Low Content VS High Content Self-Publishing – Which One?

Last Updated on April 20, 2022 by Jordan Alexo

Often newcomers to the self-publishing realm soon hear about low-content publishing; Especially nowadays, with everyone talking about it. Others perhaps stumble across someone telling them to publish lengthy books. One of the problems whoever you listen to will always say their publishing strategy is the best one in the world. You should listen to them if you want to make money online.

So what should you choose? High or low content publishing. Well, this post I am about to share with you is my experience. By the end of it, you’ll have a better idea of what path you should pick.

What’s the Difference Between Low Content And High Content Books?

First things first, let’s talk about the main difference between both. Well, low-content books provide little or no content in them. This includes:

• Notebooks
• Puzzle books
• Coloring books
• Guest books
• Calendars

For most of these books, you can create yourself using tools like canva.com and other ones. It requires some effort and creativity on your part, but you don’t need to hire someone to write them. However, coloring books are a different pickle. Here you perhaps need to hire a designer on Upwork or another website. Of course, only if you are a designer yourself. So, this is one of the enticing benefits of low-content; with some effort, you can start making money on Kindle Direct Publishing without wasting a dime.

Now high-content publishing is a different story. High content is your typical nonfiction or fiction book, which may have hundreds of pages of content. Not everyone is a brilliant writer. Some people may not even be fluent in English. For this reason, it’s harder to start publishing this type of book freely. Perhaps, you’ll need to get your books written by a company like The Urban Writers. This company has ghostwriters that will write high-quality books about any topic you can imagine. Now let’s go more in-depth with each one.

Low Content Book

 

PROS

1. Easy to publish: as I already explained before, you can easily design your notebook covers through canva.com and, after a few minutes, publish them on Amazon. Also, you have software that generates puzzle books, etc.
2. No money required: you can start publishing notebooks, guest books, and all sorts of low-content books without needing money as long as you decide to make them yourself. All you need is to have a Kindle Direct Publishing account. You can freely publish your books on their platform.
3. Low entry: the learning curve is lower compared to publishing high content books. You still need to learn a few things. But many people who publish low-content books don’t obtain reviews nor use Amazon ads to promote them. Furthermore, you don’t need to have a budget to order books or for ads campaigns. Usually, this last part stops many people from getting into high-content.

CONS

1. Quantity game: I’ve noticed many low-content publishers seem to have hundreds and sometimes thousands of books to make some money on Amazon. Often these books are sold inexpensively. So, to make money, you need to publish high quantities. For instance, if you publish a notebook, you will probably make about $1 per sale.
2. Monotonous: as you may imagine, the process also becomes monotonous. Imagine needing to publish 500 notebooks to make about $400 monthly. Although you can design their covers and create their interior extremely fast, that’s a lot of work.
3. Effort: you should expect to spend many hours in front of canva.com designing new covers and interiors for your guest books, etc. It becomes incredibly dull, and it takes some creativity to keep up with the constant supply of new low-content books.

I’m more a fan of lower effort and high-effective money makers. However, I’m not telling you not to get your hands on the dough and start publishing low-content books. I publish these books, but I prefer to publish their more profitable counterparts, such as puzzle books.

High-Content Publish

I’ve been publishing this type of book for years now, and that’s what I teach in my newest course Self Publishing Money. I highly suggest you check out this course if you’d like to make bundles of money on Amazon. Just click here to get more information.

PROS

1. High earnings: publishing one book can make a significant difference in your income. I have and had books making over $1.000/m. On average most of them will make around $300. So with a few books, you can have a highly profitable business that will impact your life. In comparison, with low content, you probably would need hundreds of books to make the same earnings.
2. Long-term asset: I have books still making money after three years. Of course, they aren’t making as much as they did initially, but some make between 100 to 300 per month. I must remind you I’m not putting any effort into them. I don’t even use Amazon ads to promote them anymore.

CONS

1. Need money: if you aren’t the brightest writer ever or simply too lazy to write your books, you need money to get started. You should expect to spend about 300 to 600 dollars to get your book written by a ghostwriter. This price range depends on the book’s length and the company or ghostwriter you hire. But you can always start writing your books. However, it takes time and effort. Perhaps, you will need to research topics you haven’t got a clue about. Often the book topics that sell well might be about something you don’t understand. In other words, it’s time-consuming. Still, I’ve seen publishers making a buttload of money by writing their books. You will also possibly need to set a budget for Amazon advertisement. I suggest you use their promotion to help your books sell better on their platform.
2. Steeper Learning Curve: you need to learn a lot more things. I mean, there’s more risk here because it takes more money or time to create these books compared to low-content ones. For this reason, you have to pay more attention to all the little details, such as having an enticing book title, cover, description, and obtaining reviews, etc. On the contrary to low content, where it’s a publish and forget business model.

Finally: Should You Publish Either Low Content or High Content Books?

So, time to answer the big question, which one should you publish?

1. You Are Poor: low-content publishing is more accessible if you don’t have much money to invest because you can quickly produce these books yourself. All you need is to have the proper knowledge to create these books using a service like canva.com. So, you may start publishing these books to build your KDP account. Once you have some money entering, you can invest in high-content books. Usually, your high-content books will be your major money hitters.
2. You Have money: if you have money to invest, I recommend publishing both books. Often when you order a book, you need to wait 20 to 30 days until you receive it. During this time, you can publish a few low-content books aside. This way, everything adds up, your low content books make some chump change (not always the case), and then your high content ones make the big dough. So this way, you are constantly scaling your book business, earning more and more; instead of only relying on a single format to make money.

At least that’s the way I’m operating nowadays. I’m constantly publishing newer books on Amazon. Every month, I publish about one to two high content books, and the rest are low-content. Furthermore, you have an overall more complete KDP account. The problem with only relying on high content is you tend to focus on one niche at a time. Sometimes a niche may sell well during a certain period and not sell so well afterward. This way, you don’t suffer such oscillations.