An Easy Canva Side Hustle To Try For Passive Income

Paul Rose

10 min readFeb 6, 2024

How To Make Your First Dollar Online

Does any part of this scenario sound familiar?

you’re at zero dollars in passive income made online
and are a complete Beginner to making money online

Well, you’re in the right place.

Because literally speaking, if the only thing you had to make passive income was a free Canva account,

this story will show you how to generate passive income in the next 30 days.

While I’ve talked about this side hustle a thousand and one times, I still receive a particular question in my comments and DMs.

Rose, what's the easiest way to make money online as a beginner?

Well, you’re welcome to today’s story,

Where I’ll be showing you the Canva side hustle that made my first dollar online, even when I knew nothing about the internet.

What Is This Beginner Friendly Side Hustle?

Now if you haven’t guessed already, this easy Canva side hustle is called Amazon KDP.

Amazon KDP stands for Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

It's a platform by Amazon for authors.

Amazon in itself needs no introduction.

Being the largest marketplace in the world, it unsurprisingly has a platform for authors to make money by uploading their books.

Now when I say books, it’s not to scare you in any way.

Because who said you have to become the next J.K. Rowling to be called an author?

No one!

With the help of tools like Canva and, more recently, AI, creating books to sell for passive income has never been easier.

But Why Is This Side Hustle So Easy?

Well, because it's Amazon we're talking about here.

The Amazon.

With billions of monthly buyers every single month,

and millions of those people looking for books to buy,

there’s no better way to generate passive income than by leveraging the traffic on Amazon KDP.

How To Start Amazon KDP With Canva in 2024.

Here’s how you can go from having just a free Canva account to making hundreds of dollars in passive income.

1. Know What Types Of Books To Sell

With Amazon KDP, the ideas are endless.

Now, don’t even limit your mind to the stereotype of best-seller novel books.

Because Amazon KDP offers a lot more than that.

Amazon understands that not everyone was born with the gift to bring words together in a sellable way.

And so they created an opportunity for both authors and non-authors to make money from their platform.

So if you’re an author, Good for you. Write like you normally would.

And once your masterpiece is ready, upload it as a PDF or doc file to Amazon’s billion-dollar marketplace.

But if you’re not an author, you should consider one of two options.

Low Content Books
Or ChatGPT written eBooks

Now What Are Low Content Books?

These books are what they sound like, literally low content.

So no much word fluff, just simple books that people can fill content into.

These books include:

Logbook
Notebooks
Activity books
Prayer Books.
Journals. You name it.

With Canva, creating these types of books are super easy.

So easy that in a day, you could have yourself a library of these books.

What About AI Generated eBooks?

Now, for some reason, no one likes the sound of selling an AI-generated ebook, and that’s okay.

But what if there were a way to create an AI-generated eBook that didn’t sound like a robot wrote it in a hurry?

Well, that’s where the concept of AI- assisted eBooks come in.

Sure, we’ll use AI to generate the outline for the eBook and even the content.

But it doesn’t end there.

For an AI assisted ebook, there's the human touch that brings it all together.

So even after ChatGPT generates an entire book to sell on KDP, there’s still a place for us humans to proofread and make those stories reader-friendly.

Now it’s left for you to decide which method is easier for you.

Low Content or AI assisted eBooks.

2. Finding Profitable Keywords To Sell Books In

Now, you need to understand that there are a thousand and one different niches in which you could create books to upload on Amazon KDP.

There’s

Self-help and personal development
Romance and relationships
Science fiction and fantasy
Health and wellness
Cooking and recipes etc

Now, with this many niches, you are going to need to

choose one of the many possible ideas,
analyze them,
and create books to sell in that niche.

But how do we find profitable keywords to sell our books in?

Well, that's where ChatGPT and some other tools come in.

Keep in mind that finding ideas for low-content books and for AI-assisted ebooks is quite different.

So let’s look at both methods.

Finding keywords for Low Content Books

First, let’s talk about the various low-content books you could create on Canva.

There’s

Journals
Coloring Books
Planners
Recipe Books
Notebook Themes
Activity Books
Affirmation Cards
Sketchbooks

Now, the method I’m going to show you for finding profitable ideas is one I hold dear to myself.

It works like magic, and the keywords you’ll find while doing this are literally gold.

You can thank me later, but for now, let’s focus on finding these Keywords.

Step 1: Go Over to Creative Fabrica

I know it sounds shocking that Creative Fabrica is being mentioned as a keyword research tool, but don’t be too quick to judge.

Sure, Creative Fabrica is a marketplace by creatives for creatives, but it’s also a home to KDP interiors.

Now, KDP interiors are basically the interior content of your low content book.

So when you sell planners, the content of that planner is the interior.

But why are they relevant here?

Well, that leads us to step two.

Step 2: Type in the umbrella low content book you’re trying to create

Let’s say I wanted to create a notebook;

I should type the word "notebook" + interior into the search bar on Creative Fabrica.

Screenshot Of Creative Fabrica Search Bar

Now, here’s what’s going to happen:

You’ll literally find keywords and ideas that you could never have thought about in a million years.

Just like how I found the following planner ideas

Coffee and Prayer Time Journal
Migraine Tracker Journal
Nurse Report Sheet Notebook
Bariatric Surgery Logbook
Cocktail Recipe Journal

Would you have thought of these keywords?

Finding Keywords for AI assisted ebooks

Now, for this research process, I’d love to call on ChatGPT.

Over on ChatGPT, ask for 10-20 niches to create eBooks in.

Now, pick one of these major niches and ask ChatGPT to provide 10–20 sub-niche ideas.

For specific book titles and ideas, ask ChatGPT to provide you with more sub-niches within one of these categories.

There you go! These are all potential eBook ideas for AI Assisted books to sell on Amazon.

3. Analyzing These Keywords

Now, the search doesn’t end with finding the right keywords;

you’re going to need to analyze those keywords to find the perfect one.

Our focus is mainly on the search volume and competition score.

And remember, our golden keyword needs to have

High demand (usually greater than 100)
and Low competition of less than 1000 search results

To analyze the demand, I use the search bar of the marketplace in question.

In this case, it’s Amazon.

Type in the potential keyword and see if Amazon suggests it as a dropdown.

If it does, there’s demand for your keywords, as buyers are actively typing those keywords into the search bar.

If it doesn’t, move on to the other keywords you found during your research.

Now, to analyze the competition for these keywords, all I have to do is check the number of search results for that keyword on Amazon.

The more search results there are, the more competitive the keyword tends to be.

That said, I usually aim for keywords with fewer than a thousand search results.

Screenshot of an Amazon Competition Analysis

Using this exact brainstorming and analysis process, I found out that the keywords

sicilian cookbook with 404 search results
and migraine tracker journal with just 200 search results

Are perfect keywords to go after as a beginner to Amazon KDP.

4. Creating These Books In Canva

Creating the books to sell has to be the easiest step in all of these processes.

Once again, we’ll be creating our low-content book and AI-assisted ebook separately.

Let’s say I wanted to create a migraine tracker journal;

All I’d do is head over to Canva’s free template library.
To find a base template in the same genre as my idea, which in this case is a tracker template.

Notice how I didn’t say to find the exact match template on Canva, e.g., a migraine tracker.

That would be basically impossible.

So focus on finding the base template, not necessarily the exact theme.

Now, I broke my own rules and wanted to try my luck with an exact match keyword.

And it worked.

I found a base template for a headache tracker, and my job was halfway complete.

Now, with the headache tracker I found on Canva,

I’d need to work towards making it a perfect fit for the keyword I found.

I could ask ChatGPT for information about what the content of a migraine tracker journal should be

With this information, I’m in a much better position to create a journal that serves my target audience perfectly.

Now, other things you can do to make your journal unique include

Switching up the fonts,
Changing up the theme and colors
Adding matching elements

Remember to download your interior file in PDF format to upload it to Amazon.

4. Creating Aesthetic Book Covers

I wish selling on KDP were as enchanting as fairy tales, where we shouldn’t judge books by their covers.

But sadly, that’s not the reality.

On Amazon, buyers will judge your book mainly by its cover.

Well, it’s understandable; after all, it’s their hard-earned money.

So it’s our responsibility is to create compelling, high-quality covers that leave them with no option but to make a purchase.

And once again, Canva comes to the rescue.

Now, still with Canva’s free template library,

find a template that matches the basic concept of your book,

and work your way up by editing it to match your book’s overall concept.

5. Uploading Your Books To Amazon KDP

At this point, we have our

Keywords
book interior or AI content
and book cover too.

All that’s left now is to upload and publish your book.

This step is the most straightforward.

All you need to do is

First, create your free Amazon KDP and finish the account setup process
Add a new paperback or ebook listing
Add your book title and subtitle
Add your description, tags and categories
Upload your book interior or PDF and set the dimensions
Set your pricing
And publish your book

Conclusion

Amazon’s KDP was and still is one of the easiest way to make passive income.

We’re talking about selling books on the largest marketplace in the world.

What other side hustle could be easier than that?

So if you’re a beginner yet to make your first dollar, you should probably check out Amazon KDP.

It’s perfect for beginners!

By the way, Amazon KDP is just one of the 4 passive income businesses I’ve built using Canva.
I’ve documented my entire journey in my eBook: The Canva Hustle.

If you’ve been searching for a creative way to make money online, then you’ll love the ideas I’ve personally tried out & have now shared in my Canva Hustle eBook.
Click here to Grab The Canva Hustle ebook.