Low Content Books KDP: High-Profit Niches & Templates

Okay so I just uploaded three new planners last week and two of them are already ranking on page one for their keywords, which is kinda wild because the competition looked brutal at first glance.

Here’s the thing about low content books on KDP – everyone thinks it’s saturated but they’re looking at the wrong data. Like, yeah if you search “password book” you’ll find 50,000 results but most of those listings are garbage. No proper keywords, terrible covers, descriptions that look like they were written by someone who doesn’t speak English. Your actual competition is maybe 200-300 books that are doing it right.

The Niches That Actually Make Money Right Now

I’m gonna be real with you – the basic stuff still works but you need angles. Password logbooks? Add “large print” or “alphabetical tabs” or make it for a specific group like “for seniors” or “for small business owners.” That specificity is what gets you the sale because people think it was made FOR them.

Planners are my bread and butter honestly. I’ve got like 40 different planner variations live right now. The ones that perform best are super specific: social media content planners for Instagram creators, meal prep planners for keto diet people, cleaning schedules for people with ADHD (this one surprised me but it sells consistently).

Wait I forgot to mention – budget planners. Oh man, budget planners. I have one that’s been making $400-800 per month for the past year and a half. It’s called something like “Paycheck Budget Planner” and it’s designed for people who get paid biweekly. That’s it. That’s the angle. Most budget books assume monthly income but tons of people get paid every two weeks and the math is different.

Journals That Don’t Suck

Guided journals are where it’s at if you can write decent prompts. I’m not talking about “dear diary” blank journals – those don’t sell unless you have an incredible cover or you’re in a micro niche.

Gratitude journals still work but you gotta niche down. Gratitude journal for new moms. Gratitude journal for cancer survivors. Gratitude journal for teachers. See the pattern?

Prompted journals are honestly easier to rank because there’s less competition. Like I made this “Therapy Journal” with CBT-style prompts and questions and it does way better than my blank journals. People want structure, they want someone to tell them what to think about.

Logbooks and Trackers

This category is slept on. Blood pressure log books sell like crazy – the market is older people who need to track this stuff for their doctor. Medication trackers. Blood sugar logs for diabetics.

But also think about hobby trackers. I’ve got a fishing log that makes me like $150-200 a month. Took me maybe 3 hours to make the interior. It’s literally just tables with columns for date, location, weather, bait used, fish caught. That’s it.

Reading logs for kids are huge during back-to-school season. I published one in June last year and it made like $80 in July, then August hit and it jumped to $600. Now it steadies out around $200-300 monthly.

Oh and another thing – vehicle maintenance logs. People who are into cars LOVE tracking their oil changes and repairs and mileage. The beautiful thing about this niche is these customers actually USE the book regularly so they come back and buy another one when they fill it up.

The Template Situation

So everyone asks me about templates and where to get them. Honestly I make most of mine from scratch in Canva or PowerPoint because then I know nobody else has the exact same interior. But when I was starting out I used some templates and they worked fine.

Creative Fabrica has unlimited downloads if you pay for their subscription – it’s like $8/month or something. They have tons of KDP interiors. The quality is hit or miss though. Some are really professional, others look like someone made them in Microsoft Word in 2003.

Book Bolt has templates included with their software subscription. I use Book Bolt mainly for research and keyword stuff but their templates are decent. The problem is everyone else using Book Bolt has access to the same templates so you gotta customize them significantly.

There’s also sellers on Etsy who make KDP templates. I’ve bought a few bundles and they’re usually pretty good quality. Just make sure you have the commercial license to use them.

Making Your Own Is Easier Than You Think

Real talk – you don’t need fancy software. PowerPoint or Google Slides works perfectly fine for most low content interiors. I made my first 20 books entirely in PowerPoint.

For planners and journals you’re basically just creating tables, text boxes, and lines. That’s it. A weekly planner page is just a table with 7 columns and some header text. You can bang out a 100-page interior in a few hours once you get the hang of it.

The key is to make sure your margins are correct – KDP has specific margin requirements depending on your page count. Nothing worse than uploading a book and having the text cut off because you didn’t leave enough bleed space. Been there, done that, had to redo 40 pages. Not fun.

Covers Make or Break You

Your cover is 80% of whether someone clicks on your book. Maybe 90%. I’ve had amazing interiors that sold terribly because the cover looked homemade.

Canva Pro is worth it just for the covers alone. They have templates specifically for book covers and you can customize them enough that they don’t look like everyone else’s. The key is to look at the top sellers in your niche and match that vibe. If all the top password books have minimalist covers with one main image, don’t make yours super busy with 10 different graphics.

Colors matter more than you’d think. I A/B tested this once by publishing the same planner with three different cover colors. The teal version outsold the pink version by like 3 to 1. Same interior, same keywords, same everything. Just different cover color.

Text on your cover needs to be readable in the tiny thumbnail. Pull up Amazon on your phone and look at book listings – those thumbnails are SMALL. If someone can’t read your title from the search results, they’re not clicking.

Stock Photos vs Graphics

I go back and forth on this. Stock photos can look really professional if you choose the right ones. Unsplash and Pexels have free photos you can use commercially. But a lot of KDP publishers use the same popular images so you might see your cover design on other books.

Graphics and illustrations tend to be more unique. I subscribe to Creative Fabrica mainly for their graphics library. For like $8 a month I can download unlimited graphics, fonts, illustrations, all that stuff. I use their graphics on probably 70% of my covers now.

Oh wait I should mention – fonts. The font you choose for your title matters so much. Script fonts are hard to read in thumbnails so I avoid them unless the niche really calls for it (like wedding planners). Bold, thick sans-serif fonts work best for most niches. My dog just knocked over my coffee while I was looking up font names but you get the idea.

Keywords and Ranking

This is where most people mess up. They make a decent book with a decent cover and then use terrible keywords so nobody ever finds it.

KDP gives you seven keyword boxes. Use all seven. Don’t waste them on single words – use phrases that people actually search for. “Password logbook” is better than just “password.” But “password logbook with alphabetical tabs” is even better because it’s more specific.

Book Bolt and Publisher Rocket are the two main tools people use for keyword research. I use Book Bolt because I like their interface better but they both work fine. You’re looking for keywords with decent search volume but not insane competition.

Here’s my strategy: I look for keywords where the top results have BSR (best seller rank) above 100,000. That means they’re selling maybe a few copies a month. If I can make a better book than them and optimize better, I can take their spot.

Long-tail keywords are your friend. Instead of targeting “planner” (impossible to rank for), target “daily planner for work with hourly schedule” or whatever specific thing your planner does.

Your Seven Backend Keywords

Don’t repeat words across your seven keyword boxes – Amazon’s algorithm is smart enough to combine words. So if you put “daily planner” in box one and “hourly schedule” in box two, Amazon will also rank you for “daily planner hourly schedule.”

Use all the character space they give you. Each box allows like 50 characters or something. Fill them up with relevant phrases separated by commas.

Include common misspellings if they apply. People searching for “organisor” (British spelling) or “calander” (misspelling) should still find your planner.

Pricing Strategy That Works

Most low content books sell between $5.99 and $9.99. That’s the sweet spot where customers don’t think twice about buying but you still make decent royalty.

I price most of my books at $6.99 or $7.99. At $6.99 I make about $2.50 per sale after Amazon takes their cut. Doesn’t sound like much but if you’ve got 50 books each selling 5-10 copies a month, that adds up fast.

Thicker books (200+ pages) you can price higher. I have a massive meal planning book that’s 300 pages and I sell it for $12.99. People expect bigger books to cost more.

Don’t underprice yourself trying to compete. I see people selling 120-page planners for $3.99 and they’re making like 60 cents per sale. That’s not sustainable. Make a better book and charge a fair price.

Seasonal Stuff You Should Know

Q4 is insane for KDP. Like, my sales literally triple from October through December. Planners especially go nuts because people are buying them for the new year.

You need to publish seasonal stuff at least 2-3 months early. Want to catch the Christmas market? Your books need to be live by September so they have time to get reviews and rank. Amazon’s algorithm favors older listings that have sales history.

Back to school season (July-September) is huge for teacher planners, student planners, reading logs, homework trackers, all that stuff.

Wedding season is spring and summer. Wedding planners and guest books sell best March through August.

Evergreen vs Seasonal

I probably have 60% evergreen books and 40% seasonal. Evergreen stuff like password books, budget planners, and journals sell year-round. Seasonal stuff spikes hard but then drops off.

The strategy is to have enough evergreen books making consistent money so you’re not stressed when your Christmas planners stop selling in January.

This Is Gonna Sound Weird But Test Everything

I published two nearly identical prayer journals once – same interior, similar keywords, but different cover styles. One had a watercolor floral cover, the other had a minimalist geometric design. The geometric one outsold the floral one by 5 to 1. I would have never guessed that.

You can’t predict what will sell. I’ve had books I spent days on that flopped completely. And I’ve had books I threw together in an afternoon that make me $300 a month for years.

The only way to figure out what works is to publish stuff and see what happens. Start with 10-20 books in a few different niches. After three months you’ll see which ones are gaining traction and you can make more variations of those.

Publishing on KDP costs nothing except your time so there’s no risk in testing. The books that don’t sell just sit there. The ones that do sell cover the time you spent on the ones that didn’t.

Anyway that’s most of what I know about KDP low content books that actually makes money. There’s obviously more details and strategies but this is the core stuff that matters. Once you get a few books ranking and making sales the whole thing starts to snowball.