After doing your niche research and finding areas of interest to create low-content books in, think beyond just blank books and optimize a niche with a full range of low-content book types. Here are some of my favorite low-content books that sell really well.
Review Books
From wine tastings to movies, anything that people consume is a great opportunity for a review book. Give people a book of pre-made templates to help them remember which items they would buy again and which they’d pass on. Include spots for brands, where the item was bought, price, rating, notes. The more specifics you can include the better, as enthusiasts love to record their experiences.
Subject-Based Study Notebooks
Some education subjects benefit from templated note taking. While their are lots of generic note-taking templates out there like Cornell notes, dig deeper to find templates specific to a subject – or better yet, a specific class or textbook. For example, history students may benefit from a notebook that enables them to catalog the details of historical dates. The study notebooks that stand out from the crowd, however, are those that also include educational information and examples, which gets closer to my next suggested book type…
Log Books
Think about all the numerical data people track – business mileage for taxes, blood sugar for diabetes, workouts and body measurements for fitness, time spent practicing an instrument for students – the list is endless! Anything numerical data that needs to be recorded can make a quick and easy log book with a simple table created in any document creation software. I demonstrate how to make a mileage log book in my video Create with Me: Designing and Uploading a Low-Content Book for KDP.
Workbooks
Workbooks take more effort that your typical low-content book, as they are less repetitive (each page might be different!) and include a bit more structure and information to support the user. Workbooks guide readers educate and guide readers through a series of questions and processes. Workbooks can be be lists of prompts or more visual graphic organizers like this workbook for business owners: Mind Your Business: A Workbook to Grow Your Creative Passion Into a Full-time Gig.
Prompt Books
Prompt books can be one of the easiest low-content books to make, because there’s no complex layouts to make – just a list of prompts. The prompts can be anything from reflective questions that require a written response to drawing ideas. Write one prompt per page and you’ve got yourself a low-content book.
Interview Books
Interview books are a specific type of prompt book that are intended to be used interactively with others. Interview books can be just for fun or a means of historical record.For example, there are books where couples answer the same questions about their favorite things to get to know each other better. Interview books can be a great way for kids to learn more about their grandparents.
Puzzle Books
Crosswords, sudoku, logic problems, word finds – the kinds of puzzles you can sell on KDP is endless! People of all ages love puzzle books and there’s a huge market for them. In order to stand out from every other puzzle books, think about how you can appeal to specific niches with themes. Target a specific audience – is your book for kids on a road trip or seniors in assisted living? Different puzzles will appeal to different audiences.
Practice books
Any writing or reading skill that requires repetitive practice can be turned into a low-content book. For example, college students who study Asian languages often use character practice books to learn writing, as do elementary students just learning how to write. Turn sets of flash cards into a low-content book for students to practice anything from music notes to anatomy.
Collection Catalog
Collectors of all kinds – from records to books to toys to antiques – love to catalog all of their items. Create a low content book with pages of item records that include details like when and where the item was acquired, when it was made, who the creator is, storage location, and any niche specific details, e.g. the number of pages in a book or the print number of an art piece.
“Finish This” Creative Exercise Books
Similar to prompt books, “finish this” type books give creators the beginning of a piece of work, such as part of drawing or the first line of a story. It takes a little more creativity than simple prompts, but there’s far less competition. Think about what other creative works you could start, maybe the first notes of a song or the setting of a movie script – the possibilities are endless!
Expand your niche research by thinking beyond just lined notebooks and journals, and get creative with a whole series of low-content books. Which type of low-content book will you try next?
