Transcripts
1. Introduction: My name is Kathy and I'm
the owner of bits of joy. I make and sell cute custom and creative polymer clay products to people all over the world. In 2021, I began digitizing
my artwork and turning my 3D products into 2D forms
of art using Procreate, a really amazing design app. Let me show you today
how you can make your own self-published journals using Procreate and Canva.
2. Class Project: In today's class, let
me show you how to self-publish and L1 and
to self-publish a book. This is the class for you. I'll show you simple
steps on how you can make your Amazon kVp
account which is free. And I'll also show you
how you can design your cover in
Procreate or Canva, as well as create
your journal pages. This class is for any level, although it does help to have a working knowledge of
Procreate and Canva. Recommended software
and materials include procreate
and Apple Pencil, Canva, a computer and
the Amazon kVp account.
3. Template: Alright, so the first thing
we're going to do today is head over decay DP.amazon.com. Once you get here, you'll hit the Kindle Direct
Publishing main page and it'll look like this. If you have an Amazon account, go ahead and sign in right here. And if you don't go
ahead and make one, and this will be free, you don't need to have
a Prime account. Now, I like to keep my business account and my
personal account separate, so I always sign in using
my business account. Let's go ahead and
get signed in. Once you get signed in, you'll notice that the page
changes a little bit. This will be your home portal in the bookshelf section is where you'll see
all of your books. Reports is where you can check in on how many sales you've made and what your
most popular titles are. Community is ready. You can go to ask questions
in a forum based setting. And then marketing is how
kVp will help you with some marketing efforts
and give you suggestions on things you can do to
better market your book. Now, today I want you to go into your account and get
everything set up. I'm not gonna walk you
through this part of the process because
it does involve some personal information
within your account section. It'll be adding any
tax information, payment information,
billing address, and your BankAccount that way you can get
paid appropriately. All right, the next thing
I'm going to show you is how to create a template. Go into the Help tab here. On the left hand side of your screen you'll see a
book formatting section. We are going to click on
format you are in paperback. This will actually give you all the dimensions for the
book sizing that you need. If you are more
advanced of an artist, you can make your
own dimensions here, but I think it's
easier to download a cover template that way you can stay consistent
in your work. We will scroll down to
format your cover file. And in the middle
here you'll see a download a covered
template section, click on cover calculator
and templates. We are going to make a
paperback journal today. Interior, you can just
select black and white. Now if you select one
of the other ones, the pricing may go up or down. Paper type. I usually select white paper, but you can select
what you prefer. Page turn direction. I always select left to right
measurement units, inches. And since we're making
a six by nine journal, we are going to
select six by nine. I usually put about 100
pages inside my journal. So I'm going to type 100 here. We're going to click on
Calculate dimensions. Once you get to this screen, this will show you how you
can design your book and how much spacing you have
for all of the safe areas. What I like to do here is
click on Download Template. We can open this up. Once it's downloaded. Then you have a PDF format
as well as a PNG file. With Procreate, it's easier
to insert a PNG file. So go ahead and save this one, but let's go ahead and open it up so we can see
what it looks like. Alright, so this is what
you will upload into Procreate as a
separate layer and then we are going to
work on this layer. Let me show you how
in the next part. Okay, so when you
go ahead and pull up your KT P template, make sure you download it to your iPad because we're going
to insert it as an image. So one thing that you
want to make sure that you do is look at the
overall dimensions. So because we are designing
a six by nine inch journal, the actual size
will be 12.475 by 9.250 because we are going to design the
front and the back. So what we want to do first
is create a template. Go ahead and open a new canvas. Can rename it. I'm
just going to name it k and d p to keep
it easy for the width. Let's go ahead and
switch this to inches. The width is going to be 12.475. The height is going to be 9.250. We are going to keep
this at 300 DPI. Then we're going to switch
the color profile to CMYK because this is the format that Amazon
will prefer for printing. Hit Create. This is what our template
is going to look like. The next thing we want
to do is import photo. All right, So this is what your template is
going to look like. It shouldn't be
on its own layer. So what we're going to do is
reduce the opacity of this. That way we can work
on top of it but still see where we need to
stay within the lines. Now one thing to
note is that all of the Amazon kVp books will
have a barcode location. It's about two inches
by 1.2 inches, and they will auto-generate
barcode here. What I like to do is insert one of my logos to keep my
brand inconsistent. So I'm going to go ahead
and do that real quick. I'll size it to where
I want it to go. I usually like to keep
it in the back corner. This is our template that
we're going to work off of. So when you go back to gallery, you'll see it right here. I'm going to rename it GDP. Gdp. So here is our template, ADP. We are going to reuse
this file over and over again to keep our
artwork consistent. What I'll do first is go
ahead and duplicate it, swipe right, and hit Duplicate. And then I'm going
to rename this one. We'll just go with
florals today. This will be the file
that we work off of. We want to keep the
kVp one untouched. When you get to this screen, there are a couple
of things to note. The side on the
right is going to be your front cover and the side on the left is
going to be your back cover. The section in the middle with the dotted lines is going
to be the binding here. Depending on, if you
want to design here. It's optional. But you can design in this space if you
do want it printed. Alright, so let's go
ahead and get started. What we want to do is create
a new layer to work on. And we're going to put
this layer underneath. That way we can see
where our template is. Now at the template
is too bright. You can lower the
opacity if you need to. You can hide it while you're drawing and then turn it back on later to make sure that
everything fits within the lines. Let's go ahead and
draw something.
4. Designing our Cover: Let's get started. I'm going to base
my InDesign offers something similar to this
design that I've created. I want to use more
pastel colors. I have green selected here as
well as my monoline brush. Feel free to use whatever
your heart desires. Get creative. I'm going
to start by drawing some little leaf shapes using color drop here. And I'll fine tune this
just a little bit. Now you can get as
detailed as you'd like. I'm going to just copy and paste this shape
several times. You can either duplicate it and move it around or swipe
down with three fingers, hit copy, down again,
and hit paste. That will do the same thing. Now, let's work on another layer and select
a color for a flower. Let's go with a light purple. I'll stay with monoline for now. Start with a circle
and draw some petals, color and drop them in. I'm going to copy and paste this flower a couple of times. Duplicate, duplicate. Selection. Rotate this one. Smaller layer. Select a pink color. Now if you ever want
to preview your work, you can turn this layer off
to see what it looks like. If it gets too distracting, just go ahead and draw
without it because you can always move things around as long as you're working
on different layers. I want to make a
background color, which I forgot to do earlier. So I am going to click
on background here. Maybe what did a
pretty blue color. That looks good. Now you'll see here that I went over
the dotted lines here. That means that your design will go along the binding here. So if you're creating a pattern, it's okay to go
over these lines, especially if you want to create some contrast
along the edges. However, if you're
working on something else, like with characters, you'll want to ensure
that you stay within the lines and not get
too close to the edges. That way your design
doesn't get cut off. Now you will be able to
preview this in Amazon later. Let's go ahead and finish
drawing and adding a couple more elements. Do. Okay, So let's
preview our cover. This is what it's going
to look like so far. You can see that
I left this area blank because this is where
the barcode is fine to go. I think that I want to add
a little bit more along the edges that way it's
not so playing right here. Let's select another color. Alright, so I think I'm
happy with how that looks. What we're going to
do is export it. Hit share.
5. Journal Pages: Next part of our video, I'm going to send you a link in the resources
section that you can click on and access these
free interior templates. You can either design your
own or you can purchase them or download some for free
depending on your preference. What we'll do here is
click on Download. Once you have your
files downloaded, it will be in a big folder
with plain paper, ruled paper, graph paper and dark grid
paper mixture before you use anybody's templates that you look over the
license terms here. For today's purposes. It is okay to use the
files that I'm providing you according to the
license terms here. So you are allowed to use
or modify our templates for both personal and commercial
distribution on the book, an e-book publishing platform, amazon kVp, without
any attribution. There may be times
where you might need to purchase a commercial license, but if you're designing
something that's completely your own, you
don't need to do that. Let's go and look at the
different types of paper. So we can use plain paper, ruled paper, graph paper
or a dot grid paper. Now the dot grid is what you'll
use for bullet journals, ruled paper, you'll have a wide and a college wool type setting. Now one thing to note
about the plain paper, if you are trying to create a journal that is
completely plain, Amazon will actually flag it
and it won't get approved. And that's because it
thinks that you're a PDF file is empty. If you do want to create a doodle journal where
people can draw, you will need to either insert your logo or add
some little lines at the bottom or do something on the page that way it doesn't
look completely blank. Otherwise your journal will not get approved for publication. For today. We are going to use ruled paper. You can select Medium
ruled or wide ruled. So I usually go
with medium ruled. On the next section, you'll
select the correct book size. So today we're
doing six by nine. Alright, then pick how
many pages you want. So I usually do a 100 pages. This will open up into a
handy-dandy PDF file for you. And it will show a 100
pages of lined paper. Now if you wanted to add your
logo or something to this, you can do this in Canvas, otherwise you're good to go if you want to just
use this template.
6. Procreate and Canva Page: Now let's say that you
want your journal to be a little bit more complex and you don't want just lines. You want to draw your
own pages so that you can put things where you want them and give it a
little bit more flair. So one thing that I did was I created a type one
diabetes journal. And I drew this template
here for one of my log journals so
that parents and providers and children can log what they eat for breakfast. Check on their carbs
and write down how many units of
insulin we're given. So this is a little
bit more personal. So one thing that I like to
do when I draw these out, it's used a six by nine page. I like to add reds. So if you go into your
tools section, Canvas, you can add a drawing
guide just to keep all of your lines and everything
consistent and straight. If you want to draw
your own sections or add a little bit of flair, go ahead and design
your own paint. Once it's ready, we are
going to export it. Hit share. Alright, so the next thing we're going
to do is head over to canva.com and click
on Create a design. We're going to select
a custom size, six by nine inches. And now we're going to
create the interior pages. Alright, so I have
already uploaded my diabetes journal
page as an image. So I'm going to insert that
and size it to the page. What we're gonna do next
is duplicate the page. Now we have two pages. However, we need a 100. So go ahead and click on
GridView at the bottom here. We are going to hit
Control and select these and then
duplicate the pages. So pretty much you could duplicate until
you get to a 100 pages. Keep hitting the button. You can scroll down and
check your progress. We're at 66. Now, if you wanted to add different types of pages,
you're welcome to do that. But since I'm making
a logbook here, I'm just using the same
page over and over again. You can also insert a
cover page if you wanted. All right, so we're
almost at 100. Let's just duplicate
one page at a time. There's 979899100. Okay. Once you have 100 pages, we are going to download this as a PDF file and hit Download.
7. Uploading and Previewing: To start a book, we are going to click on create a new
title right here. Now you do have a
couple of options. If you are publishing more
of a traditional book, you can publish either
a Kindle e-book or a paperback or
hardcover book. But for today's purposes, we're just making journals. So we are going to
select paperback. Now this screen will become
very familiar to you because you'll have to do this every time you create a book. So make sure you select the
correct language that you want for your book title. Once you decide on a book title, you cannot change it. So make sure that you're
absolutely certain. Do your research, make
sure this is what you want before you type it in here. For today's purposes,
we're just going to call our spring past
still floral journal because that's the design
I'm going to go with today. Subtitles are optional. If your book is
part of a series, you can add details here as
well as an addition number. So if you create new
additions of your book. Now the Author section, you can put in your information. Contributors is if someone else's working on
the book with you. The next part is the
description section. Now what I like
to do is copy and paste the information
from my other books. That way everything is similar. I'm going to go into
my journals here, click on one and copy and paste my information
and edit it here. This colorful journal futures hand-drawn, funky
colored rainbows. I'm going to take this
out and update it. We can leave makes a wonderful gift for
the stationary lower. All of my journals
are six inches by nine inches and a 100 pages. I usually make them medium ruled line pages and you can choose from a glossy
or matte cover. Today, we are actually going
to go the glossy cover. Once you type in your body. Go on to the next
part and you can select this top piece if it's something that
you're designing. Now, keywords,
things to consider. Journals, think of things that people will type in
when they are searching for your book and type
those keywords here. For categories. You can select
different topics here. Find something that's relevant
to what you are making. I like to go under literary collections and
select diaries and journals. Save. You can also add
additional categories. Now, does this book
contain language, situations, or images am inappropriate for
children under 18? Know, our book. Spraying passed off
Laurel journal. When you are on this page, you have to get an ISBN barcode number on
the back of your journal. I usually just let them assign new one so that
way it's different and I don't have to worry
about creating my own publication date. If you have a specific date
that you'd like to use, selected it here, otherwise, it'll just get approved. When it gets approved, I always select Black
and White Paper, six by nine inch. Now when we get to bleed, if you select no bleed, what will happen is your pages will have
a border around them. If you want your journal lines
to go all the way across, make sure that you select bleed. This allows bleed, allows all of your content to go directly
to the edge of the page. If you're doing something
like a typed book, you might want to
go with no bleed. But if you're going to go with a journal or a dot grid pattern, then we'll select bleed and
make sure it's in a PDF file. Then the paperback cover finish
you can choose from Matt, which is really
smooth and not shiny, or you can select glossy. Alright, so next we're going
to upload our manuscript, which is the inside
of the pages. Okay, So once you've extracted your files from your template, we are going to go in and select the correct
pages that we want. So again, wallpaper, medium
ruled six by 900 pages. If you are creating
your own template from Canada or elsewhere, you can also upload
it here as well. Okay, and make sure that it
is in the correct format. Pdf doc file, doc XHTML or RTF. Now for the book cover, you can use Amazon's
cover creator or you can upload a cover
that you already have. So remember earlier
in the class we uploaded a PDF
file of our cover. I'm going to go find
that on my computer. Then we also have an
opportunity to preview it. Alright, so the next section, book preview,
launch PR reviewer. Usually this takes
a few minutes. After you wait about
five or ten minutes, you will get your print preview or what this does is it imports all the pages that you uploaded
as well as your cover and you can kind of look it over before it goes into production. So as long as you're
happy with the cover, you can go ahead and approve it, but make sure that
you go and look in the interior pages too. So when you hover over here, you'll see a little
right-hand arrow. Click on that. And this will allow you to
preview all of your pages. You have specific pages in mind. You can select them down
here. Again with the bleed. If you select no bleed, then this section here will be white and your lines will only
go within the dotted area. The reason that we
select bleed with our pdf is so that we can get the lines that go
all the way across. I also do the same
with my grid journals. However, if you're
trying to make a book, then select no bleed that way it stays within this
rectangle here. If you're happy with the
way everything looks, go ahead and hit Approve. And this will take
you to the next step, which is where we'll select
pricing and other details. You'll see that
we've been assigned a free kVp ISBN number. Double-check that
everything is correct here. Manuscript is uploaded,
covers uploaded.
8. Pricing and Reports: The summary, this will
tell you how much your book costs for Amazon
to print and ship your book. It's $2.15. We are going
to hit Save and Continue. Now we have the opportunity to decide where we want
to sell our book. If you want to keep yours within the US only you're
welcome to do that. You can also select
different countries. So the pricing, royalty
and distribution section here is where
you can type in. The amount that you want
to sell your book for. The minimum amount
is $3.58 sets. So if you were to type $3.58 in, it would calculate
your royalties. So the printing
cost is $2.15 here. And you actually wouldn't
be making that much. Let's raise the price to $5. The royalty on each journal
that you sell would be $0.85. And if you were to
sell them for a $100, the royalty that you would
make per copy is 5785. Now, Amazon will go
ahead and convert all your prices to all the different
countries listed below. So you can see how
your royalties adjust. I'm going to set
this journal 799, which will give me a royalty of $2.64 for each journal sold. Terms and conditions. It can take up to 72
hours for your book to be available for
purchase on Amazon. Until then, the book status will be in review
on your bookshelf. You are actually able
to go in and check. However, Amazon Wilson
do an email if there's any issues or once your
book gets approved. Go ahead and hit Publish your paperback book once
you're ready to go into print. Again, these are
print on-demand. Amazon will print them
as people order them. You don't have to
worry about stocking inventory or ordering
like a 100 of them. Just have them sitting around. Okay, So this is
what it looks like once you're paperback
has been submitted. So again, it'll take up to
72 hours for them to review. And you can also go in anytime
to check on the progress. If you decide that you
don't want to sell it for 799 and want to go
up or down in price, you're also welcome to do that. But if you fluctuate too much, it will take a little bit
longer to get approved. Once you're all set, hit Close. And you can scroll down here to see that your paperback
is in review. If your book is already live, you can go down and check on it, but then you can also
edit it if you need to. Just keep in mind that if
you do edit your book, sometimes you will have
to create a new edition. Once it's live, you can
click on View on Amazon. I'm in the US, I'm
going to select us. And this is what your
listing will look like. It has all your details here. Now the look inside feature will appear within a few days. This allows people to
look inside your book. You aren't able to select
the exact pages though. Now when you're trying
to your kVp homepage, you are familiar with
the bookshelf section, which is where you can
check the status of your books as well as any other ones that
you've published. You can go into reports
here to see this view. This will show your
sales dashboard. You can categorize
it by month or the last 90 days just to see the progress on how
much you've sold, you'll see little bars here. And that indicates when
you've made a sale. You can also scroll down
and look at your royalties. This is how much I've
earned in royalty fees. You'll also see that I
made a sale in Canada, so I will have another $4 here. If you want a little
bit more details, you can click the tribe, the new kVp reports beta tab, and it will look like this. Once you hit the dashboard page, you'll click on orders. Then this can show you a
little bit more details about the books that
you've sold with a chart, as well as how
many of each books you've sold within March 1st, the 27th, I've sold 14 of this, 0 of this, and so on.
9. Now what?: Now that you've
published a book, now what, how do you market it? So what you want to do is go to author.amazon.com and
create an author page. So upload your logo, some biographical
facts about yourself. Now, you can share this page with your friends
and family or your customers. However, just know that
these do not pre-populate. Once you've already
updated your profile, you can go into books here
and click View All books. You need to add a book. So click on the bottom here
to grab your ISBN number. Just copy and paste it. From whichever book
you're looking for. And click Search. It will find your book. And you can just click on it
to add it to your bookshelf. So since I've already
done this one, this will also give you
reports of marketing. So if you want to
look and see how well your books are doing compared
to other people's books. You can click on
that. You can also view customer reviews from here. Another thing you
can do is share your author page with
this custom URL. If you have a customer
that wants to purchase your books and they
don't know how to find you. You can just give them
this URL here and it will list everything that you've
sold, order in your book. You can order copies
for your friends and family or market it to your
customers directly on Amazon. By clicking View on
Amazon and selecting us. Or if you wanted to
order author copies, you can go under each book and select
Order author copies. Now, author copies allow you to order your journal
at print cost. You'll see here that's $2.15. Now keep in mind
that even though your journals are
sold on Amazon Prime, When you order author copies, you do not get them in two days. It typically takes
ten to 14 days. So the shipping
speeds are a little bit more extreme and you
also have to pay for them. So keep that in
mind when ordering. Go ahead and click
Submit Order if you're ready to go and then you'll get an email once your
order is confirmed and once your journals
go into production. All right, So now that you've self-published your first
Amazon Katie IEP book, what else can you do if you take one of my other
Skillshare classes, I have a class on how to create your own digital
coloring sheets. You can essentially create your own coloring book using the same process
that I've shown you. And upload all your sheets as a PDF file and upload this
as your manuscript option. Then you can turn it into your own personalized coloring book, whatever size you desire. If you enjoyed this class, please take the time
to leave a review, share your finished at journal photos with
me and tag me on Instagram at bits of joy crafts for a chance to
be reshared in my stories. Thank you.
Kathy Austin, Owner of Bits of Joy
