Is 2021 too late to start a KDP publishing business?
Is it oversaturated too many people doing it?
Are you wasting your time even starting? You may be right,
but that's the question I'm going to answer today.
So we're going to look into this further and also show you some interesting
results I found and those that stay to the end.
I'll also give you some lucrative niche ideas that you can actually take action
on. Now, if you're new to this channel,
my name is Paul Marles and I do videos on how to make it, to keep it, grow it.
And that's your money I'm talking about. And if you do like videos like that,
then please do give it a thumbs up,
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notification of when I produce more videos like this. Okay.
So I get a lot of comments and messages asking if it's too late to start a KDP
publishing business,
creating no content and low content books or people just tell me outright,
it's too saturated, too much competition. It's too late.
There's no profit in this anymore. But strangely,
these comments often come from people who haven't even created any books at all.
But I know if you're here and watching this,
you're certainly interested in creating a part-time or full-time income and
looking to KDP for this, which by the way,
is a great way to produce a passive income.
And you can do this from home or anywhere in the world.
So I decided to take a look and do some in-depth analysis and see whether we
should just forget creating new books,
pack up and go look at some other ideas for making money with an online
business,
or whether we can put on our designer hats and start publishing
profitable books in 2021. So I went to Book Bolt.
If you've not heard of Book Bolt, it's a web based,
no content and low content book research platform.
They've got numerous modules for performing research,
and you can even create covers and download interiors from there.
I'll leave the link below if you're interested in investigating that further,
but there is one module in there that I love for niche research,
and that is the cloud function.
Here you can see the current top 100 books in terms of
sales that are also published on the KDP platform and
in these five categories, notebooks, journals, music, sheets,
calendars, and planners.
So I went through each book in these categories to see when these books were
published and to see how many of those were published in the
last six months. I ignored the calendars because these are date focused.
And I also ignored the dated planners.
By their nature they are usually published towards the latter part of each year
and only sell for a shorter period of time.
So I created a spreadsheet and looked at approximately 300 books.
What I found was 26 books,
approximately 8.5% were within the last six months.
And in fact, the majority of those within the last three months.
So let's take a look at some. First of all, we have this sketchbook,
which is in a highly competitive niche,
and this book has a best sellers rank of 1,147,
at the time of filming this video,
which equates to selling 565 books a month,
which is actually an underestimate.
It's probably more like double that if not more,
I have a book with a bestsellers rank of around 10,000,
which sells around 700 a month,
but let's be conservative and use these figures always better to underestimate.
I think now this one was published on the 20th of October last
year, but is selling well. But what do you notice about it?
They are not just targeting the sketchbook niche,
but they are targeting the anime lovers and many anime lovers also
enjoy drawing anime sketches as well as watching it.
So the author has combined two related niches and created a great
selling book.
They've not just stuck a picture of say a dog on the front and called it a
Labrador sketchbook. Next, look at this,
I've come across the bucket list journal before,
but this has an extra spin on it with national parks,
a bestsellers rank of
36,610 and selling about 300 a month. But look at the publication date,
October, 2020, and take a look at the inside.
It's pretty basic. So I did it, the search for bucket journal, national parks,
and look at this,
all these books here that are selling well and for high prices are
all created recently. So there's no excuses. In fact,
I actually, I might do a video devoted to this particular niche,
but one more thing,
rather than thinking national parks and creating hundreds of those.
Think about how you could do a spin on this and do a bucket list for other
places. Countries, States, Memorial sites,
national heritage sites. It's huge.
And there's some untapped gold mines in there I'm sure.
Now the last one I want to look at is planners, and this is big,
but before we do that, if you're getting benefit from this video,
then hit that like button and give it a jolly good smashing.
YouTube likes it and I do too. Okay. As I said,
I'm going to leave out the dated planners and instead look at the general
planners because dated planners are normally created and bought at the end of
the year. By the way, if you're thinking of dated planners, then start planning,
no pun intended by June, July this year and get them published.
So these made up the biggest bulk of the recently published books that were
selling well and were published in the last six months. But again, all these,
weren't just a basic planner with a floral cover, on the front and,
and thrown up and fingers crossed, hoping for the best.
Thought had gone into them and they were combined with other niches.
Here's some interesting examples. We've got baking planner,
with the best sellers rank of 220,000 selling 180 months and
published in August, 2020.
A cleaning planner bestsellers rank of 152,000 selling
200 a month and published in October, 2020,
and finally a weekly meal planner bestsellers rank of
219,000 selling 220 a month and
published in August, 2020.
Now here's some others I found social media planner, wedding planner,
witch's is planner,
selling huge at the moment and for good profit margins too.
Christian planner and money planner.
So to take this one step further, think of all the hobbies,
interests, pastimes, even sports that could be applied to a planner,
create an individual planner, not just a generic, basic planner interior.
And I really believe you could be onto a winner here. Now,
some other books and niches that I came across,
and these are extra ideas for you were habit journals,
therapist's log books, nature notebooks,
i.e. Things like birdwatching notebooks, mindfulness journal,
and morning routine planner.
Now that should be enough to start you investigating and thinking up some pretty
good ideas for 2021.
So do I think it's possible to start a KDP publishing business
in 2021? Absolutely. Yes, I do 100%,
but you've got to put thought into it.
Combine some popular niches create a spin on an established niche
or cross pollinate as I like to call it and come up with something original if
you want to make the really good consistent sales.
And what you do with this information I've given you?
Create a spreadsheet on something like Google sheets or use an app.
I like to use Microsoft to do,
it's sort of cross-platform software and then rewatch this video
and start making a list of all the niches I've mentioned.
And when you investigate these niches,
you'll come across others and you can write down those ones too on your
list.
And you'll end up with a list that grows and grows and you'll never be short of
ideas.
But what you'll also find as you look at and review your list is that you'll
also come up with ideas for combining different niches.
And that is where the magic is. And that's what I do.
And it's worked for me so far. In fact, my Microsoft to do list,
there must be over 200 and more ideas. Now,
if that wasn't enough and you want to become a publishing machine,
then check out this video here about a super hot KDP
niche. That's ridiculously profitable. Thank you for watching.
Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you again soon. Goodbye.