One of the most off-putting parts about starting an online business is the up-front cost.
Even if you have a great idea and the drive to make it happen, the cost can oftentimes be an insurmountable hurdle. You might give up before you can even get started.
We’re writing this article to help anyone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t have the capital to invest in a business from the start. Yes, it’s possible to make money online even if you’re starting from nothing.
Today, we’ll be showing you 5 ways to make money on Amazon without investment.
Want to listen instead of read? Just click the thumbnail below to hear us discuss making money on Amazon without investment.
5 Ways to Make Money on Amazon Without Investment
Amazon Merch (Print-on-Demand)
Are you an artistic person? Then you might have the skills to profit from your artwork using Amazon Merch.
Your first step is making a design that would look good on merchandise, like t-shirts or pop sockets. Once your design is complete, you put it up on Amazon Merch.
When a customer orders a product with your design on it, Amazon prints that product on demand for them. You make money from royalties with each purchase. No having to deal with the hassle of keeping an inventory yourself.
This is a great option for you if you’re artistically inclined. It’s even better if you’re an artist with a following on social media.
After your design is listed on Amazon, you could tell your following about it. As more people buy your design, Amazon will give it more visibility to other people browsing the site.
To give yourself an even greater edge, you could pay attention to any current trends, and create designs that fit in with them. Another strategy is to use Amazon autofill or Google autofill to see what kinds of designs your potential customers are looking for.
Kindle Passive Publishing Profits
Honestly, this is probably our favorite way of making money on Amazon. If you’re going to pursue this option without investment, though, that does mean you’ll need to create books yourself. That includes the time investment of writing them, editing them, and designing a book cover.
However, if you know how to do those things, that’s fantastic. You’ll be able to start earning passive publishing costs without paying anything out of pocket. We know many writers who went this route because they had the skills to do it.
Our personal strategy is to create fiction books. There’s a huge demand for them, and readers will read books voraciously, then keep looking for more.
You can write a fiction book that’s around 50,000 words or more and publish that on Kindle. Keep writing books consistently for maybe a year, and you’ll establish a decent passive income if you’ve done your market research correctly.
Even if you’re not into writing, you can still publish a book on Kindle. One option that’s friendly to those not inclined towards literature is puzzle books, like crossword puzzles or sudoku.
Go on Amazon and check out the game section to see what’s popular. Make your puzzle book a paperback, and you’re on your way to making a little money.
In fact, one of the first things we published on Amazon was coloring books. We were able to make them for free, and the second month they were up, we made around $10,000 on them while coloring books were trending.
They actually still make us money today, because they’re still on Amazon.
Audiobook Narration
If you don’t want to create books, but still want to work with them, you can always narrate audiobooks. All you need to do is go to ACX.com and apply to be a narrator.
For those of you who don’t know, ACX is the back end of Audible. The audiobooks on Audible are either put up by huge publishers or through recordings submitted on ACX.
Once you’ve created an account on ACX, you then make a profile, put up some samples, and effectively audition for books you’re interested in. You can read more about the process on ACX’s narration page here.
It’s the same as doing freelance work, but on a better platform than UpWork. Plus, when you publish a book through ACX, you get free redemption codes, just like the publisher does. You can give them out to readers, who then get the book for free, but you still get paid for it. Aside from getting paid to narrate the book, you’re essentially getting paid to give out these free codes.
On top of that, you can earn money by referring people to Audible. If someone signs up to Audible through your specific link (called a bounty URL), you’ll earn $75.
We believe this is the next up-and-coming way of making an income online. Money is being invested in it by Amazon, and they’re rewarding anyone who brings people to this platform.
Amazon Affiliate Program
The rates for its affiliate program were recently cut by Amazon, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still make a decent amount of money doing it. At this point in time, we’re making around $100-200 daily through the affiliate program.
We’ll give you the basics on how it works and what you need to do, but if you’d like to see a much more in-depth guide, you can read our walkthrough here.
You very first step is signing up for the Amazon Affiliate program. Once you’re enrolled, you’ll be able to get affiliate links to products on the site.
Ideally, you’ll have a blog site made where you can write posts about products on Amazon, weaving in your affiliate links. We like to build our blog sites using WordPress because it’s so user-friendly. Even if you’re not technically inclined, you can figure it out pretty easily.
Your affiliate link doesn’t need to only be on a blog site, either, although that’s the method that’s worked best for us. You can also promote it on social media. At this point in time, you just can’t promote the link through emails.
Every time someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase on Amazon within 24 hours, you get part of the proceeds as a commission. They don’t have to buy the exact product you link to, either – it can be anything they buy after clicking on your link.
Read Also: Dropshipping vs Affiliate Marketing – What’s Better for Beginners?
Amazon Mechanical Turk
Truthfully, out of all the options in this guide, this one will be the least profitable for you. However, we do feel that it’s still worth mentioning.
Put briefly, Mechanical Turk is a program where you can do various virtual tasks for Amazon or other businesses. It’s like an outsourcing marketplace.
We can’t say for sure whether or not you’re able to do this if you’re outside of the United States, though. If you live in an area with a low cost of living, the modest income you could make doing microtasks on Mechanical Turk could be a great option for you.
Read Also: Job vs Online Business: Which is Better?
Wrap Up
With any of the methods in this guide, you could start making money on Amazon. All it takes is time, effort, and some work on your part.
If cost was the biggest barrier between you and starting another business model, you could use some of your profits from these Amazon income options to expand. Save up some of the money you make this way and put it towards launching new online businesses as soon as you can.
We firmly believe in having a diverse online portfolio. Amazon is a huge and profitable business (and that’s an understatement), but that doesn’t mean you should rely solely on them for an online income.
Our number one online business model is high-ticket dropshipping. We think it can be very beginner-friendly, and we’ve enjoyed a large amount of success with it over the years. You can learn more about it by checking out our dropshipping basics guide.
Otherwise, we do have our free Online Assets Playbook you can sign up for to read about how to build your own online portfolio.
If you’re able to invest in a full-length and detailed course, we recommend taking a look at our Instant eCommerce Assets course. We created it to help everyone, even complete beginners, get started in making an online income.