How Laia Blanch and her partner Gerard left Barcelona's ad industry to build a €100K Amazon KDP publishing empire from Mallorca. A Nespola success story.
After years of failed business ventures and corporate burnout in Barcelona, Laia Blanch and her partner Gerard discovered Amazon KDP — and built a location-independent publishing business that generates €25,000 a month in royalties.
There is a version of Laia Blanch's story that sounds like a fantasy: two burned-out advertising professionals abandon Barcelona's corporate circuit, move to a sun-drenched island, build a digital empire, and achieve financial independence before their forties.
The truth is less romantic and considerably more instructive.
"We failed so many times I lost count," Laia says. "But each failure taught us something critical about what actually works."
Before the Mallorca sunsets, there were MLM skincare kits that went nowhere. Before the €100,000 in cumulative royalties, there were Amazon FBA warehouses and the inventory headaches that come with them. Before the 24-book portfolio generating consistent monthly income, there was a pair of marketing professionals who knew almost everything about brand-building and almost nothing about self-publishing.
What Laia and Gerard discovered — through failure, research, and eventually the right mentorship — is that the publishing model hiding inside their FBA business was worth more than everything they had tried before it. Combined.
Laia Blanch spent years in Barcelona's advertising industry becoming an expert at building other people's brands. Her portfolio was impressive. Her trajectory was upward. But the client meetings and campaign launches also generated a restlessness she couldn't suppress.
"I kept reinventing myself — always seeking a more creative role, greater freedom, and work that truly fulfilled me."
Their entrepreneurial journey began with an MLM skincare venture. They exited early, but not without learning something fundamental: how to sell.
The next chapter was Amazon FBA — closer to a real business, but with punishing economics: inventory costs, thin margins, and the constant operational weight of managing physical goods.
Then they noticed something that would change everything.
As part of their FBA operation, Laia and Gerard had been bundling free ebooks with their physical products. Then they saw other sellers making serious money selling the ebooks alone. No inventory. No warehouses. No returns.
"That was our wake-up call," Laia explains. "We were sitting on a gold mine and didn't even know it."
The math was undeniable. Digital publishing on Amazon eliminates the structural disadvantages that had plagued their previous ventures:
"The moment we understood the business model, everything changed."
After evaluating multiple programs — many long on inspiration and short on actionable systems — they found Nespola and its PublishingOS program.
"We wanted two things: create solid books that actually help people, and make real money doing it. No fluff, no BS."
Their introduction to Manu, Nespola's co-founder, confirmed they had found the right fit.
"The meeting was like a slap in the face — in a good way. Every word he said was backed by real results. No theory, just proven systems that work."
PublishingOS provided what Laia, with her marketing background, recognized immediately: not another "strategy," but a complete operating system for building a profitable, scalable publishing business.
Laia and Gerard started simply — activity books and fitness guides, categories with established demand and clear market signals. The approach was disciplined and unglamorous: follow the system, ship the books, analyze the data.
Their portfolio now stands at 24 books. Ten of those titles carry the majority of revenue weight — consistent with the 80/20 principle that governs most catalog-based businesses. One single book generates over €1,000 every month in royalties on its own.
€25,000 in royalties in a single month.
€100,000 in total cumulative royalties.
"Let me be honest — seeing actual money hit our account from our first books was mind-blowing. Everything before that was just theory. This was real."
"Here's the truth about publishing — you're going to mess up. A lot."
Their most significant early challenges:
Production delays. Books that should have taken weeks dragged into months. Without a clear production system, each book required reinventing the workflow from scratch.
Amazon Advertising. For a business built on Amazon's platform, mastering Amazon Ads is not optional — it is the mechanism through which books achieve visibility.
"Dropping hundreds on ads for a book that might flop? That's terrifying. But if you're not willing to spend money to make money, you're just playing around."
Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Laia and Gerard's strategy is their use of AI tools to enter markets where they don't speak the language.
"We're selling books in markets where we don't speak the language. Think about that. Five years ago, that would've been impossible."
The global ebook market continues to expand, with non-English-speaking regions representing some of the highest growth rates. AI localization tools have made those markets newly accessible to independent publishers.
Three key lessons:
Laia and Gerard have left Barcelona's professional environment for Mallorca. They've exited the 9-to-5 structure entirely. They work from anywhere, at hours of their choosing, on projects they select.
"This isn't just about money. This business completely rewired how we think, who we hang out with, everything." "Trust the process. If you work hard and do what needs to be done, there's no way things won't happen. But you can't skip steps. There are no shortcuts."