know more, leave your questions in the comments, and I’ll see you in the next post.
Tools You Need to Become a Top Self-Publisher
Publisher Rocket ($150 Lifetime)
BookBeam ($30 / month)
Helium 10 ($99 / month) (Expensive but great alternative to BookBeam)
Amazon Suggestion Expander (FREE)
Chat GPT ($20 / month)
Canva ($10 / Month)
KDP Royalty Calculator (FREE)
Word to PDF Converter (FREE)
Kindle Create (FREE)
BSR Book Calculator (FREE)
Pubby ($30 / month) or Booksprout ($30 / month)
KDP Account Creation (FREE)
KDP Cover Size Calculator (FREE)
Want to Learn More About Self-Publishing Books on Amazon KDP?
Check out this blog post How to Create Cookbooks with AI in less than 2days, this post How to Create Childrens' Books with AI and this How to Create a Coloring Book with Midjourney.
Learn everything you need about publishing on KDP. Create your account, launch your book, and start earning royalties!
Take care!
Paolo
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