The short answer is YES! You can use done-for-you content for books in the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) marketplace. But, before you go and do that, I’d like to share a few things that will help you avoid an Amazon shutdown of your content.
What to Do with Your Done-For-You Content Before You Publish On KDP
So, one of the issues a coach I’ve worked with had happen was that Amazon pulled a very high performing book of hers off the net. The reason was that someone complained the content was duplicate from someone else’s content.Because of that complaint, Amazon didn’t even investigate the situation. They just pulled the book down and that was it. She no longer generated money from that book
Lessons learned. What is recommended below can help you avoid this situation:
Make the done-for-you content unique
I’ve seen people take the content and use it as-is, publishing it on Amazon and only changing the cover a different color. While there are some people who recommend doing this, I suggest not to with pre-written content and with coloring books.
With journals and planners, I do recommend that you can keep the interior the same and only change the cover. People who buy journals and planners understand they are getting similar interiors. But, those who are reading pre-written content or coloring in coloring books do not expect the same content.
Here’s why.
Those who buy a book that you create with pre-written content do not buy a book only to have different covers. They are looking for knowledge or entertainment from you. That knowledge or entertainment needs to be different from book to book. Each book, if you have noticed, has a theme. Whatever is inside that book needs to adhere to that theme.
You don’t see an author covering the same theme in a similar book but only change the cover. There would be a LOT of complaints if that happened. For instance, if I bought Tina Fey’s book, Bossypants, I wouldn’t expect her to have another Bossypants book that had the same content only with a different cover. If she released one 25 years from when she released the first one and said it is the 25th year edition, then I can understand why she would want to create a new cover for the book in celebration.
So definitely, using any pre-written content for KDP needs to be limited to 1 book, not reused over and over again with different covers.
Same goes for coloring books. The reason behind this is, and I’ve seen it happen, people want unique coloring books to either 1) keep themselves occupied and calm while coloring (coloring is like meditation), or 2) keep their kids occupied and calm while coloring.
Imagine this… a mommy gives her son two coloring books to keep them occupied for a few hours so mommy can work on cleaning the house or her Internet business, or maybe even to have a cup of coffee with a friend. As soon as mommy is in her zone, her son, Timmy said, “Mommy, these two books are exactly alike. I don’t want to color anymore! I want a new coloring book.”
Guess who returns one, or both, of the coloring books? Mommy does and usually, they don’t leave a nice review. I’ve seen them on KDP before so just don’t get stuck in that mess and make your coloring books unique.
Coloring book buyers want unique coloring books so that they have a variety of pages to color.
I know that creating coloring books can be time-consuming. But it will pay off in the long run if you create unique coloring books.
So have fun creating! Just make sure you are creating unique content on KDP.