Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey everyone. My name
is Keana Johnson, and today I'm going to be teaching you how to
create medium to high content books
and selling them on Amazon completely for free. I created my first book
on Amazon in 2022, which was called The
Royal Faith Journal. Until this day, the Royal
Faith Journal has been one of my most highest selling products
to date in my business. I struggled to come up with products that people
actually wanted to buy. When I decided to make
the Royal Faith Journal, that was the first sale I
ever made in my business. What makes it even
better is that I made my first sale
on my launch date. The day that I decided
launch my journal is the day that I made my
first sale in my business. If selling books on
Amazon can work for me, it can definitely work for you. I know some of you
may be thinking you don't have the time to
start another business. You don't have the time
to sell these products. But what if I told you
that selling books on Amazon can be a passive
stream of income for you? If you are looking to learn
a passive stream of income that can generate you hundreds
to thousands of dollars, then stay tuned because
I'm going to teach you everything you need to know to publish your book on Amazon. I hope to see you in lesson one.
2. Class Project: Hey everyone. For
your class project, I want you to create the
cover for your Amazon book. I feel like a lot of people
get into these courses. They learn the information, but they don't
actually apply it. But if you take me up on
this challenge and you complete your cover by the time that you
finish this course, that is going to give
you the motivation to actually push through and
actually publish your journal. To complete your class project, all you have to do is come
up with a book topic, create a catchy title, determine what format
you're going to use, Create your Canva account, design your book cover. Download your cover as a print PDF and upload it
as your class project. If this sounds overwhelming
to you, don't worry. I'm going to teach
you how to do all of this step by step by
the end of the course. I cannot wait to celebrate
with you as you achieve your first milestone on
your publishing journey. If you're interested in learning how to complete
your class project, meet me over in less than
one and we'll get started.
3. 1. Why Medium/High Content: Hey everyone, welcome to
lesson one of the course. In this lesson, I'm going to be explaining to you
why you should be creating medium to
high content books instead of low content books. First, let's discuss what
low content books are. Low content books are very
basic books that don't really have much in them and you can use them for
whatever you want. Just think of a notebook. A notebook is literally a book
that just has lines in it. And you can use it for whatever. You can use it if
you're in school. You can use it on your job. You can use it in your business. You can to journal, you can use it for whatever
low content books are books that have basic content and they can be used for
whatever you want. If you look up how to
make money online, you will notice that a lot of money guru will push low
content books at you. They'll always say, hey, if you want to make some money, you should check out
low content books. You should be creating
low content books. And the reason why they suggest
these is because they are very easy to make and they are
also very easy to publish. Although low content books
are very easy to make, there is a downside to them, and that is that they
are very hard to sell. Think about it like this. If I came to you and I
asked you to buy my notebook and it cost $12 would you be willing to buy
it for a lot of people? The answer would be no because in your mind
you're thinking, well, I can get a notebook
from five and below, I can get a notebook
from Walmart, I can get a notebook
from Dollar General. I can get a notebook
from anywhere, and I can get a notebook
that is cheaper than that. What is so special about your notebook that
I will want to specifically buy yours and specifically buy it
at a higher price. Low content books are extremely
hard to sell because you can't really convince people why they need it and why
they need it from you. This is why I suggest creating medium to
high content books. Medium to high content books have a lot more details in them. And that means you cannot
get it from anywhere. And people have to come to you in order to
receive this value. Because it's so detailed, it also helps you to niche down and target a
specific group of people. See if you were just
selling a journal that was like a notebook and
it only had lines in it, who would you be targeting
for that and why? But when you create medium
to high content books, it helps you gain more
clarity of who needs this. So that you know who you should be targeting
and marketing to. One of the best parts
about medium to high content books is that
you can charge higher prices. Let's be honest, one of
the main reasons why we want to sell books is because
we want to make some money. And when you're selling
low content books, you can't really
mark up the price, which means that your
profit is going to be low. But when you are creating detailed books that have
actual value in them, you can charge those
for a higher price, which means that you are
making a higher profit. If you want your book
to be stressless, then medium to high content is the way that you want to go. If you want to listen
to all the gurus and create low content books, you're going to find
yourself working extremely hard to try people, why they should even
buy this from you, why they should choose
you over everyone else. What is so special and valuable about your book that they
should want to buy it from you? But when you create medium
to high content books, people automatically see
the value in your book. You can make lots of money passively and on top
of you making money, you actually get to make
an impact on people. People actually get something in return from
shopping with you. If you're interested in
making low content books, then this course is not for you. But if you're
interested in making medium to high content books, then I will see
you and listen to.
4. 2. Choosing A Topic: Hey everyone, welcome to
lesson two of the course. In this lesson, I'm
going to be teaching you how to come up
with a journal topic. Because we are doing medium
to high content books, we are going to have to
come up with a topic of what our journal
is going to be about. I have a few questions that I want you to ask
yourself that's going to help you come up with what your topic should be about. The first question is, what are you passionate about? If you could teach
somebody anything, what would you them, what would be the
impact that you will want to leave while
you are on this Earth? The reason why I
asked this question is because I feel like medium to high content books is
a way for you to teach and coach people without
you physically being there. You can literally take
a topic that you are passionate about teaching
people and turn it into a book, a journal, or a planner. The second question that you
want to ask yourself is, what do people need from you? What do people come
to you for the most? For example, let's say that
you are good at cooking. And people always come
to you and they ask you, hey, how do you
do those recipes? Hey, how do you come
up with meals to make? People are always
coming to you and asking you about
cooking and recipes. Then maybe you want
to create a cookbook. You want to ask yourself, what is it that
people need from you? What is it that people come to you for and ask
you for the most? The third question that you
want to ask yourself is, what do you normally help
people with the most? There could be something
that people constantly come to you with over and
over and over again. You might be feeling
like maybe it's just easier for you
to package this up in a book or a journal instead
of constantly repeating yourself and helping people with this same problem
time and time again. The last question that
you want to yourself is, how can you add value to
other people's lives? Remember, when someone sees
value in your product, you do not have to convince them as to why they should buy. You want to think about who you are targeting and ask yourself, what value do they need and how can you add that
value through a book, a planner, or a journal? I hope these questions give
you a better understanding of the topic that you're thinking about creating your book around. If you are still feeling
confused, don't worry. In your workbook, I
have created a list of journal book and planner
ideas that you can pull from or use as
motivation and inspiration. Come up with a perfect
topic for you. Click the link to access your workbook and I will
see you in the next lesson.
5. 3. Creating A Catchy Title: Hey everyone, welcome to
lesson three of the course. In this lesson, I'm going
to be teaching you how to come up with a catchy
title for your book. Your title is one of the
most important aspects of your publishing
journey because your title is the first
thing that people are going to see or hear about when
it comes to your book. If people are not
attracted to your title, they are not going
to be interested in learning more or
checking out your book. Let's talk about the s and
the don'ts for your title. When it comes to your title, you want your title to be
short, sweet, and simple. You do not want a title that
is seven to ten words long. You do not want a title that is extremely difficult
for people to read. You also want your title to summarize what your
book is about. People should have a clear understanding of what
they're going to get and what they're going to learn just from reading
the title on your cover. For example, my journal helps people on their faith
journey from start to finish. It helps them conquer every
single aspect that they are going to experience while they are
taking this journey. And I decided to title it
the Royal Faith Journal. The reason why I titled it the Royal Faith
Journal is because, for one, it's a journal that
helps you with your faith. And the reason why
I used the word royal is because that
is a part of my brand. My brand teaches
people how to see themselves the way
that God sees them. And God sees us as royalty. God sees us as his heirs. And so the reason why I
used the word royal is because if you can see yourself the way
that God sees you, it will help you on
your faith journey. My title is short,
sweet, and simple, and it also summarizes what they are going to get when they
purchase the journal. So as you're thinking
about your book topic, I want you to ask
yourself if you could explain what your book is
about in three words or less. How would you explain it and use your answer to come up
with a catchy title? I can't wait to see
what you come up with, and I will see you
in the next lesson.
6. 4. Mapping Out Content : Hey everyone, welcome to the
next lesson of the course. In this lesson, I'm
going to be teaching you how to map out
your book content. Now we are getting
to the fun and exciting part of our
publishing journey. And that is coming up with the content that is going
to be inside of our book. Your content is going to depend on the topic
of your book. You have to ask yourself
based on your topic, what kind of book are
you trying to create? Or what kind of book would
work best for your topic? Should you create a journal? Should you create a planner? Should you create
a physical book? What type of book are
you trying to create? The next question that you
want to ask yourself is, what all are you putting
inside of your book? What are all the
things that you are trying to teach or
help people to do? Don't think that just
because you choose to do a journal or you
choose to do a planner, that all the pages
have to be the same. Because like I said, I created
the Royal Faith journal. I have about 12 different
pages in this journal. I have a page that helps
you seek God for his plan. I have a page that helps you turn scriptures into commands. I have a page that helps you write out the vision
that God gave you. I have a page that helps you vent out your
frustrations to God. I have a page that helps you conquer your unbelief
and conquer your fear. I have so many different pages even though this is
called a journal. So you want to ask yourself, what are you trying to help
people do in this book? What are the steps that
they're going to have to take to get to
the other side? What are the steps that
they're going to have to take to see a transformation? And how can you use this book
to take them step by step, to walk them step by step, to guide them step by step? And once you decide on all the pages that you
want in your book, then you have to organize it in a way that makes sense and also determine how many times you are going to
repeat those pages. And once you do
that, you will have officially mapped out all
the content for your book. Give yourself a round
of applause because you are one step closer to
your publishing journey, you are one step closer to
actually having your own book. And if you're ready
to continue on, then I will see you
in the next lesson.
7. 5. Pricing Your Book: Hey everyone, welcome to the
next lesson of the course. In this lesson, I'm going to be teaching you how to properly price your medium to high
content book on Amazon. Pricing is a very
important aspect in your publishing
journey because you want to make sure that you
are properly pricing your book high enough for
you to make a profit. Your profit is your price
minus your expenses. It's whatever is left
over after you are paying for all the necessities to get the book to the customer. Although you don't have to do any manual work after
you publish your book, you do have to pay Amazon for
printing the book for you. You have to pay them a
portion for the work that they do to get your
book to the customer. Once you publish
your book to KDP, it will show you how much
Amazon is charging so that you can make sure that you are
pricing your book accordingly. The amount that Amazon charges is going to be based on
the size of the book, the content of the book, and how many pages are included. Another factor that you want
to consideration when it comes to pricing your book
is the value of the book. Like I said in the
beginning of the course, when it comes to
low content books, they're not really
that valuable. So you cannot
charge high prices. You cannot charge $45 for a book that only
has lines in it. But because your book is
medium to high content, it is a lot more valuable. And so you want to determine
how much is this book worth, how much are people willing to spend to get this information, to get this value, to get this guide? If you are unsure about
the value of the book, then I would suggest
doing market research. You can do this a
few different ways, people who are in
your target audience. And you can survey them. And you can ask them, how
much would they be willing to spend for a book that has
this much value in it? Or you can look up
similar journals, look up similar books and see how much people are
charging for theirs. And also pay attention
to the reviews. Pay attention to if people are saying that the book
is worth the price, if they are, then that
shows you that you can get away with charging something
similar to that price. I hope that this gave you
a better understanding of how much you should be
charging for your book. Now let's talk about how to
actually create your book, and I will see you
in the next lesson.
8. 6. Market Research: Hey everyone, welcome to the
next lesson of the course. In this lesson, I'm going
to be teaching you how to do market research before
creating your journal. Market research is basically
observing your competitors. When you're doing research
on your competitors, you want to look
at three things. Number one is the topic
of your journal popular. Number two, what do they
have in their journals? Number three, what is
attractive about their journal? To do market research
on your competitors. First, you want to
go to Amazon.com Once you get to Amazon, you want to click the search
button and you want to search journals that are
similar to your topic. Let's say, for example, that you decided to create
a self love journal. You want to put in
a self love journal and look at what pops up. You have a self love
workbook for woman. You have an effort, a Guided Self Love and
Gratitude journal. You have a year of
self love journal. So the first thing that you want to look at is that there are multiple self love journals
available on Amazon. This is going to tell you that this topic that you're
looking to create is popular. So if you decide to create one, it nine times out of ten
will do really well. Once you find a journal that is similar to what you're
trying to create, you want to click on it so
that you can learn more about it and see why people
are attracted to it. So let's look at this journal. It has 19,000 reviews, which means that it is very popular and a lot
of people like it. After you click on it, click on Read Sample. This is going to give
you a sneak peek of what's inside of the journal. Just from this page.
You can see that this workbook helps people
release self doubt, build self compassion, and
embrace who they actually are. You also can see from the
table of contents that the journal helps them determine where they're
currently starting at, heal their relationships and
build up their self worth. This is giving you an
idea of what's inside the journal and what is probably
attracting people to it. The reason why you want to know this is because considering
the fact that this is one of the most popular
journals on Amazon in this topic shows you that these are areas where a lot
of people need help. You may want to create similar
content in your journal if you want to attract the same type of
people and make sales, the next thing that
you want to pay attention to is the cover. When looking at the cover, you can see that they
use very warm colors and they use a lot of animations
that make people feel safe. And even if you go
back to the search, if you notice when looking
at other journals, they also use a lot
of warm colors. Like light browns, light blues, light yellows, a lot of plants, a lot of butterflies. All of these journals
use warm colors. And it's probably because
they know that they're targeting people who need
help with self love. And getting to a place of loving yourself
requires vulnerability. You want your book cover to be so attractive that
it opens people up and make them feel
safe to click on it and learn more and
possibly purchase it. And the last thing that
you want to look at when you're doing market
research reviews. So I'm going to go back to this first journal because
it has the most reviews. It has 19,934 reviews. When you're looking
through reviews, you want to pay attention to the things that
people are saying. Pay attention to what they
like about the journal. Pay attention to what they
don't like about the journal. Because the things that they don't like about the journal, you can actually use and add to your journal so that people will want to purchase
yours over theirs. And I want to remind you
that your goal when doing market research is not to
copy somebody else's journal. You don't want to
copy their cover, you don't want to
copy their content. But what you do want to
do is get inspiration and get strategies on what people like and what
people are attracted to. And you use that
inspiration and you use that strategy when you are creating your very own journal. For example, we're
not going to look at this journal and copy this
cover word from word, or color from color. But what we are
going to do is we're going to look at this
cover and say, okay, I need to use warm
colors that makes people feel safe and makes
people feel invited. You're going to say, okay, I know that I need to use
some animation on my cover. Maybe I'm not going to
use these exact shapes, but maybe I want to
use some plants. Maybe I want to use some roses, maybe I want to use some hearts. You're not copying
what you're seeing, You're just taking
what you're seeing and you're using
it as inspiration. So I hope that this gives you an idea of how to
strategically do market research and I will
see you in the next lesson.
9. 7. Creating A KDP Account : Hey everyone, welcome to the
next lesson of the course. In this lesson, I'm
going to be teaching you how to create a KDP account. Creating a KDP account is
very easy and very simple. All you have to do is go to Google and search KDP, Amazon. When you do, the first
thing that pops up is Amazon's KDP website. So if you already have a
regular Amazon account, all you have to do
is hit sign in and it will ask for your login
information for Amazon, and you just click sign
in again and it will automatically sign
you in to KDP. If you don't have
an Amazon account, all you have to do is hit
Join KDP and go through the process of writing your name e mail and
creating a password. And it will create you a
KDP and an Amazon account. For the sake of this tutorial, I went ahead and created an
Amazon account from scratch. So after you put in your
name e mail and you create a password to ask you to
verify your e mail account, they'll send you a code and
you'll put in that code. After you put in the code, it's going to send
you to this page. All it's doing is telling you
the terms and agreements. You can read them if you
like, and if you agree, hit the agreed button,
There you have it. Your Amazon KDP account is officially open and
ready for you to use. I hope that this helps
you understand how to create your
Amazon KDP account, and I will see you
in the next lesson.
10. 8. Setting Up Payment Method: Hey everyone, welcome to the
next lesson of the course. In this lesson, I'm
going to be teaching you how to set up your
payment method in KDP. The first thing that you
want to do is you want to go to Kp.amazon.com, Once you get to the website, make sure that you sign in
and when you're signed in, click on your account. Under your account, you want to fill out all this information accurately so that you can start getting paid whenever
someone purchased. So the first question
that it's going to ask you is your business type, are you doing business as an individual or are you doing
business as a corporation? For a lot of us, we are doing business as an individual
because we do not have a registered business for
our journals and we do not have any LLC or S
corporation or anything. You just want to
click on Individual. Next is going to ask you
for your date of birth. You want to make
sure that you fill this out and then it's going to ask you for the country or region that you reside in. After you click on
that, it's going to ask you for a little
bit more detail. It's going to ask you
for your legal name, your legal address, your city, state, zip code, and your phone number. After you fill out
all this information, you're going to scroll down
to where it says getting paid and it's going to ask you about your
banking information. So it's going to ask you
where you bank and of course a lot of you bank in
the United States is going to ask you for the
account holders name is going to ask you if your account is a checking or a savings account. And it's going to ask you to enter your account number and your routing number when you
get to the tax information. It's going to ask you a lot of the same questions like
your name, your address, how you do business, and it's also going to ask
you for your social number. Of course, I am not going
to fill this out in this example because this is a lot of personal information. But I did want to
go through this and show you what to expect, what you need to put in, and what information
you need to have. I hope that this has helped you and I will see you
in the next lesson.
11. 9. Choosing A Book Size: Hey everyone, welcome to the
next lesson of the course. In this lesson, I'm going
to be teaching you how to choose the proper book
size for your journal. Choosing your book size is
very simple and very easy. All you have to do is
go to Google and search for KDP book cover calculator. And it should be the very
first thing that pops up. Make sure that you click on it. After you click on it, it
should bring you to this page. And you want to
make sure that you fill out all this information correctly so that it gives you the proper size
for your journal. The first section
that you have to fill out is the binding type. This is basically
asking you if you want your journal to be a hard
cover or a paperback. This is the personal preference, so just make sure that you choose which one
you desire to have. For this example, we are
going to click on paperback. The next section is
your interior type. This is basically
asking what type of paper you want
inside of your journal. Do you want black and white, premium color, or
standard color? For the sake of this tutorial, we're just going to stick
with the basics and we're going to click
on black and white. The next section is
your paper type. This is basically asking what color paper you desire
to have in your journal. You can either choose
from cream or from white. For the sake of this video, we are just going
to click on white. The next section is your
page turn direction. This is basically asking
if you want your pages to turn left to right
or right to left. And we're just going to
go with the standard and we are going to
choose left to right. The next section is
your measurement units. After you fill out
all this information, the calculator is
going to give you measurements for your book size. This question is
basically asking you how you want those measurements
to be presented to you. Do you want them
to be presented in inches or in millimeters? For the sake of this tutorial, we are just going
to click on inches. The next section is your
interior trim size. This is basically asking you, how big do you want
your journal to be? Do you want it to be small? Where it's maybe a 5.5 by eight? Do you want it to be medium
where it's like a six by nine or do you want it to be
big where it's a 8.5 by 11? You can choose
your desired trim. Or if there's a trim size that you desire that you do not see, you can click on custom trim and put in the desired trim
size of your liking. And the last section
that you have to fill out is your page count. This is basically asking you how many pages are going to be inside of your
book or your journal. And this part is one of
the most important parts, because if you do not
get this accurate, then the calculator
is going to give you sizes that do not
match your book. You do not want to
put in 400 pages, but you have a 200 page journal. That means that the
size that Amazon gives you is going to be way
too big for your journal. And so when you go to print it, it's not going to look right. So you want to sit down,
create your content, and figure out how many
pages are in your journal. Then come back to this, fill this out so that you make sure that you have
an accurate count. And for the sake
of this tutorio, I'm just going to
put in 200 pages. After you filled all this out, you want to click on
Calculate Dimensions, and it will give you the
size of your journal. You can also click on the
Download template button. When you download it,
you open up the PDF. If you zoom in,
you'll notice that it gives you all the sizes
for your journal. It gives you the overall
size for the book, it gives you the
size for the trim, and it gives you the size for each cover. There you have it. This is how you properly create the size
for your journal, and I will see you
in the next lesson.
12. 10. Creating Your Book Cover: Hey everyone, welcome to the
next lesson of the course. In this lesson, I'm
going to be teaching you how to create the cover
for your journal. Creating the cover for
your journal is very easy. The first thing that you want
to do is you want to go to Canva.com Canva is a site that you can use to create graphics for basically anything. If you're just starting
out and you're not really good at graphics,
have a free plan. But if you like Canva and you feel like you're going
to use it a lot, you can always
upgrade to the Pro. But for right now, we're
going to stick with the free plan to create
a Canva account. All you have to do is click on the sign up
button at the top, and you can sign up using
your Google account, your Facebook account, or by entering your e mail and
creating a password. For this video, I'm going to create a Canva
account from scratch, and I'm going to create
my account using Google. After you create your account, it's going to take
you to this page. And this page is
basically asking you what you will
be using Canva for. Are you a teacher who wants to create content for
your students? Are you a small business using this to create designs
for your brand? Are you a student trying to create content for
your classmates? Are you using this
for personal use? Are you a nonprofit or charity? Or are you a large
company or corporation? And for this video,
in this example, we are going to click
on Small Business. After you click on that, it's going to take you to this page, giving you the option to
upgrade to Canva Pro. But we are just going to
click on maybe later. And there you have it.
Your Canva account is officially created to cover. The first thing that you want
to do is you want to create a file that is the same
size as your book. To do this, you want to pull up the template that
you got from Amazon. You want to zoom in and
you want to look at where it says
overall dimensions. You can see that the dimensions
are 17.7 " by 11.25 ". Then you want to go
back to Canva and you want to click on where
it says Custom size. You want to change
pixels to inches. And then you want to
insert those dimensions. After you're finish,
click Create New Design. After you click
Create New Design, it should take you to a
page that looks like this. The next thing that
you want to do is you want to click on
where it says upload. And you want to upload
the P and G version of your book cover template
into this section. Once it's finished uploading, you want to click on the
picture and you want to drag it until it fully
covers the page. This is going to tell you if your file size is
accurate or not. And this is very important
because you don't want to create a
cover this size. And you come to find
out that it's too big or it's too small for
your actual book cover. Another thing that
you want to pay attention to when
you're creating your cover is this yellow
section on your template. This yellow section is where the barcode will be
on your journal. And so it's very important
that you do not put anything over this section because when you go to
print your journal, it will be cut off. So make sure that
there's no text that goes over this
yellow section. Make sure there's no
designs that you really want to show your audience
that goes over this section. Try your best when
you're creating your content to keep this
section of your cover plain. So now let's start
creating our cover. And you can create your
cover in two different ways. The first way is
using templates, that's on Canva, and the second way is by creating
your cover from scratch. And of course, I'm going
to show you both methods. To use a Canva template, all you have to do is
go back to Canvas, home screen in a new tab. Click on the search and
search for a template. Let's say, for example,
that you wanted to create a self love journal. You will click on a
search and you will search for self
love journal cover. And you will look
through what pops up. Some of the things that pops up are for Canva Pro members only. You will know it if it has that yellow crown at the bottom. Some things are for
paid members only and some things are
free if you don't see $1 sign at the bottom. If you don't see the
crown at the bottom, that means that it is
free for you to use. So you just want to scroll
through all of these until you find a cover that is
appeasing to your eye. For me, I really like
this Daily Journal cover, so I'm going to click on it
and I'm going to click on where it says, customize
this template. Customizing a template
is extremely easy. Let's say that I like this
cover the way that it is. I don't want to make
any changes to it. The I have to do is change the text. I would change this from saying Daily Journal to
saying self love workbook. Then I would try and adjust it so it doesn't
cover the roses. I would change the size
of the font so that it can be a little bit more smaller and look
a lot more nicer. Then the text at the bottom. I would change it from a website
and I would put my name, I would say by, and
I'm going to give it a fake name and say,
Taylor Bradley. There you have it. This will be the cover of your journal. It was very easy,
it was very simple. And it took you a couple
minutes to create. The next thing that you
have to do is you will have to create a back cover
for your journal. You can either a try and find another template that's similar to this that you can
use for the back. Or you can create
a back cover from scratch and make it look
similar to the front. I'm going to go with
the second option. I'm going to click on a page. I'm going to make sure that the back cover is the
same color as the front. Then I'm just going to
make the back very simple. I want the back to
have a text that summarizes what this
workbook is about. I'm going to go to
the text section, I'm going to click
on at a subheading, and I'm just going
to create a fake paragraph to go on that section. Now I want to change the font. I'm going to click on the text. I'm going to go up to
where it says Canvas. I'm going to click on
Glacier indifference. I'm going to make the font
a little bit smaller. I'm going to adjust
it a little bit so that it's not
from side to side, and it's in the
middle perfectly. Then I'm going to pull it up
to the top and I am going to make it a little bit
smaller so it's nice. And then I want to unboad it. This will be the summarization
of what our journal, or what our workbook is about. And it's going to be
on the back cover of the book to make this a plain because there's really nothing
at the bottom, let's say that I want to add and about the
author section, maybe I want to add
a picture of me. And then I want to have
a small description telling my audience who I am and why I'm experienced and why they should
buy this journal for me. I am going to click on Elements. I am going to search Frame. I'm going to adjust this frame
and make it a lot smaller. Then I'm going to click
on the text at the top. And I'm just going
to copy paste it. I'm going to bring it
down next to the frame. And I'm just going to
make it a lot smaller. Remember we want it to fit on the page and not
be above the barcode. Adjust it so that it looks like a nice length.
There you have it. That would be our about me section on the
back of our cover. I want this to match the front
cover a little bit more. I'm just going to change
the color of the text. I'm going to click
on the text box, go up to where it says A, and I'm going to click
on that brown color and change the text
to that color. Once I'm done, I'm going to
click on where it says Share. I'm going to go
down to download. I only want to download one page at a time so
that it can be a P and G. I'm going to go back
to my original file, the one that has our
Amazon KDP template. I'm going to upload
those designs and then I'm going to drag
them over the front cover. Then I'm going to drag it
over the bottom cover. That is what our book
cover would look like. Then I'm going to click
on that bottom cover. I'm going to click
on Transparency. And I'm going to
make it a little transparent because I
want to make sure that none of the designs
or texts that I put on the back cover is
covering the barcode. As you can see it,
we are all good. Just make sure that if
you do this method, you take the transparency
back to 100, you don't want to have a
transparent book cover. Then the last step, of course, is creating your trim. This is going to
be extremely easy. All you have to do is
go back to elements. Click on a shape like a square. Adjust it so that it's the same size as the
rest of your book. If you want it to match the rest of your book and
not be like this dark color, you go back to colors. You change it so that
it matches the color. There you have it. You
can leave it like this. Or if you want, you can add the title of
your journal to it. So you will just click on
Text at Self Love Workbook. Make it a little bit smaller. Rotate it, put it in the middle. Change the font, so that is the same font as the
front of the cover. Change the color, then
there you have it. This is the cover
of your journal. It looks beautiful, it
looks professional. It will look a lot
better when you add a picture to the frame, but this looks really nice. And you created this very
professional looking journal all from using a template. The second way for you to create your book cover is by
making it from scratch. And to do that, all you
have to do is click Add, add your KDP template
to your page. Then we're going to create our book cover on top
of this template. We're going to go to Elements, and we're going to
click on a square. Then we're going to
make the square the same size as our front cover. You can change the color. I'm just going to
make mines the same color as our
template book cover. Then I'm going to add
some designs to it. I'm going to go to elements and I'm going to search for flowers. Because remember, when we were
doing our market research, we saw that a lot of self love, workbooks and journals
had a lot of plants, flowers, and shapes on them. So we want to create a journal that's very
similar to that. We're going to go
through the flowers and we're just going to choose some flowers that look really
nice and stand out to us. I really like this one, so I'm just going to click on it and I'm going to drag it and size it so that it fits the
bottom of our front cover. I'm going to go to transparency and I'm going to make it a little transparent so it's
not as like bold in color. Then I'm going to bring it
down a little bit so that it looks like the flowers are
rising up from the bottom. The next I want to
do is I want to create a border that
goes around the title. I'm going to go back
to Elements and I'm going to search for borders. I'm going to scroll until I see a border that
stands out to me. I really like this one, so
I'm going to click on it. I'm going to rotate it so that it's more of a square
than a rectangle. Make it a little bit bigger
and put it in the middle. And I'm also going to
change the color to gold. Now let's add our title. We're just going to call
this the Self Love workbook. So we're going to go to Text, we're going to click
on Add a Header. And we're going to
write the self. We're going to change the font, make the font a
little bit smaller, and we're going to put it at the top of the inside
of our border. Then we're going to copypaste that header and we're going
to write the words love. We're going to go to fonts, and we're going to make
it a more cursive font. We're going to make
this a little bit bigger and we're going to put it underneath
the words the self. Then we're going to
copypaste that again. And we're just going to
write the word workbook. Adjust it so that
it's in the middle. This is what the title to
our journal will look like. After that, you can
play around with it and add some more shapes and
elements if you want. I'm just going to
go to elements and I'm going to search
the word love. Because we're doing a
self love workbook. You can put some things on
it, make it transparent. See if you like it. See
if you don't like it. If you like it, you can keep it. If you don't like it,
you can delete it. I'm just going to make
these cute little hearts and put the word love in
the middle of the border. And that is what the front cover to our journal looks like. Now I'm just going to copy paste the original
square that we made and I'm going to put it on the other side as the back
cover to our journal. For the back cover
of the journal, I really wanted to be a
little bit more basic. I just wanted to
have some text that summarizes what the
workbook is about. Then I also want the
plants that's on the front cover to be on
the back cover as well. I'm going to go to text,
I'm going to add a header. I'm going to copy
paste the plants and I'm going to put them
on the bottom cover. It doesn't matter that
this is going to be behind the barcode because
it's just the stems. But if you had any elements that is important that would
be behind the bar code, then you want to
readjust it so that it's not but it's
just the stems. So we're going to
keep it like that. We're going to take
our paragraph, we're going to put
it in the header. We're going to change
the font size. We're going to change
the font of it, unbold it, and section
it off in the middle. And change the color. Actually, I want to make
it a little bit smaller, and then I want to add
a second paragraph, adjust it so that
it's in the middle. And that is what the back
of our cover looks like. It's really simple,
it's really basic, but it also looks really
nice and really clean. All we have to do next is create the trim for our journal. We're going to go
back to elements. We're going to do the
exact same thing that we did for our first
journal cover. We're going to size it so
that it's the same size as the trim, change the color. Then I'm going to
copy the title. I'm going to write
out the whole title. I'm going to rotate it, make it a little bit smaller, and adjust it so that
it's in the middle of the trim and then
change the color. I also decided to
go back and change the color of the title so
that it looks like this. There you have it. These are
your two journal covers, one that was made
with a template and another one that
you made from scratch. They both look
really professional. If you're not the type of
person who is good at graphics, I would suggest
using a template. If you feel like
you can, you know, do basic graphics
or you're really, really good at design, then I would suggest doing the second and making
it from scratch. But that is all
that I have for you and I will see you
in the next lesson.
13. 11. Creating Your Journal Content: Hey everyone, welcome to the
next lesson of the course. In this lesson, I'm going
to be teaching you how to create the content to go
inside of your journal. The first thing that you
want to do is you want to go to Canva.com You can create the content for
your journal by either using a template or creating
your pages from scratch. If you want to use a template, all you have to do is
click on the search and search for templates that's
similar to your content. Since we've been creating
a self love workbook, let's search for
self love worksheets and we're going to look
through what pops up. So remember, some of
these templates are free. Some of them you
have to pay for, and others you have to be a Canva pro member
to access them. So we're just going to
try and find a free one. And I really like this one, so we're going to click
on it and we're going to click on Customize,
this template. So when you're
creating the content for the inside of your journal, it doesn't matter
if you're using a template or if you're creating your content
from scratch. You want to make sure that your content stays
within the margins. Your margin is basically
your safe space on the page. It helps you make sure that when your journal gets printed, none of your content
gets cut off. To check the margins
on your page, you want to click on File, go down to View Settings, and click on Show Margins. And you should see this
dotted line that pops up. And this is basically where you want to
keep your content. You do not want to put any text, any lines, or any boxes
outside of these margin lines. From this template,
we can see that the last line in the
plant at the bottom, is out of the margins. So I'm just going to
click on the line. And I'm going to bring it up
so that it's in the margins. And then I'm going
to push the plant up so that it's in
the margins as well. Then after that, you can just customize this template
to your liking. So you can change the title. Maybe you want to change
it from self reflection. You can change the description of what this page is about. If you want your line
size to be smaller, you can move the lines up or you can add
more lines to it. If you want to
create page numbers, maybe you want people to know
like what page they're on. You just go to text, you add a header, and you
insert the number one. You can make it smaller and just move it to the
bottom of your page. These lines clearly
aren't perfect, but this is just to give you
an idea of how you can use a template and customize it to create the content
inside of your journal. Let's say that you want to have multiple pages in your
journal using templates. You don't want every single page to be a self reflection page. All you have to do is
click on Add a new page, go up to Design, and search for a template that fits the content
that you're looking for. Let's say that we want to have a gratitude page in
our journal as well. We're going to go to the search, and we're going to search
for gratitude worksheet. And we're going to scroll
until we see one that we like. I like this one, and I'm
going to click on it. And basically what I'm going
to do is I'm just going to customize this so that it
matches our first template. You don't want to have all
these crazy colors where every single page is a different color and
a different font. You want everything to look
organized neat and the same. So we're going to
change the color from this orange to that
same green color. We're going to look and see what font we have as the title. And we're going to
make this gratitude, that same exact
and reposition it. Then we're going to copy
paste the page number, bring it down to the second
page and put number two. This is how you will use multiple templates to create all the content in your journal. But let's say that
you don't want to use templates and you want to create your content
from scratch. All you have to do
is click on a page, change the color to
your desired color. For this example, I'm
just going to use white. I'm going to go to the text
and click on at a heading. Let's say that we want this
page to be about forgiveness. I'm just going to type
forgiveness into the heading, and I'm going to
change the font, drag it up, make sure
that it's in the margins. I'm going to take
it all the way to the top of where
the margins start. Go to elements and add a box. And I'm going to put
the first instruction inside of that box. But before I do that, I want to give this worksheet
a description. I'm going to go to text
and add a subheading. I'm going to give a description of what this worksheet is about. I'm going to change the font, and then I'm going
to move it right underneath the title where
it says forgiveness. This will be our description of what our worksheet is about. Now let's go back
to this text box. We're going to move it up a
little bit, and like I said, we want to write
the first question or instruction inside
this text box. So we're going to
add another text, we're going to write
out the instruction, change the font,
make it smaller, and put it on top of this box. After that, we're going
to add another box. We're going to put it right
underneath the instruction, adjust it so that
it's a little small, and then we're going to make
the inside transparent, and we're going to
add a border to it. This is basically
if you want to have some questions on
your worksheet, but you don't want to have
a whole bunch of lines. You just want to have
a text box that they can write inside of and
give their answers. But let's say that
you do want to create lines for
them to write on. All you have to do,
I'm going to show you how to do this
underneath the text box. We're just going to copy
paste that question. We're going to put it
underneath that text box. We're going to go to
Elements and one of the first things that
you will see is a line. We're going to
click on that line, drag it so that it fits
the entire screen, and make sure that
it's straight. It should be at 0.0 If you want the line to be
thinner and not as thick, you just click on line style. And we're going
to put it at one. We're going to position it so that it is underneath the text. And then we can just copy paste and drag these lines
underneath each other. And if you want to make
sure that your lines are the exact same length and exact same distance
from each other, When you copy and paste, you can put the line that
you copied on top of the previous one and just use the Down button on your
computer and count down. So you can press it like
maybe five times and go down. Or you can press it maybe
seven times and go down. And this will help
you make sure that your lines are the same
length and the same distance. And if you want to
add a page number, you just do the exact same thing that you did with the templates. You just go to
text, add a header, put the number one,
make it smaller, and put it at the
bottom of the page. Remember, your page numbers is probably the only
thing that does not have to be in the margins.
So there you have it. This is how you create content
inside your journal using templates and also creating
some content from scratch. If you look at the content
that you created from scratch and you feel like it's too
basic, it's too plain. You can always go to elements and add some cute
little elements to it. You can add some flowers, You can add some hearts, since we're talking
about forgiveness, you can look up healing
and see what pops up. And put that on
the page as well. If you want it to be transparent so it's not as noticeable, you can do that as well. This just helps
make your page look a little bit more and not as. But I hope that this helps
you understand how to create the content for
inside of your journal. And I will see you
in the next lesson.
14. 12. Uploading To KDP: Hey everyone, welcome to the
next lesson of the course. In this lesson, I'm going
to be teaching you how to upload your journal
to Amazon, KDP. So the first thing
that you want to do is you want to go to Kp, Amazon.com When you get there, make sure that you sign in. Once you sign in, the very
first thing that you should see is this big bright yellow
button that says Create. After you click on the button, it's going to ask
you for details on the type of book
that you're creating. Are you trying to
create a kinda book? A paperback book? A hardcover book or a series? What you click on is going
to depend on the information that you put when you were
doing the sizing calculator. If you clicked on paperback or if you click on hard cover. For this example, I'm just
going to click on paperback. After you click on paperback, it's going to ask you to put in some details about your book. Obviously the language that
our book is in is English, so we're going to
keep it at that. Then it's going to ask
for our book title. I'm just going to put in a title for a book that I
already created. I'm just going to put in
the Royal Faith Journal. If you have a subtitle
for your book, you can also put
that in as well. After that, it's
going to give you the option to add your
book to a series. But right now we're
just creating one and there's no other books
that go along with it, so we're going to
keep scrolling. It also gives you the option
to add an addition number. In addition basically means
that the book already exists. You're just updating it or you're creating a
new version of it. But right now, this
is our first journal, There is no new addition. So we're just going
to scroll past that. Next. It's going to ask you
for the author information. This is basically who wrote
or created this book. You're just going to
put in your first name and your last name. If there's anyone who helped
you to create this book, you can always add them
in as a contributor. And you can add as many
contributors as you like. You just click on the
Add Another button and it will give you the option to add another name of a person who helped you write
or create the journal. The next section is
the description. The description is basically describing what your book
is about to your audience. The easiest way to
create a description that I've used is chat GTP. All you have to do is go to chat Openai.com and create an
account completely for free. Once you create an account, you can message the chat, give a description of your book, and tell them what
you want them to do. So I'm just going to put, I'm writing a self
love journal to help people gain confidence
and heal from trauma. Give me a professional
description in a simple tone that
will make people interested in buying it. Gave me a really
long description, I don't want my description
to be that long, so I'm going to
copy paste what I said after I said give
me a professional. I'm going to put one
paragraph description. I'm going to press Enter, and then I'm going to see
what it comes up with. Once it gives you
this description, of course, you want
to proofread it. You want to make
some changes to it, make it sound normal, make it sound like an
actual human being. Take some things out, add some things in, and make it just sound
a little bit better. But because this is a tutorial, I'm just going to copy paste it and put it
in the description. But that is one of
the easiest ways to create a description
for your journal. The next question that is asking you is publishing rights. This is basically
making sure that you own the content that's
inside your journal. And because we created
our journals ourselves, we're just going to click
on I own the copyright. Next is going to ask you
about your audience. This is basically asking
you if your book or journal has any
inappropriate content. Pictures, texts, words, titles, anything that isn't appropriate
for younger people. If it does, you want to click
on Yes, but ours don't. So we're just going to click? No. It's asking about
the primary marketplace. We're going to keep
it on Amazon.com The next section is asking
about our categories. Categories is one of the
most important parts and you want to make sure that
you put these in right. The reason why is because
Amazon is going to market your book to people who are interested in these categories. And you want to make sure that your book is where your
target audience is looking. If you have a self love book, you don't want to put a category of cooking because
your audience. There. You want to go through these categories and you
want to ask yourself what category sounds like a place that my audience will be looking for since we're
creating a self love journal. In this example, we are
going to click on Self Help. You also can create
a sub category. This is asking, what type of self help does
your book help with? Does it help with abuse? Anger management,
emotions, journal writing, self esteem, success, stress
management, time management. We're just going to click on self esteem because it
helps with confidence. You can also add up
to three categories, but for this example, we're just going to keep going. The next section is basically asking if your book
is low content, like a journal,
notebook or planner. Or if it's a large
print book and it has like a 16 point
font or greater, I meant to press low content, but it looks like I press large, but make sure that you
press low content book. The next section is keywords. This is basically like SEO. It's words that your
audience can search in Amazon that will
make your book pop up. The easiest way to come up with keywords is by using chat GTP. So basically I'm just
going to copy paste what I told chat GTP that my
journal was about. And I'm going to
tell them to give me seven key words that my
audience can use to find me. So they gave me self love,
confidence, trauma healing, empowerment, resilience, personal growth,
emotional well being. And you can just copy and paste these into your keyword section. And basically it means
that people who search those words are more than likely to see your
journal on Amazon. So the next section is asking about your
publication date. This is basically asking if you want the
publication date to be the same release date
or if your book was already published
even though it's getting released on Amazon now, we're just going to
keep it at same date. And then the last section on this page is the release date. This is basically asking after you put in on
your information, if you want your book
to be released for sale now or if you want to schedule it to be
released in the future, we're just going to
keep it at now and we're going to click
Save and Continue. Because you have a
low content book, you do not need a ISBN number. I accidentally clicked
the wrong thing, which is why this popped up, but yours will not
look like that. Next is going to ask you
about your print options. Do you want your paper to be black and white
with cream paper, black and white with white
paper, standard or premium? I'm going to click on black
and white with white paper. You want to make sure
that you click on the same things that you
put in on your size and calculator so that
everything comes out right then it's going to
ask for your trim size. I'm going to go
with standard 8.5, 11, we're going to put no bleed. And then it's going to
ask you if you want your book cover to
be Matt or glossy. This is a personal preference, so you can just put
in whatever you like. I'm going to put in glossy now, it's going to to upload
your manuscript. Your manuscript is basically the content that is going to
be inside of your journal. You want it to be all in one PDF and you want to
upload that PDF right here. Next is going to ask you
about your book cover. You have the option for Amazon to create a book cover for you. All you have to do is
launch cover creator and these are some of the examples of the covers that
they create for you. Or of course you can
upload your own cover. We went through the
process of creating R, so we're just going to upload
that. This section is new. Asking if any of your
content was AI generated. If you used AI to create any of your
content you can click on. Yes, but we did not. So we're going to click on No. Then the last section
is your book preview. This is basically giving you a preview of what your book
is going to look like. Like I said, I uploaded a
journal that I already created. So this is what mines look like. If there were anything that
was wrong with your journal, if there was any content that
was outside of the margins, you would see some warning signs that will pop up where
it says Quality check. And you will not be
able to click approve. You will have to
go back and change that content before you could move on to
the next section. But my journal does
not have any problems. It is ready to be approved. And so I can just click the
approved button and move on. So after you click
the approved button, you're going to
see a print cost. My print cost is $9.50 cent. That's how much I have to
pay Amazon every single time that they print a book
for me or for a customer. Your print cost,
depending on the page, count, the size, you
know, all that stuff. Maybe more, maybe less. But we're just going to
click on Save and Continue. And now we are at
our last section. The last section is asking
if you want your book to be sold worldwide or if you only
want it in specific areas, we're just going to
keep it at worldwide. The primary marketplace
is obviously Amazon.com and right here you have the option to put in the
pricing for your journal. This is basically asking how much you want to charge
for your journal. Keep in mind that Amazon
does take a 60% profit. So you can actually put in
a price and you can click Enter and it will
show you how much you will get paid for each
journal that you sell. So I put in 30, 99, and it's basically showing
me that I will get paid $9.09 for every single
journal that I sell. If this is too low for you, you can always check the
value of your content. Because remember, we're creating medium to high content books. So we can sell them
for a lot more than, you know a low content book. So if you feel like your
book is a little bit more valuable to the point where you can raise the price
a little bit, you can always up the
price I put in 40, 99. And now it's saying
that I will get paid $15.09 cent for every
single journal that I sell. Once you put in the price
for the regular Amazon, it will automatically
update the price for every other country like
the UK and other places. At the bottom, you can request a proof copy of your book to
see what it will look like. Keep in mind, proof copies
do come with watermarks, so you cannot resell them. And once you're satisfied with all the information
that you put in, you can click on Publish
your paperback book. That is how you upload your journal planner workbook on Amazon and you publish it. Once you hit Publish, it will take up to 72
hours to be approved. And once it's approved, people can go to Amazon, they can start buying it, and you can officially say that you are a published author. I hope that this helped you and I will see you
in the next lesson.
Kiana Johnson, Podcaster & Coach
