Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
It’s not overly difficult to publish low-content books on Amazon. And if you have a good idea, it could net you some serious income. But what ideas are the best for a low-content book?
As long as you can market to a specific niche, the possibilities are endless.
Now, I say a “specific niche,” simply because of the sheer market saturation that is currently on Amazon. But if you can come up with something somewhat unique for your target audience, it can take you pretty far.
11 Low-Content Book Ideas That Have Great Possibilities
In this article, I’m also including ideas that aren’t necessarily low-content, according to Amazon. These include things like puzzle books or coloring books.
Although not a lot of actual content goes into them, they are still not generally labeled as low-content.
Still, there isn’t as much effort into publishing these as opposed to writing, proofreading, or editing a full-length novel. In reality, some ideas could take you less than an hour or two to publish.
Lined, Dotted, Grid Notebooks
Notebooks come in all shapes and sizes. From lined college-ruled paper to graph (or grid) sheets, there are a lot of different uses for various writers.
Some will have plain white paper for writing while other notebooks will have pages that take on more of an aged and ancient appearance. It all depends on the purpose, niche, and target market for the notebooks.
You could incorporate inspirational sayings on the cover, display some amazing artwork, or create notebooks for specific games and uses.
Unfortunately, Amazon currently doesn’t support embossed or 3-D printed covers such as you would see with leather-bound books.
Prompt Notebooks
Writing prompt notebooks are exceptionally popular with certain audiences. These could be anything from story prompt ideas to stir creative juices to a single-word prompt to practice writing.
In fact, writing prompts are quite popular on social media. Granted, this idea would be more on a grand scale than a 180-character tweet on Twitter.
Still, these types of notebooks can offer a lot of ideas to put together a low-content book.
Affirmation journals, positivity, self-improvement, personal growth of any kind, poetry prompts, and much more have a decent return according to publishing dates and reviews.
Log Books for Specific Needs
One of the more popular ideas for low-content books includes log books. And like everything else in this list, they can be for a variety of specific purposes.
Some will be completely blank, making for a multipurpose book for just about anything. While others will have specific uses in mind, such as a log book for diabetics.
As long as you provide the adequate entries needed for proper record-keeping, a log book has great potential for sales on Amazon.
You can create log books ranging from games to business. And if you have a specific theme or niche in mind, it makes the book that much more unique.
Journals and Diaries
Although you can publish paperback journals and diaries, some of the most popular are produced as hardcover books. In any case, these are often great ideas, especially if you’re targeting a certain niche with some brilliant artwork.
Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t currently have the capacity to add locking mechanisms to journals or diaries.
However, many people will still use a nicely-designed notebook as a journal or diary. I know I have several that I use to jot down my ideas and innermost thoughts.
All it takes is a bit of unique artwork and your book could be a hit with your audience.
Daily, Weekly, or Monthly Planners
Despite technology and keeping track of dates on smartphones, people often still use planners of all kinds. And if you can get a bit creative or connect it to a genre or niche, all the better.
For instance, instead of merely putting sections for date entries, you could tie it in with academics for classes and curriculum. Or, perhaps you could create a dietary planner for meal prepping.
Then, you could further niche down and create a keto-friendly meal prep planner complete with quick ideas for snacks on each page.
That’s just one example as you could dive relatively deep with ideas for low-content books. It really comes down to your imagination and providing what people would want to use.
Recipe Books
Recipe books don’t always have to be loaded with pre-designed meals. Blank recipe cookbooks allow users to add their own, which easily personalizes the cooking experience.
Amazon is full of recipe books of all kinds, and some have a bit of a design flare to their inner pages. And like everything else, you can narrow the genre, niche, or even cuisine to include specifics of such.
These types of low-content books work so well that I’ve seen some ideas rank very high in various categories on Amazon. One such blank recipe book is in the top 100 for “Cooking Encyclopedias” mostly because of the font and design of the pages.
Different diets, specific food types, seasonal ideas, and more can offer shoppers a unique experience tailored to exacting needs.
Inspirational Quotes Notebooks
Inspirational quotes are a big thing today. Whether they’re spread through social media or sold as cards, people love the positivity to any degree.
If you’ve seen the Monday night live streams on the YouTube channel, we often go over positivity and affirmation cards once per week.
In any case, you could create a low-content notebook and show short inspirational quotes in the corners. In fact, the fitness log book I have uses inspirational quotes in its content in this fashion.
The hardest part about this idea is coming up with something unique and profound. Then again, you can do what many others have done and simply lift a few of the best quotes off of social media.
Personally, I’d try to cite where the quote originated if at all possible.
Coloring Books
Coloring books are popular ideas for low-content books. In fact, YouTube is filled with tutorials about how to make them with existing stock images from Canva, which I don’t support.
The more unique the coloring book, the better off you’ll be.
Anyway, coloring books are extremely versatile and not necessarily meant specifically for kids. To get an idea of what I’m talking about, search for “horror coloring books” on Amazon.
The hardest part about creating a coloring book is getting the pictures themselves. If you’re not a graphic designer, you might want to consider hiring someone on a platform like Fiverr to help you out.
Activity Books
Activity books are still exceptionally common low-content book ideas. Even though Amazon doesn’t classify them as such, some are very easy to put together.
Like the coloring book suggestion above, these can also be tailored for people of all ages. It mostly comes down to your target consumer.
Now, the difficult part of designing activity books is structuring and creating those activities. For example, doing the research and setting up the connection of words for a crossword puzzle takes a great deal of effort.
Some activities are obviously easier to create than others. But if you can find and tailor them to a niche market, publishing these books can work exceptionally well.
Sketchbooks
Sketchbooks are incredibly easy to create as most offer a simple blank space to start drawing. However, there’s nothing wrong with adding a bit of flair or pizzazz to the book.
For example, you could publish a sketchbook of drawing prompts. Or, you could combine a sketchbook with a journal where half of the page is blank for drawing and the other half has lines for writing.
There are actually quite a few different ways you can design a seemingly simple sketchbook. It mostly depends on your imagination and the type of people of whom you’re targeting.
Could you put together a horror-themed sketchbook with descriptive drawing prompts of dark creatures?
Niche Guestbooks
Guestbooks are still used today for a myriad of purposes. And they can go beyond just a simple notebook with lines available for people to sign their names.
Some will have short sections for words of wisdom or little messages attached depending on the circumstance.
You’ll see a guestbook for anniversaries, baby showers, birthdays, graduations, retirements, weddings, and more. If there is a social or family event, you could probably find a guestbook for it.
Using Canva for Low-Content Books
Ok, what if you have a few great ideas for your low-content book? How and where do you start the design process?
One of my favorite online graphic design tools is Canva. It has one of the largest template selections on the Internet and can accommodate a wide range of needs.
You can start by simply searching for the project in question and see if Canva already has a template.
For example, let’s say I wanted to design a journal. I’d search for “journal” in Canva to see what comes up.
From here, you can create covers and pages for your low-content book ideas. The hardest part is actually combining all of the graphics into a single file to upload to Kindle Direct Publishing.
Luckily, there are plenty of ways you can merge PDF files for free. For example, you can go directly to Adobe and use the browser-based app to combine your PDFs into one.
Why do this? Because you can only upload a single file to KDP. So, you’ll need to have PDFs of all the materials you want to add to the low-content book and then merge them together. And yes, Adobe does have the ability to reorder the files if you need to.
This means you can ensure your front and back matter are where they should be before the merge.
Of course, you’ll also want to keep note of the size of the book you want to create. Amazon has quite a few options for dimensions, style, and binding. So, take all of that into consideration when prepping your low-content book.
Marketing for Low-Content Book Ideas
Due to the overwhelming popularity of low-content book ideas, a lot of people struggle to make a sale. That’s mostly because the market is over-saturated with all kinds of duplicate and stock-photo-based content.
If you want to sell these kinds of books, you need to go beyond the quick-and-easy route that so many YouTubers and bloggers push. It’s just not going to work as well today as it did a few years ago.
Above, I gave all kinds of examples for each idea type. And one thing I was quite consistently sharing is finding a niche or a specific target audience to engage.
One of my favorite examples is the horror coloring book for adults. Based on the reviews and the publish date, it’s easy to assume that particular coloring book has sold an amazing number of copies.
That’s because the creator focused on a very specific audience.
You also need to consider actual marketing tactics outside of just creating for a niche market. As with any book you want to publish on Amazon, you can’t purely rely on search traffic alone.
If people don’t know the book exists, they’re not going to buy it.
This is when you take to social media, email lists from your blog, local bookstores, and other platforms to get your book out to the public as much as possible.
You can still make money selling low-content books. It’s just going to rely on more legwork from yourself to make a lot of those sales. It’s not simply a case of passive income today.
Where Do You Get Ideas for Your Books?
There are quite a few ways you can expand on low-content book ideas. It all comes down to having a specific audience in mind and producing what they’ll buy. It takes a bit of research on your part but isn’t an overly difficult process.
It’s no longer the make-money-fast scheme that people made it out to be a couple of years ago. As I said, market saturation destroys value.
However, niching down and being more vigilant to market the book can overcome a lot of hurdles. Just don’t expect to replace a full-time income overnight.
You don’t necessarily need ideas for a gripping story if you’re focusing on something quick and basic. It mostly comes down to design and piquing a buyer’s interest.
Personally, I plan on using them more as an extension of what I already create. In fact, I bet a lot of my viewers and readers would appreciate publishing a creative writing prompt book. I could go so far as to tie it into the next book I publish.
How fun would that be? Writing prompts of descriptions of creatures in my book so people can draw their own versions?
What kind of low-content ideas are you toying with for your book?
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