Everyone has a story to tell or expertise to share. Writing an eBook and selling it online can become a trickle of passive income that adds up, especially if you hit on a popular topic or niche audience. With platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), it’s easier than ever to self-publish and earn royalties. Similarly, you can turn it into an audiobook (through ACX for Audible distribution, for example) to tap into the audio market.
How it works: You write a book – it could be a how-to guide, a novel, a cookbook, a compilation of tips, etc. Format it for e-readers (Kindle, ePub, or even PDF for direct selling). Through Amazon KDP, you upload the file, set a price (for books $2.99 to $9.99, Amazon gives you 70% royalty; outside that range it’s 35%), and publish. Your book is then listed on Amazon and potentially other stores if you use wide distribution. Readers around the world can buy and download instantly. Amazon pays you royalties monthly for each sale.
Audiobook: If you have an eBook (or even if not), you can narrate it yourself or hire a voice actor via ACX. Once audio files are done, you publish the audiobook to Audible, iTunes, etc. Each sale yields you about 40% of the price if exclusive to Audible, or 25% if non-exclusive (they have some specifics on royalty splits, etc.). Audiobooks often are priced higher than eBooks, so can be a nice complement (and audio is growing in popularity).
What it takes to start: Time and decent writing skills (or willingness to improve through editing). It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece or 300 pages; many Kindle bestsellers are concise 100-page guides. The key is providing value or entertainment that people seek. Research what readers want – check Kindle categories for gaps you could fill, or topics that always do well (e.g., self-help, niche hobbies, romance in fiction, etc.). Invest in a good cover design (it greatly affects clicks on your book). You might spend some money on cover and editing, but those can be recouped if the book sells moderately.
Passive aspect: After the book is live, that’s it! Apart from occasional marketing pushes or maybe responding to a review, the work largely ends. One book can sell for years. If you build a catalog of books, each becomes an income stream. Sure, writing is labor upfront, but the long tail royalties can be nice. Some authors wake up to daily sales notifications as their “employees” (books) are out there working for them.
Potential earnings: Varies wildly. A mediocre book might only sell a handful a month. But a decent one in a good niche could sell hundreds or thousands of copies over time. Even at $2 royalty each, selling 50 copies a month is $100. Ten such books could be $1,000/month. There are indie authors earning five or six figures annually, but they often treat it like a business (multiple books, series, active marketing). Even without aiming that high, getting a few books out can create a trickle of passive income. For example, you write a $4.99 ebook that nets you ~$3.50 each. If it sells modestly at 20 copies a month, that’s $70/mo from that one book. If you have a small library of 5 books similar performance, $350/mo – pays some bills while you’re focusing on other things. Plus, if you create an audiobook and paperback version, you have multiple formats earning from the same content.
Example: A personal finance blogger compiles her best budgeting advice into an eBook “30-Day Budget Kickstart.” She prices it at $5.99. It slowly builds reviews and word-of-mouth. Over a year, it sells 1,000 copies – bringing in roughly $4,000 in royalties. Meanwhile, she also recorded herself reading it and put out the audiobook at $9.99. That sold 300 copies on Audible, netting another ~$1,200. So in total, $5,200 from content she largely repurposed from her own blog knowledge and spent perhaps a couple months polishing. Not get-rich-quick money, but a solid passive return on effort, and it could continue selling with little extra work or sequels down the line.