Transcription
If you're looking for a reliable, sustainable way to make thousands of dollars every single month without relying on anyone else, then this video is for you. I personally made over $1.7 million with this business model, and the best part is that you don't need any special qualifications. You don't need to show your face online, you don't need a good credit score, and you don't have to deal with selling physical products or some kind of service. All you need is a computer, an internet connection, and a willingness to learn.
You can do this business anywhere in the world. I lived in places like Bali, Thailand, Hawaii, a little bit in Europe, and so much more while building this business online. So I know exactly how frustrating it is being trapped in the traditional income model. Back in 2016, I was making eight bucks an hour plus commission working at a retail job, sharing a tiny apartment with five other roommates just to save money. I knew there had to be a better way, but literally every single business model I tried, I kept failing. That was until I discovered this business model that completely changed my life. It not only allowed me to quit my job but has consistently brought me in multiple six figures a year. So in this video, I'll show you exactly what this business model is, how it works, and how you can get started.
All right, so let's get right into it. So what exactly is this business model? Well, this business model is called Amazon KDP. It's basically self-publishing books on Amazon, and the craziest part is you don't even have to be a writer to do this. So you want to think about it this way: when you walk into Barnes & Noble or browse Amazon's bookstore, many of those books aren't actually published by the authors themselves. They're being published by big publishing companies like Simon and Schuster, Penguin Random House, and many more. So these publishing companies analyze what's trending in the market, what people are buying, and then they find authors to write books that meet that demand. So that is exactly what we're doing, but on a smaller scale. We're essentially becoming our own mini publishing company. We identify what books are selling on Amazon and then we go and create books that meet that demand.
Now, I know what you're thinking, "Well, Sean, I'm not a writer," or maybe, "I don't speak good English." Well, don't worry, because believe it or not, I went through the same exact struggle. I am actually from Japan, right? So English is my second language. I moved from Japan to the US when I was 14, and I had a really heavy accent that I spent a lot of time trying to get rid of. I also have students in my coaching program who do not speak English as their first language, and they are getting really good results. Like this student from Italy who made $161,000 his first year with just 10 books, or this student from France who made over $1 million in total lifetime earnings in around just 2.5 years.
So you also might be thinking, "Oh, I know nothing about publishing," or, "You know, I'm not skilled enough to do this." Neither did literally everyone else who started this business. Initially, they had no idea how this works. They didn't have the skills, but that is okay. No one is born knowing how to do anything. The beautiful thing about Amazon KDP is that the business model is extremely simple. Amazon wants more publishers on the platform because it makes them more money, so they try to make it as simple as possible for you. So it's very cool because you can earn while you learn.
So the reason why you want to focus on selling on Amazon is because Amazon has millions of customers going to Amazon looking for things to buy every single day. They're actively searching for solutions to their problems or entertainment through books. So all we have to do is basically position our books to show up in front of them when they make the search on Amazon, and Amazon handles everything, okay? So printing, you don't have to do shipping, customer service, nothing. Amazon does all of that for you. So they basically give us access to their huge customer base, and we just have to provide them the books that customers want.
So I've personally published books in multiple niches: self-help, business, activity books, and I did this while being a broke 21-year-old kid with basically no skills. So if I could figure this out starting from zero knowledge about publishing, then you can too.
Now, let me tell you exactly why I believe Amazon KDP is the best online business for beginners, especially if you're looking for true freedom in life. And when I say freedom, I'm talking about what I call the Freedom Trifecta. So that is financial freedom, time freedom, and location freedom. Now, most businesses might give you one or two of these, but very few businesses actually give you all three.
So let's break this down. If you think about service-based businesses like agencies or freelancing, yes, you can make good money doing it, but you're constantly dealing with demanding clients, sending cold emails, jumping on sales calls. You're trading time for money. The moment you stop working, the moment you stop getting paid. So you have no time freedom. Or if you look at physical product-based businesses like Amazon FBA, you have to deal with inventory, shipping headaches, you know, manufacturing issues. You're tied down to one location because someone has to deal with the logistics. As someone who has experience in similar business models like this, I can tell you that it's kind of a nightmare. So these businesses do not give you location freedom.
But with Amazon KDP, it's completely different, okay? First off, you can be completely anonymous if you want. You can use pen names to publish books, like me. I never use my real name to publish books, and that is completely fine. It is a very common practice, like J.K. Rowling from the Harry Potter series, that is a pen name too. You never have to show your face, you never have to get on social media, you never have to do any networking. Your book sells itself under a pen name while you're completely anonymous. And the passive income potential is honestly insane too. I'm still making money from books I published years ago. A lot of my students make money from their books that they published years ago, and that is because once your book is on Amazon, it stays there for life. While Amazon's doing all the work, of course, you should still market your book, but Amazon's algorithm also helps you find your customers. So you literally make money while you're sleeping. I wake up to new sales every morning from customers who bought my books while I was sleeping. Like this student of ours made $4,800 in a month while barely doing any work for that month because he had some health issues and then he had to take holidays off.
And here's what makes this truly sustainable: Amazon handles everything operational. So you don't need a warehouse, you don't need to worry about shipping, you don't even need to think about printing books because when someone orders your book, Amazon prints it, ships it, and handles any customer service that might happen. After all of this happens automatically without you lifting a finger. And the payment process is very simple too. Amazon pays you every month around the same time. It's a very simple process.
But what's even crazier is that the market is growing year over year. More people are reading than ever before. You know, you might have seen this trend of people coming back to reading, whether that's to learn something or to, you know, entertain themselves, right? There are a lot of different books that you can create. But on top of that, the global sales of books are growing by 16% each year, and the audiobook market alone is projected to triple in size by 2030. So this isn't some trend that's going to die out. People will always want to read books, whether for entertainment purposes or to learn something.
And I've helped hundreds of students of mine make money with Amazon KDP and build a successful publishing business, and I can tell you this: the ones who succeed aren't necessarily the best writers or the most creative people. They're the ones that treat this like a real business and follow a system. Because at the end of the day, that is what this is. It is a business system that anyone can learn and implement.
So let me explain this business model in a way that really helps you understand how crazy it is. So I always compare this business model to real estate investing. So this business model is like real estate investing, but without the huge upfront costs and headaches of managing physical properties. So when someone buys a rental property, they spend a lot of time and money fixing up the property and getting it ready for a tenant. But once you get a tenant in, it becomes pretty passive, and they collect rent checks every single month. Well, that is exactly how KDP works. Each book you publish is like your own piece of digital real estate. You do the work once to create it, and then it pays you royalties every single month, often times for years. Just like how you can build a portfolio of multiple rental properties, you can do the exact same thing building a portfolio of multiple books.
But on top of that, this is the best part that most people do not know about, okay? Just like how you can sell a portfolio of rental properties, you can actually sell your Amazon KDP business too. I actually sold my first KDP account for $820,000. So think about that, right? I built this portfolio of digital assets from scratch, enjoyed the passive income for years, then in the end, I sold it for a life-changing amount. And guess what? After you sell it, you can come back and do it again. That's exactly what I did with my new KDP account that I'm building. You know, I build it back up to six figures a year real quick. Like you can't do that with most businesses. Try selling a YouTube business, as an example. If I try to sell my channel, this channel that you're watching, like it's almost impossible because my face is the brand. Like you can't sell this. No one can come in and, you know, start making money from this channel if I leave. So some businesses that you build, you just cannot sell. But with KDP, you're building a real sellable asset.
And the beautiful thing is, you don't need a ton of books to make good money. Even a small portfolio of high-quality books in the right niche can generate a pretty good monthly income. Like this student who made $93,000 in a single month with just 27 books. And on top of all this, with the rising AI, it's getting easier and easier to create high-quality books. And I just want to say that no, we are not spamming low-quality AI books, okay? We are using AI to help us make better books faster.
So let me break down exactly how this business works and why some approaches work better than others. There are basically three main types of books you can publish on Amazon KDP. First, you have low-content books, like these, like journals, planners, notebooks. A lot of people start here because they're easy to make. You can literally create these books within 30 minutes using Canva for free. And that is exactly why I do not recommend them. Because here's the thing about business: when something is easy to do, literally everyone else is also doing it. And when everyone else does it, then you're competing with 99% of other people. Think about it: if you can make a book in 30 minutes using Canva, what's stopping other people from doing the exact same thing? So although these books can be very profitable, like the ones on the screen are making good money, it's usually the most competitive for this reason.
So next, you have medium-content books. You know, these are coloring books, puzzle books, activity books that require a little bit more work because you need actual designs and content inside. And because of that higher barrier to entry, there are less people doing it, which means less competition, and you typically make more money. And you can make really great money in these niches. But in my opinion, the best books to create are high-content books, specifically full-length non-fiction books, typically 150 to 200 pages. Yes, they take more time or money to create, but here's why I think they're the best: and that is because you can create multiple income streams from one book.
So let me show you how that works. Let's say you want to publish a book on productivity. So first, you can sell it as an ebook, as you can see this is on the Amazon page. So there's an ebook option, but you can also turn it into a paperback book and sell it that way. You can also create a hardcover version and even an audiobook version. So just from this one book, you have four different income streams, four different ways to sell it. And on top of that, you can translate the book into multiple languages like Spanish, German, French, and many, many more. Like this one book makes an additional $49 a day just translating it into Spanish. So this is a Spanish version of this book. The English version is doing $100 a day, while the Spanish version, just by translating it, is suddenly doing another $49 a day. And on top of that, you can even bundle it with your other related books, which becomes a whole new book you can sell. So this is how you can take one book and turn it into seven-plus different income streams. You cannot do this with journals or low-content books, like you can't turn a blank journal into an audiobook or an ebook. This is why I always push people into high-content books, even though they are a little bit harder to create.
But here's the most important thing: regardless of what types of books you publish, the quality is absolutely crucial. Too many people try to just spam low-quality books thinking quantity is how you win. But you've got to think about this from Amazon's perspective. Like, Amazon's whole goal is to make money, but also make their customers happy. If your book gets bad reviews because it's low quality, Amazon's just going to stop promoting it. But if your book consistently gets good reviews, then Amazon will know that it's a good product, and they're going to keep pushing it more and more. And that is how you make passive income.
So let me walk you through exactly how to get started with this business. The most important first step isn't writing a book, it's doing proper market research. This is where 99% of people get it completely wrong. Most people write a book first and then they try to find people who want to buy it. This is completely backwards. Instead, you want to validate if people are already buying books on this topic and then you go and create a book on it. And this is as simple as going to Amazon's bestseller categories and see what people are buying. So as an example, I typed in a topic that I'm interested in, in this case, decluttering, and I'm just going to see if the books on this topic are selling. And what you want to look for are books with below 880,000 in this number right here. So I have a tool called Book Bolt that tells me how much the book is making in royalties every single day plus the best seller's rank. But this is a paid tool. So if you want to do this for free, all you have to do is open up the product and you scroll down until you find this section called the product details, and then it says the best seller's rank. 13,890 in books. So I look for a very specific criteria: you want to find at least three books under 880,000 BSR. That tells me that the topic is profitable because if it's around $80,000, that means that the book is making on average of $500 a month. So just by doing this quick validation process, it can literally save you months of making the book just for it to not sell.
Now, when it comes to actually creating your book, you have two options. You can either do it yourself to save money, or outsource it to save time. But you've got to understand that you're always paying with time or money. That is just business. So when I started, I had no money, but I had a lot of time, so I did more of the things myself. But now I have more money, but very little time, so I pretty much outsource everything. The great thing about this business is that AI has made it a lot easier and faster to create these books. What used to take weeks can now be done in hours, if not minutes. But what you don't want to do is just copy-paste everything from AI and just upload that. That is a very quick way to get negative reviews and kill your business. AI should be a tool to help you, but not a replacement.
So in terms of investment, you can technically start with $0 if you're willing to do everything yourself. But realistically, if you want to create high-quality books that make you good money, then it is recommended to have at least $500 to $800 per book minimum. This covers professional cover design, formatting, and marketing. Of course, the more you have, the better. But if you want to just cut costs, once again, you just do more things yourself. So technically, the startup cost can be close to zero if you wanted to. The timeline to your first sale can be as quick as a few days after publishing, especially if you've got a good book in a good niche. But here's what I tell all my students: you want to treat the first 30 days as your ranking period. That's when Amazon gives your book preferential treatment, shows your book to more people, and you can potentially make more sales. You want to focus on getting as many reviews and sales during this period, even if that means pricing your book a little bit lower. Based on myself and hundreds of student results, here's a realistic timeline: your first $1,000 a month can happen within the first two to three months if you're doing everything right. I personally hit $10K a month in 10 months, but that's a bit above average. A more realistic goal to aim would be between $5 to $10,000 per month within your first year. You have to remember that this is a real business and not a get-rich-quick scheme. You're building assets that will pay you for years to come, so it's worth taking the time to do it right.
The biggest mistakes I see people make is chasing quantity over quality. They see someone making good money and they just think, "Oh, I just got to publish more books." But I also did that early on in my business, and my income was stuck for literally a year and a half because I was focusing on quantity and not quality. And the moment I changed this to focus on quality, my income exploded. Next, you have to do market research. Don't just guess what might sell. Look at the data, look at the BSR numbers, look at what is already selling, and try to make something that is better. That is the best way to prevent yourself from wasting so much time creating a book no one wants. And third, your book cover has to be amazing. This is not the place to save money, right? I see so many people trying to save $5, $10, $30 that you can pay some professional designer to create a book cover for you for, and instead, they try to save that by creating a book cover on Canva when they're not even a designer, they don't even have the design skills, and their book cover just sucks, and their book doesn't sell. When again, you could have paid someone $30, have a pretty good book cover to get started with. Lastly, you need a system for getting reviews. So I don't care how good your book is, if you don't have reviews, it's not going to sell. You need ways to get legitimate, real reviews for your book. Now, I do share tons of strategies on how you can get real reviews for your books in my Amazon KDP program. If you guys want to check it out, and these strategies work. So this is a student of mine who got 100 reviews in his first month.
All right guys, so hopefully this video showed you the potential of this business model and how amazing it is for Amazon to just pretty much handle most things that you normally have to do as a business owner. How incredible the opportunities right now with the market growing, and how you can get started now. If you want to take this business seriously, then there are a few options for you to move forward from here.
The first option is if you want to work with us directly and have us help you take your KDP business to the next level, then you can apply for our coaching program, which is the first link in the description below. So it'll take you to this page here, and from there, you can fill out the form, get on a free call with one of my coaches. You can ask us any questions you have, and we can see if this is a good fit. Now, a quick disclaimer is that this is a paid coaching program. It costs money to join. It's not a free coaching call. It is a call to see if my paid coaching program is a good fit for you. Also, I want you to know that we do not work with those looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. This is a real business, and a real business takes time, okay? We also don't work with entitled or rude people. So if you're coming in here, you know, posting stupid comments under this video saying, "Oh, this is a scam, it doesn't work," you know, this and that, don't even try to book a call because we don't want to work with you. We only want to work with people who are serious, who are positive, and we enjoy working with. And lastly, we don't work with people that we genuinely don't think we can help. So after the call, if we think this is not a good fit, then we'll straight up tell you, it's probably not a good fit, and we will not even try to sell you this program because, once again, we only want to work with people that we think we can help.
Now, if you're not ready to commit to a paid coaching program, that's fine too, right? I'm not here to try to pressure you into joining something that you don't want to join. You know, I have a ton of free content on YouTube, so you guys can get started there. And, you know, the thing is, you're always paying with time or money, as I said many, many times. So if you're watching my free content, you have to piece together different information, and it's going to take you way longer, probably, to succeed. But I've got some pretty great videos, so it's a good starting point, and this option is completely fine as well.
So the last thing is, if you made it all the way until this section of the video, then you're obviously committed. So I want you guys to let me know that you made it all the way here. So comment below "All in," and I'll try and answer as many questions as possible. But with that being said, hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, leave a like, subscribe. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you guys in the next one.