How to Make Money Selling eBooks in 2026 (Step by Step)

About this video

A step-by-step beginner guide to Amazon KDP. Sean Dollwet claims he has made over $1.7 million selling ebooks online, published under pen names without writing the books himself, and previously showed a tax return in another video. He argues Amazon is preferable to selling on your own website because Amazon handles printing, shipping, payments, traffic and customer service. The four steps are: research, create, publish, and market. For research, brainstorm topics (including with ChatGPT) but validate demand on Amazon first — look for several first-page books with Best Sellers Rank below 80,000, illustrated with ‘mental toughness for young athletes’ versus a low-demand pumpkin-growing example. For creation, write it yourself, hire a ghostwriter, or use AI as assistance — breaking a topic into many small lessons, drafting one at a time, then tweaking and humanizing rather than copy-pasting — aiming for 100-150 pages, a clear title using templates, and a cover made in Canva or outsourced on Fiverr. Then upload via KDP and market with social media (TikTok/BookTok, Instagram) and Amazon ads starting small, before scaling into audiobooks, other distributors, bundles, translations, or eventually selling the account, which he claims he sold his first account for $820,000.

Key takeaways

• Validate before creating: find a topic where multiple books on Amazon’s first page have a Best Sellers Rank below 80,000, rather than writing first on passion alone.
• Sell on Amazon instead of your own site so Amazon handles printing, shipping, payment processing, traffic and customer service.
• Use AI as assistance, not replacement: outline many small lessons, draft one section at a time, then edit and humanize the output; 100-150 pages is his recommended non-fiction length.
• Create a clear, benefit-driven title — he gives how-to promise, number-system and ultimate-solution templates — and make the cover yourself in Canva or outsource it cheaply on Fiverr.
• Market to earn initial sales and reviews so Amazon promotes the book, starting Amazon ads at a small daily budget and increasing only when profitable; then scale via audiobooks, wider distribution, bundles and translations.

Episode details: published March 31, 2025 · 30:54 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Sean Dollwet’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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