You may be thinking of doing low content books but you are not sure whether it would generate sales or not. Find out if self publishing low content books would be right for you.
Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around for the third point. Because it is a secret to knowing whether or not low content books are right for you when self-publishing.
So let's get into it. Today's question or topic is self publishing low content books? This is an excellent question that I often hear from authors who are wondering, maybe there's an opportunity to make money in the area of low content books.
Now, you first may be wondering what exactly is a low content book? The answer is a low content book would be something for which it's like a journal where you would be able to fill out things.
It could even be a schedule or a task list or something along the lines wherein when you open up the book and start flipping through the pages of the book, you realize that the book doesn't have chapters that are broken down and have lots of paragraphs and stuff.
But in reality, it has very little content in the book. This particularly can be popular with journals. A journal for this or a journal for that group, a journal for pet owners where a person can write stuff down.
Perhaps you have heard that people who are self publishing low content books can put a lot of them onto the market. And by running ads against those, you're hitting your target niches the people who would maybe want to buy these things.
They could fill out a calendar, a journal, or maybe even something as simple as drawing. Where you would have like an area where you draw a picture of this or draw that, different ways of expressing oneself. But the person who puts the book onto the market doesn't have to do much work at all.
You've heard that some people who were doing this we're making an awful lot of money. So perhaps it would be tempting for you to also go this route. But you're not sure where to get started or whether or not this is right for you.
That is what we're going to hit in today's article. But before we get into the answers, grab a copy of my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist. To make sure that you are not skipping any of the important steps when it comes to getting your book self-published and selling.
So let's get into it, on my own story. I remember several years ago that the journaling craves craze got very very popular. There were lots of journals being put onto the market where people could write down how they're feeling and all sorts of stuff regarding different topics.
It's still considered a very positive thing to do in positive psychology. To write down regularly what we're thinking from a mindfulness approach. So a journal, for example, a book, you buy a paperback, you open it up and you can start filling out daily exactly how you're feeling.
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Another type of low content thing that I had seen also popular would be sort of just like your calendar. You can put out a calendar that maybe has some photos at the top or something along those lines. That would then attract people in funny cat or dog pictures or whatever it would be.
Things that would be appropriate or something that people would be looking for within a given market. But it would require very little effort on the part of the person who's putting together this book. Because after all, you're not having to write an entire book.
You just have a little bit of content at the beginning that's telling them how to use your journal, calendar, task system, planner, or any of these other things. But then you're able to do it.
Discover The Latest Trends
Another thing I was just thinking about was even a newborn baby journal, where you would be documenting the different phases and steps that the baby is going through. Or maybe a medical journal where every time you go to the doctor, you write down what vaccines you may have taken or other things along those lines.
So I started seeing these hitting the market. Then I became aware after watching some Youtube channels that people were making money off of this. They were putting out 10, 20, or 100 journals at a time onto the market targeting different groups.
Like a poodle owner journal, so you could write down every day how you feel your poodle is doing. Because what happens is that when we're niching down, we're able to reach just like with normal books.
If the book is specifically dedicated or designed to what it is our interest is on, then we're going to be able to better appeal to that given market. So this is a general thing and I was getting curious about this particular one.
I started seeing the trends around this thing and then people making money off of it by simply giving people what they already want. But I then started to see that many sites saw what was happening which is that their sites were being flooded with these low content journal books or whatever you might call them.
They started banning people or banning book authors from publishing these books on there which makes it a little bit risky. So that was one of the reasons why I decided not personally to go into it. Though I could still understand doing it.
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But if we were going to do this low content books, I would say it's worth exploring the latest trends. So if we see that a trend is breaking out, whether it's coloring or whatever it is, there's no reason not to jump in on it. As long as it's not in violation of the terms of the website that we're doing it on.
So I don't think you're going to get banned for following a trend as long as it's not trademarked or owned by somebody else. I have seen people get banned for that reason but not for this particular one.
And paying attention so that if a company like Amazon or in the case I remember seeing it was in Lulu or IngramSpark where they were saying "we don't want your low content books on here, your journals or your calendars, do not put them on our website". So they start saying that and we just respect what they are requesting from us.
We do not want to violate or get on the bad side of the companies that are paying us. The second thing is the books are mostly blank. You're just flipping through the pages, it could be hundreds of blank pages.
That can be a little bit of an idea that is maybe unethical when we are putting these low content books on the market. Because a person buys it and there's nothing in there. It's simply blank page after blank page and the people get frustrated.
Maybe they would give you low reviews. But to counter this, we would have it within the description so that they're not going to get this and be disappointed. The whole point of journals, calendars, planners, and other stuff is to have blanks.
Build Your Audiences
But the journal would guide the person in a direction that would help them to best use it. And when they buy it, they shouldn't be surprised to see that the pages are blank. Because that is what they were expecting when they purchased it, right?
They can't be all complaining about it because of getting something that it already told them in the description, that's what they would be getting. So the first thing is that it's not a good idea in the long run since you aren't building an audience.
That's one of the reasons I would say this probably isn't a good idea and that's the secret answer of the day. It is because we're not building an audience once we've sold our white poodle journal. We're not going to then be able to sell our black poodle journal to the same person because it's just the same book.
So we're really not building an audience over time and we're not niching down to a specific audience. It's just a one-off sale and it's a trend. So it can become very unpopular if you just give it time.
This is the reason like with coloring books, very popular for a short period and then they lose their popularity as we continue. But it is important to note that it's not unethical to do this low content publishing because we're not misleading anybody.
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We are simply selling something already popular to people. But we need to make it clear that many of the pages will be blank and that when they're going into it, they will not be disappointed.
They also can flip through the book like on Amazon, it allows them to look through the pages. So that there's no misunderstanding as to what exactly we're selling them. I believe that many people will be happy with a purchase like this because journaling is a very powerful skill set.
To gain clarity over your internal thought processes. So what you're selling is something that would be useful. I also find journaling very useful but I don't need to pay $20 to get a journal to do it.
I can simply use my iPad and take notes inside one of the handwriting note apps on the thing. As opposed to paying money for it. But for some people, this could meet a need and so I'm saying that this may be something worth considering.
Jumping on fads can also be very profitable, so I'm not arguing against that. I'm just saying for the long term, it's difficult to build a business off of this. And many of the main websites where we will publish our books, they're saying we do not want these books.
You need to be aware of which books they're saying "we don't want them". So that's something else that you need to keep in mind. So my question for you today is have you tried self publishing low content books?
If you have, write "Yes" below in the comments and if you've never done it, write "No" below in the comments. That will help me better understand where you're coming from.
So I can put articles and videos out on the topics that best address the problems you're facing. Check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.