Issue #2: How I created my very first book to publish on KDP
Week 2 of my Kindle Direct Publishing journey
Hi friends!
In last Sunday’s issue, I gave myself the homework to create a publishable book as a learning experience. Here is what I wrote:
Follow Ivy Hang’s tutorial and create a coloring book with Canva. The quality doesn’t matter. This is a learning experience.
This is exactly what I did this week, except that I produced a notebook instead of a coloring book. I quickly realized that a coloring book would be far more work than a notebook and was about to get discouraged, when I remembered that I was in fact the one making the rules and could easily change them :)
Read on for:
How I created my first notebook to publish on the KDP platform
Next up in my KDP journey
Some notes on my Substack journey
How I created my first notebook to publish on the KDP platform
I determined that another fantastic tutorial from one of my teachers, Ivy Hang, would be my guide in this journey. I followed the process in the video pretty much exactly; keeping the same dimensions, page numbers and structure for the notebook, but obviously designing it around my own theme. I thought a notebook around dinosaurs would be fun and set out to create a 110-page, 7.5 x 9.25 inch notebook featuring fun dinosaur designs. Here is what they look like for now!
The cover:
The interior pages:
One thing I did slightly differently than Ivy is that I added five different dinosaur icons in the interior pages instead of Ivy’s single one (the same on each page). This is because of how I’m planning to market the notebook. I imagine kids will use the notebook at school or for some other specific writing purpose, but can also have fun coloring the dinosaur icons in the interior, and this can be a nice way for parents to entice them to use the notebook as well. I have to think about how to word this properly, which is a task for next week.
How long did this take me?
I have actually started tracking the time I am spending on KDP. I want to eventually do a profitability analysis per book, taking into account the value of the time I have spent on it as well. I am probably only going to track the time I spent actually producing the books and not the significant time I am spending consuming KDP content, just to avoid creating artificial barriers for myself. I often listen to KDP content while commuting, doing chores or running errands, and if I create the requirement that I must be timing myself, I will probably consume something else instead during those windows.
Anyway, here is how long it took to create the design for my first KDP notebook:
1.5 hours only! Considering this was my very first try and I was watching the video in this duration as well, I think this is really good.
Next up in my KDP journey
Next week, I want to publish my notebook! What this will require is as follows:
Set up my KDP account (I went through the steps once before to see what the process was like, now it’s time to make it official)
Create A+ content for the book. This refers to the “flyer” type digital designs one can upload on Amazon to describe the product more fully. It’s not strictly necessary, but I want to get into the habit of always doing this, because I know that as a customer I am far more likely to trust a listing if I can see that this kind of explanatory content.
Create an appealing description for the notebook
List it!
Some notes on my Substack journey
I spent far less time on my Substack post this week compared to last week. I was sick for a couple of days and playing catch-up in the remainder of the week, so I did not engage much on Substack. Ultimately, I gained 2 subscribers only in a week. The good news is, one of the two found me on his own instead of coming through a recommendation. There is one very kind creator who has recommended my Substack and is significantly contributing to my growth, for which I am very thankful. But of course I would also need to figure out other ways of being found, so any time I get a subscriber who came through a different channel I feel very happy.
In the coming week, perhaps I can set myself the challenge of publishing a Note every time I take a step further in my KDP journey. If I could make it daily it will probably lead to some results. I just don’t want to push myself too much on this front this week, because I have quite a full plate with KDP (which is the priority) and I will be busy in other aspects of my life too. So I will have this in the back of my mind, but I will not set it as a specific goal.
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That’s it for this week, folks! Whoever is actually reading me at this stage, I am very grateful. Please do feel free to drop me a note, I would love to hear from you!
Have a great week, see you next Sunday!
-Lori