How to Sell a Devotional: Daily Devotionals, Prayer Journals and Bible Studies

Devotional format, Scripture and price planner

Choose the format, theme, reader and translation, then set your prices. The planner shows what one sale keeps on each store, whether your quotations sit inside the publisher's limit, the credit line to print, the Amazon settings, a listing title and tags, and a brief to write from. It runs in your browser: nothing is sent until you press Write this devotional.

Where to sell a devotional: Etsy, Gumroad, Amazon KDP or your church?

Sell where the buyer already is. Etsy works when strangers search by theme or reader ("30 day devotional for women", "prayer journal printable"); Gumroad, Payhip and your own site work when you bring the buyers from a church, a newsletter or social media; Amazon works for readers who shop for books there and for anyone who wants a printed copy.

Selling devotionals and prayer journals on Etsy

List a digital download with up to five files of up to 20MB each, so the US Letter and A4 PDFs go in the same listing (How to Manage Your Digital Listings). The same article says digital items "must be made and/or designed by you, the seller", and Etsy's Creativity Standards (last updated 10 June 2025) rule out "a PDF file of a book that the seller did not personally create or design". A devotional made with AI from your own prompts is allowed on one condition: "Sellers must disclose within their listing description if an item is created with the use of AI." The planner drafts that line with a title and tags.

Selling devotionals on Gumroad and Payhip

Both turn a link in your newsletter or on your church's website into a checkout. On Creator or Premium, the book's Publish window has a Sell on Gumroad tab: connect your account, set the price and publish; the app sends the EPUB and the cover, so add your PDFs afterwards. The Gumroad selling guide covers each screen, and Etsy vs Gumroad compares the two for any ebook.

What a devotional pays per sale

A PDF keeps most of its price; a Kindle ebook keeps 70% only inside Amazon's price band and only when most of the book is your own writing; a paperback keeps what is left after Amazon's share and printing.

A PDF: what you keep from one sale, by store

How each row is worked out. Etsy: $0.20 to renew the listing after each sale, a 6.5% transaction fee, and payment processing of 3% + $0.25 for a US shop (Fees & Payments Policy, last updated 13 February 2026; Etsy Payments Policy, last updated 31 July 2026; a UK shop pays 4% + £0.20). Gumroad: 10% + $0.50 on sales through your own links plus card processing of 2.9% + $0.30, or a flat 30% including processing on sales from its Discover marketplace (Gumroad's fees). Payhip: 5% on the free plan, 2% on Plus ($29 a month), none on Pro ($99 a month), with PayPal or Stripe charging their standard rates on top (Payhip pricing); the table assumes a card payment at 2.9% + $0.30. Your own site: a standard card rate of 2.9% + $0.30 (Stripe pricing).

A Kindle ebook: the $12.99 line and the public-domain rule

Since 7 July 2026 KDP pays 70% on Amazon.com for list prices from $2.99 to $12.99 (eBook list price requirements), after a delivery charge of $0.15 per MB. A devotional has a second line to watch. KDP's eBook royalties page says: "Works in the public domain or consisting primarily of public domain content are only eligible for the 35% royalty option." A book that prints long passages of the KJV or the WEB with a few lines of comment falls on the wrong side of that; one where each day is mostly your own reflection does not.

A paperback: devotionals, year books and journals

KDP pays 60% of the list price from $9.99 on Amazon.com and 50% at $9.98 and below, minus printing (Paperback Royalty). Black ink costs a flat $2.30 for 24 to 110 pages at a regular trim such as 5.5 x 8.5 or 6 x 9 inches; above 110 pages it is $1.00 plus $0.012 a page (Printing Cost).

The other side of the ledger

• Listing fees and ads. Etsy listings last four months at $0.20. Offsite Ads take 15% of an order they bring for shops under $10,000 a year (you can opt out) and 12%, compulsory, above.
• The tool. On Inkfluence AI the free plan writes up to five chapters a book and exports a PDF. A devotional you charge for will usually want Creator ($9.99 a month, 35 chapters a month) or Premium ($19.99, unlimited): they remove the footer credit, add EPUB, DOCX and the KDP package, and send books to Etsy and Gumroad.

Devotional, prayer journal or Bible study: which are you selling?

A devotional is read, a prayer journal is written in, and a Bible study is used by a group, and each sells differently. A 30-day devotional is the quickest to finish; a year of readings earns its price as a printed gift; a prayer journal is cheap to make but crowded; a group study sells to leaders who buy for several people. Price bands are starting points, not market data.

A buyer chooses the devotional that names them: "30 mornings for mothers of newborns" beats "a daily devotional". The Devotional format also writes secular daily readings on gratitude or mindfulness. The devotional writing guide covers structure and voice, and the devotional book generator page shows the format in the app.

Selling a devotional on Amazon KDP: readings, journals and public-domain text

A devotional people read can be a Kindle ebook and a paperback; a prayer journal they write in is a paperback only. KDP's Guide to Kindle Content Quality lists blank journals among books not suited to Kindle, which "may be rejected upon submission or removed from sale".

Is a prayer journal a low-content book?

Usually, yes. KDP's Low-Content Books page defines them as books with "minimal or no content on the interior pages", "generally repetitive, and designed to be filled in by the user", and lists Diaries/Journals and Prompt journals as low-content. Tick the Low-content box under Categories: "if you do not select this box, or select a different box, your book will be rejected." Low-content books "are not eligible for the free KDP ISBN". A devotional with a journaling line after each reading is still a devotional, not low-content.

Public-domain Scripture on KDP

KDP's public domain content page says: "If a free version of a public domain title is available in our store, we will only allow you to publish a differentiated version," meaning an original translation, original annotations, or ten or more original illustrations, with (Translated), (Annotated) or (Illustrated) in the title field. That rule is aimed at republishing the text itself. A devotional that quotes one verse a day and writes the rest is your own work: choose "I own the copyright" in the publishing rights section.

Bible study guides and KDP's companion-guide rule

The content quality guide also says "Companion guides (including summaries, study guides, workbooks, analyses, and other related content based on other books) are not allowed, with limited exceptions for guides with positive reader engagement." KDP does not say whether a Bible study counts. Write yours as original teaching with your own questions and applications, not a chapter-by-chapter summary, and quote the passage sparingly.

KDP asks you to declare AI-generated text and images, but not AI-assisted content (Content Guidelines); the KDP AI disclosure guide and the KDP paperback guide cover the set-up.

How do you sell devotionals to churches in bulk?

Print author copies for printed booklets, or sell a congregation licence for a PDF. On KDP, "When you order proof or author copies through your KDP Account, you'll pay the author price for your books", which is the print cost multiplied by the number of copies ordered, plus shipping (How much do proof or author copies cost?). A 25-day Advent booklet of 64 pages prints for $2.30 a copy on Amazon.com, so 50 copies cost $115.00 before shipping.

For a PDF, write the licence into the product ("one church may print or email this devotional to up to 100 members") and sell it as a separate product on Gumroad, Payhip or your own site, next to the personal-use version. Several publishers set lighter notice rules for material that is not for sale, such as church bulletins and orders of service; a booklet you sell follows the book rules above. The churches page covers sermon-companion devotionals and small group guides, and the spiritual coaches page covers guided journals and daily practice books.

How much should you charge for a devotional?

Charge for what the book gives the reader, checked against three comparable listings on the same store. A 30-day printable, a year-long gift paperback and a six-week group study are different prices even at the same page count.

Four rules hold across stores. On Gumroad, price well above the fixed fees: 80 cents a sale is 16% of a $4.99 devotional and 6% of a $12.99 one. On Kindle, respect the $12.99 line: at $14.99 a 1 MB devotional pays $5.25, at $12.99 it pays $8.99. Keep Scripture a minority of the text if you want the 70% Kindle rate on a public-domain translation. Do not price from the default: many sellers never move off the number already in the price box, which is how the typical Gumroad price across products published through the app ended up on the app's starting price. For pricing any ebook in more depth, see how to price an AI-created ebook.

How to make and sell a devotional, step by step

The route from an idea to a listing, for a devotional, a prayer journal or a group study.

1. 1. Name the reader, the season and the length

   One sentence: who it is for, what they are living through, and how many days (7, 21, 30, 40 or a year). Name your tradition if the readings should follow it. Read the reviews of three similar devotionals: their complaints are your brief.

2. 2. Choose the translation and read its permission page

   Pick one translation, count the verses you plan to quote and read the publisher's page, or choose the World English Bible. The planner shows the limit and the credit line.

3. 3. Choose the format and price it

   Use the planner to see what a PDF, a Kindle copy and a paperback pay at your price before a word is written.

4. 4. Write it

   Type the brief in the dashboard idea box, or choose New Book, then Choose a book type, then the Devotional tile for one day per chapter. Edit the plan of days before anything is written. The free plan writes up to five chapters a book; Creator's 35 chapters a month cover a 30-day devotional; a year of readings is best written a month at a time, since a book writes at most 40 chapters at once.

5. 5. Check every verse and read every day aloud

   Compare each quotation word for word with the translation you credit and fix any reference that is wrong. Read each reflection and prayer aloud, and add the stories only you can tell.

6. 6. Add the copyright page

   Your copyright line, the translation's credit line exactly as its publisher gives it (with "Used by permission" where the publisher asks for it), and a plain line on how the book was made.

7. 7. Export and list it

   Export the PDF in US Letter and A4 for Etsy, Gumroad, Payhip or your own site (every plan; a small footer credit on free); for Kindle the EPUB, for a paperback the KDP package (paid plan or credit pack). Add the AI line to an Etsy description; on KDP, tick Low-content only for a prayer journal.

8. 8. Offer it to churches and groups, and keep it up to date

   Order author copies for a church at print cost, or sell a group licence for the PDF. When a reader reports a wrong reference or a typo, fix it and replace the file on each store.