After the Etsy coloring book started selling, I uploaded the same book to Amazon KDP — Amazon's print-on-demand platform. You upload a PDF, they print and ship when someone orders. You earn a royalty. You never touch a physical copy.
The scorecard
The royalty math
Amazon calculates a printing cost based on your page count. For a standard black and white 30-page book, printing costs roughly $2.15. Your royalty is 60% of list price minus printing.
"The approval process took the better part of a day across multiple attempts. This is normal — it's a one-time setup cost for a product that then earns indefinitely."
What went wrong
My first upload got flagged for margins. My second for cover dimensions. Approved on the third attempt. KDP has stricter formatting requirements than Etsy — at least 0.5 inch margins, 0.75 inch inside gutter, cover sized to exact specifications. I wish I'd designed to KDP specs from the start.
The approval process was frustrating in the moment. In hindsight it's a one-time cost. Once approved, the listing is live permanently and earns without any further work.
KDP vs Etsy — the key difference
Etsy brings buyers who want a printable digital download. Amazon brings buyers who want a physical book. Same coloring book, two completely different customers. That's why doing both makes sense — you're not choosing between platforms, you're reaching people who would never find you on the other one.
The Etsy buyer prints it at home or colors on an iPad. The Amazon buyer wants a bound book that ships to their door. These are different people with different needs. One product, two audiences, two revenue streams. I covered the full Etsy side of this in my Etsy coloring book scorecard — the numbers, the niche strategy, and how local store sales ended up being the bigger channel.
What I'd do differently
Design to KDP specs from day one. 8.5x11 with 0.75 inch inside margins before designing a single page. If you know you're publishing on both platforms, set up your Canva document to KDP's requirements from the start. Reformatting after the fact is painful.
Use KDP's free cover creator for the first book. Don't let the cover be the thing that blocks you from launching. The free cover creator handles all the sizing automatically based on your page count. Use it, get the book live, upgrade the cover later.
Price at $8.99 minimum. Anything under that and the royalty math works against you. At $6.99 you're making $2.04 per sale. At $8.99 you're making $3.24. The price difference barely matters to buyers in this category — don't leave that money on the table.
The honest verdict
Worth it. The total revenue is modest — about $20 so far — but that number keeps growing without any additional work from me. The book is listed, it's findable on Amazon, and every sale happens automatically.
The combination of Etsy (digital download, instant delivery) and KDP (physical book, Amazon's shipping) is the move. You're not picking one over the other. You make the product once and it sells in two completely different markets to two completely different buyers.
The setup cost — a few frustrating hours of formatting — is genuinely one-time. That's the whole appeal.
If you're selling something on Etsy and haven't uploaded it to KDP yet — what's stopping you? Hit reply or drop a comment. The most common answer I hear is "I didn't know you could do that." Now you do.
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