Creating a diverse and attractive portfolio is the secret sauce to Amazon KDP success. But the truth is that designing low- and no-content books that sell requires in-depth research, strategic thinking, and consistency. Most importantly, it necessitates the appropriate choice of product category.
In this article, we’ll explore guest books as one of the options sellers can embrace to grow their portfolio. We’ll look at the various guest book niches and rank them from most profitable to least profitable. At the end of your read, you’ll have a better idea of which niches can reward you with the highest earnings.
How profitable are different guest book types?
Sellers on Amazon KDP can take advantage of a rich and colorful guest book market. Although there are numerous niches that you can tap into, we’ve focused our research on the bestselling choices.
Here are the most popular guest book niches among the bestsellers on Amazon KDP:
- Wedding guest books
- Baby shower guest books
- Funeral guest books
- Retirement guest books
- Bathroom guest books
- Cabin guest books
To determine the profitability of each, we used Book Bolt’s tools and features. We found the minimum, average, and highest prices of listings in the different spaces. We also identified top-performing listings’ BSRs and matched them to the royalties that Amazon pays for sales in the category.
All of this empowered us to make interesting conclusions about which guest book types are most attractive from a profit-making perspective.
Let’s journey through our findings together. The following niches are organized in ascending order, from lowest to highest average BSR.
Bathroom guest books
At a first glance, the bathroom guest book niche appears to be the best-sold from all research categories. Bestsellers from the space enjoy the lowest average BSR, meaning that they generate the highest sales volumes.
Here are our Book Bolt discoveries:
- Average BSR 183 528
- Lowest Price $5.00
- Highest Price $9.00
- Average Price $6.99
However, it’s important to note that although there are more than 100 listings that rank for the phrase “bathroom guest book”, only nine are displayed in Book Bolt’s Cloud tool (which shows only the bestsellers from a category). In other words, making it to the top-performer chart is perhaps more challenging than in other niches.
But what do the top-selling listings look like in terms of characteristics? This is the number one bathroom guest book listing on Amazon KDP:
- Title: “Thought Provoking Questions To Answer While You Poop. Bathroom Guestbook: Funny Novelty Gag Gift for Christmas, Housewarmings, Newly Weds, Any Special … (kind of) & Unique. (White Elephant Exchange)”
- Price: $7.99
- Estimated monthly sales: 382
What does this mean in terms of earnings?
Amazon KDP sellers are rewarded with royalties for every sale that they generate. For paperback and hardcover no-content books, Amazon pays authors 60% of the list price minus printing costs. Because printing costs are difficult to calculate without access to seller data, we’ll perform our calculations without factoring them into the equation. This will give us an idea of how much you can expect to earn without any printing costs.
Taking the example from above, the bestselling listing costs $7.99. When multiplying this by 60% we receive a total of $4.79. Considering that the listing scores around 382 sales per month, we can conclude that the chart-topper from the bathroom guest book niche receives profits of around $1,829 on a monthly basis.
This is certainly an attractive reward from a single listing.
Wedding guest books
The findings from the wedding guest book show a serious rise in average BSR. This indicates that fewer sales are landed by the top sellers in the space.
- Average BSR 272 966
- Lowest Price $6.99
- Highest Price $11.49
- Average Price $8.78
At the same time, the maximum price in the niche is higher than most others, signaling that you can price your products better once you gain experience in the market.
Here is a breakdown of the bestseller in the niche.
- Title: “Wedding Guest Book: Light White Flower Rustic Chic Design – Guest Book For Memorail / Messages Book / Advice / Events and More – 8.25″x6″”
- Price: $7.00
- Estimated monthly sales: 277
In terms of monthly royalties, if you position yourself in the same way as this seller, you can expect to earn around $1,163 per month from a single listing. Put otherwise, this niche must not be neglected when looking for guest book markets to tap into.
Even with this earnings potential, you may be wondering what would happen if you ask for a higher price. The current top performer has taken a below-the-average stance, with a difference of $1.78 from the market’s median. As you gain more experience, you can afford to raise your price, and even exceed the average. In return, you’ll earn more than $1,163 (given that you make it to the top-selling position and receive around 277 monthly sales).
Baby shower guest books
Baby showers are one of the most important life events, which are often marked with a proper celebration. And yes, baby shower guest books are a big part of this. We can see this clearly from the number of baby shower guest book listings on Amazon KDP.
But an analysis of the bestsellers shows that the average BSR of the category is much higher than bathroom guest books, for example. In addition, only 11 listings have made it to the Cloud tool as bestsellers.
Here are the full details from the tool:
- Average BSR: 296 053
- Lowest Price: $2.64
- Highest Price: $12.99
- Average Price: $9.36
The most expensive baby shower guest book from top sellers is $12.99, which is the second highest of all assessed niches. The average price is also slightly higher, meaning that overall, you can ask for more money and still enjoy decent sales numbers.
Let’s now look at the top listing in the space:
- Title: “A Little Pumpkin Is On The Way: Baby Shower Guest Book for Girl with Wishes & Advice for Parents + Predictions + Gift Log | Boho Chic Rose Blush | Mom and Baby Pink Pumpkins”
- Price: $10.90
- Estimated monthly sales: 279
This seller has exceeded the average rate in the market and is asking for a slightly higher price. Still, they are landing more sales than any other competitor. The reasons for this could be many – excellent listing optimization, an attractive cover, or others. Regardless, the author is currently enjoying monthly royalties of $1,824. These profits are very similar to bathroom guest books, which are classified as the niche with the lowest average BSR.
Retirement guest books
Another life event that calls for a guest book is retirement. Unlike other events, like baby showers, birthdays, or anniversaries, retirements only happen once in a lifetime. This means that you must prepare to win single-purchase customers (unless they are event organizers who shop for year-round retirement parties).
In terms of profitability, we identified the following:
- Average BSR: 297 124
- Lowest Price: $4.99
- Highest Price: $8.99
- Average Price: $7.21
And here’s our top-performing pick in the niche:
- Title: “Retirement Message Book: Happy Retirement Guest Book to Sign for Men & Women | Keepsake Memory Book, Guestbook for Retirement Party”
- Price: $7.99
- Estimated monthly sales: 242
By working out the numbers of this listing, we concluded that the seller scores monthly royalties of around $1,160, similarly to the wedding guest book niche.
Funeral guest books
Finally, funeral guest books are one of the most opportunity-rich niches in the market. Listings from this space stand out with the highest prices, which can be seen from the following points:
- Average BSR: 299 311
- Lowest Price: $5.59
- Highest Price: $16.95
- Average Price: $10.18
In addition, there are nearly 40 top-performing listings, as opposed to a total of 9 in other niches.
When compared to other options, we can see that the average BSR is not as low, suggesting fewer sales. However, we wanted to find out whether the higher prices compensate for the difference.
To do this, we used insights from Book Bolt on the best-performing listing:
- Title: “Celebration of Life Guest Book: Sign-in and Memory Book for Funeral Service, Memorial Service, and Wake”
- Price: $10
- Estimated monthly sales: 294
When calculating the royalties based on this data, we discovered that the listing generates profits of $1,764 per month. This is the third highest earnings potential of a niche, after bathroom guest books and baby shower guest books. Put otherwise, we confirmed the theory that the higher average BSR doesn’t impact the number one bestseller due to the higher prices in the market.
Factors that shape the profitability of guest books
Throughout our research on several niches, we noticed that few listings appeared in the Cloud tool, where the bestsellers are positioned. This reveals that not a lot of sellers are successfully exploiting the full potential of the space. However, this also allows us to make comparisons between the top performers and ordinary listings.
We identified the following three points as properties that all successful listings share:
- A well-adapted book cover design – bestsellers’ cover designs are not only attractive. They’re also adapted to the target audience and the event that they will be used for. For instance, profitable baby shower guest books use light, gentle colors and playful characters. On the other hand, funeral guest books use darker colors and more minimalistic designs. The book design plays a significant role in how attractive your listing appears to your audience.
- A title and description optimized for keywords – keyword optimization is essential for the discoverability of your listings. In the guest book niches we examined, we found that top sellers utilize a diverse range of highly searched for keywords. This helps them increase the visibility of their products to shoppers browsing for similar books.
- A specific consumer group as the target – a lot of the bestselling listings also specify the target audience that can benefit from the product. This further enhances the listing for organic rankings and also informs Amazon users on how relevant the product is for them. For example, titles and descriptions include “for men”, “for women”, “baby girl”, and other specific words and phrases.
Conclusion
After the detailed insights and calculations that we shared with you, we can now make an informed conclusion on the top three most profitable guest book niches on Amazon KDP:
- Bathroom guest books
- Baby shower guest books
- Funeral guest books
This doesn’t mean that you can’t generate significant profits from other guest book niches. In fact, we encourage you to explore the full diversity of all low- and no-content books.
The good news is that no matter which book category or niche you pick, with a reliable tool like Book Bolt you can always be one step ahead of your competitors.
