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what's up guys Ryan here so this is an
introduction to KDP Kindle direct
publishing which is Amazon's
self-publishing program for authors now
you don't actually have to be an author
to sell and make money through KDP this
has gotten a lot of buzz in the
print-on-demand industry because you can
actually sell like blank notebooks and
blank journals and blank diaries and
whatever use your imagination
essentially print-on-demand savvy people
realized that we could just design
covers to books and call it you know the
tenth birthday diary and put it for sale
on Amazon and because so many people go
to Amazon to buy things before you know
it people are making money and very
similar to Amazon merge you essentially
enroll in the program upload your
designs in this case there's a couple
extra steps like uploading two KDP it
definitely takes longer than any other
print-on-demand platform I've used but
it's definitely worth it and just paid
out a royalty so it's all profit with it
basically no it's all upside there's no
downside in my opinion at least and the
intent behind this video is to be an
introduction to KDP I plan on following
it up with more KDP content in the near
future but this one's just for like
those of you that are savvy to print on
demand you know that you know you know
what print on demand is and maybe you're
selling for an on demand for instance on
Amazon merch or printful and Etsy which
I've put out a decent amount of content
on my youtube channel about but like I
always preach the more online real
estate you occupy with regards to
selling things the more money you make
so if you create a nice-looking design
and you upload it to Amazon merch and
you put it on standard t-shirts and
hoodies and maybe a pop socket that's
great you've created three product
listings with that design for sale on
products go ahead and upload it to you
know printful and Etsy using the print
flats the integration upload it to red
bubble right if it makes sense you
should upload it to KDP and sell a
you know depending on what the design is
maybe sell it on a journal for instance
I mean it's not the the low-hanging
fruit is really to sell it on a blank
journal and that brings me to the next
point like what is what are you actually
selling with KDP so when I say blank
journal when you upload to KDP what you
actually have to provide is really two
things it's a cover which is where the
print on demand kind of designing comes
in and I'll show you an example in a
second but also you have to upload the
interior and the interior in most
print-on-demand seller's case is just
gonna be blank
it's it's not blank you don't want to
upload completely blank pages but it's
oftentimes just like a notebook you know
you have the lines for people to write
on and you call it a journal but the
lines are empty right so I don't know if
that was Amazon's intent when they
started Kindle direct publishing I'm
assuming not pretty sure they intended
for people to write books and then
self-published their books for sale
online but people like I said it's the
same thing with Amazon merch when Amazon
merch was released it was intended to be
a part of Amazon's I believe their app
store for people to sell branded
merchandise for their apps that they
were selling on the Amazon Appstore
which I know is not very popular but it
does exist and before you knew it people
realized that they could publish designs
for sale on t-shirts to amazon.com and
make crazy money I mean it used to pay
out big-time royalties in the early
early days and then since they've just
been gradually cutting back the
royalties over time they're also you
didn't use to be upload limits and by
the way speaking of Kindle direct
publishing I'm kind of all over the
place right now I apologize I didn't
really plan exactly what to talk about
but there are no upload limits right now
and when you upload to Kindle direct
publishing KDP it takes
they say less than five minutes to
upload if it's your first couple times
it's gonna take longer but it's usually
after you upload you submit they all go
to manual review but within about 24 to
48 hours it will be hopefully approved
or you'll get some feedback and if it's
approved it'll be made available for
sale on a bunch of different amazon
marketplaces so unlike Amazon merch
where you upload to amazon.com
you've used one upload slot and it's
only available there with KDP you're
making it available to customers in the
United States Canada UK Germany India
France Italy Spain Japan Brazil Mexico
Australia and more and more so I mean
they're gonna keep expanding this so
you're probably wondering how do you
apply so all you need to do is go to KDP
amazon.com I'll put a link in the
description there's no catch you can
apply for free I always recommend
applying to these Amazon programs from
an email address associated with an
Amazon account that either has buying or
selling history just so there's as few
red flags as possible with an approval
process and once you apply I'm gonna
close out of incognito here you will see
a dashboard that looks something like
this all right this is your bookshelf
now when you first get in yours will be
empty and you won't see anything under
your books and the way that you can
create your first book is you click the
little paperback plus sign you don't
want to sell blank books on Kindle
imagine if you have your little Kindle
tablet and you just bought a blank book
you'd probably be kind of angry and
probably return it pretty quickly so
we're gonna sell paperback books and I'm
not gonna walk through the upload
process in this video I'm gonna you know
space out these videos but I will walk
you through it in the future and this
right here is one that I put together
yesterday as a part of a demo I called
it to new beginnings and this is the
Amazon listing that it created on the
front end on Amazon and this is the
design that I created very very simple a
background image that I had the rights
to use put a black overlay at about 50
percent opacity white text with a drop
shadow on top that said to new
beginnings I thought that sounded clever
for a journal and the cool thing is you
can kind of see the background image
with that bridge but you know you can
swap the background images out and make
a bunch of different covers and upload
them as different product listings and
I'll again talk more about this in
different videos the upload process it
does take a little while when you're
going through for the first time and
again that approval process can be
pretty tedious it can take between
24 to 48 hours also I should mention
that they're the very like last step of
the upload and and listing creation
process I can take like five to 15
minutes for this last step I'll put a
video together at some point but I'll
definitely cut that part out because it
just takes so long
but anyways one thing to note about
designing KTP cover files is if this is
kind of complicated so I'm not gonna
talk about it too long because I'm gonna
do another video where we go in-depth
but you have to create them as PDFs
alright so that's a little bit different
than what we're used to with
print-on-demand where we're used to
creating usually PNG s in this case it's
a PDF file and this size matters
okay the size of your cover and the size
of your interior file those are the two
files you need to provide Amazon the
rest is just like listing optimization
like title subtitle author description
keywords etc the usual stuff there but
the size of your cover sorry the size of
your cover and size the interior vary
with the size of the book now when you
upload to KDP you get to choose what
size paperback book you want to create
and as you would imagine like think
about this in real life like if you
create a six six inch by nine inch
notebook the actual piece of paper that
makes up the cover if you had to create
a paper cover for it would be a
different size than if you created an
eight and a half inch by 11 inch
notebook right completely different
sizes therefore the files we provide two
M's on need to match that and when
you're doing these cover designs there
are certain areas that you do not want
to design on alright and what you see
here is a rule that when I'm in
Photoshop I put this over top of my
design so that I know that space is not
safe to design on because there are
certain restrictions if you're gonna
upload two KDP like they're gonna put a
barcode on your design and they can't
remember if they place anything else off
the top my head right
now but for instance like you have to
leave a space for the barcode you can't
design in that space and there are
various tools for things like getting
interiors so this is called tangent dot
rocks this website and they do things
like we it's a paid membership but once
you pay and get in you can download
interiors for your kindle direct
publishing books you'll have to provide
like the trim size for instance like six
inches by nine inches and then also page
count page counts variable and that also
factors into the size of your interior
and your title because think about it
like a five page book is super thin okay
even if they're the same trim size write
a six inch by 9 inch book with five
pages is thin but what if that 500 pages
all of a sudden it's much wider so all
these things are variable don't worry
about it sounding complicated my intent
is to demystify these things for you
with this series of videos that I'm
planning but if we say six inches by
nine inches one hundred and twenty page
count
yes bleed and then you can click
download interior and this interior will
be 120 pages actually the interior will
not vary with the number of pages only
the number of pages will vary but your
cover will vary in size and there are
other tools out there that can help you
is this it did I not open it up I don't
have it open right now but there are
other tools out there that I will show
you in other videos that you can use
where essentially you input that it's a
six by nine inch trim 120 pages and they
will dynamically generate this rule for
you for you to design your covers in
Photoshop so essentially what it really
means is like setting the canvas size to
the right thing in Photoshop and then
not designing where you see the red in
this case and they'll do it for you
dynamically that means that if we came
in and change this to 240 then we can go
to that other tool change that to 240
and likely what will happen is this that
we see right here in front of us will
get a little bit wider in the spine
which is in the middle there that's the
books
fine we'll get a little bit wider so
these are just things to keep in mind
what I would recommend as a beginner
approach is to just be consistent with
the trim size that you're designing for
and the page count that way you can
focus on just creating nice designs and
getting used to uploading and you can
upload the same blank interior time and
time again and you know introduce more
variables down the road such as
different interiors or different book
sizes or different page counts but when
you're just starting off keep it simple
you know six inches by 9 inches works
great 110 or 120 page count somewhere in
tho that range looks great it sells well
for just blank journals and this tangent
templates if you choose to get a
subscription I'm not sure if you can
find
where's journal journal paper so you can
see here it's just got a line up top for
like a date or a name both and beneath
that just the page body and again set
your trim size your page count and
download it and then you're good to go
when you are uploading to KDP again
you're just gonna need this and you're
gonna need your cover they're gonna need
to be again in the right like dimensions
in size and from there you're gonna be
good
there are definitely like things you'll
need to know or you'll want to know
about the upload process that I plan on
covering in future videos also I'll show
you some really cool tools that in this
case this is one that my friend at Murch
Titans created where you can set your
cover size and your page count so those
are the two variables again associated
with creating your book covers but what
you can do here and this is a free tool
is upload your Amazon merch or other
print-on-demand
designs set a background color and then
you can convert them to Kindle direct
publishing PDF covers so you can take
all your existing inventory for Amazon
merch run it through this tool again
it's free no catch download them as PDFs
and then if it makes sense too because
not all them are gonna make sense to all
so I've found that
with KDP I mentioned that there is a
manual review process for every design
if you don't have text on the cover it's
not a hundred percent like that you're
gonna get them through and approved
whereas if you have text on the cover or
some sort of you know something that's
predominant like that's if it's like a
picture of a duck or something then
maybe you can get away with saying duck
the duck journal you know but you know
that's the only thing I've mentioned but
yeah so tools like this exist where you
can take your Aegis in inventory convert
them to book covers and also you can
advertise through Amazon marketing
services from Kindle direct publishing
all you have to do is come to your
dashboard click the dots and then hit
promote and advertise so I may or may
not do a walk through about how to
advertise I'm thinking about doing like
a mini course on Kindle direct
publishing where I would definitely
cover that but unlike Amazon merge where
a lot of amazon merge people are hitting
me up asking me how to get into AMS
Amazon marketing you essentially need to
get the invite or the invite code you
know for a period of time it would show
up at the on the bottom of your merge
dashboard and then they stopped doing
that for whatever reason but with KDP if
you go to promote and advertise takes
you here set your market click create an
ad campaign and then it'll take you over
to AMS the only thing is you can only
advertise your KDP books it's not gonna
unlock a mess for you to start
advertising your merch products unless
something changed so anyways guys I've
been talking for a while this was meant
to be just a broad introduction to KDP
if you stuck with me till the end of
this video go ahead now that it's over
go to KDP amazon.com and apply alright
get in get your account started and then
stay tuned for my next few videos where
I'll walk you through the design and
upload process so you can get your first
couple books published on amazon.com
plus all those other international
marketplaces as well which is there's no
catch by the way it's super easy it's
even easier than Amazon merge to go
international with your books so anyways
guys hopefully this video helped I
remember when I had first heard about
KDP
was like trying to figure out what was
really going on I was looking for a good
like all-in-one tutorial and you know my
intent is to kind of produce a little
bit of a series here on my youtube
channel walking you through kind of from
step one which was meant to be this
video which is what the heck's going on
what is KDP to actually getting your
books uploaded and then potentially even
touching on you know my friends at merge
site ins they do have an automation tool
for KDP the KDP upload process is the
bulkiest most tedious upload process for
any print on demand platform that i've
ever seen so if you were ever gonna try
the Automator it's probably this is
probably the best time to do it
but we'll save that for another video
anyways guys thank you for sticking with
me till the end if you like this video
if you found it helpful please hit that
like button and go ahead and you know
let me know if you have any questions in
the in the comments section or if you
appreciated this video and you have any
suggestions for what to do a second
video on related to KDP please let me
know I'll read all the feedback and I'm
looking for video ideas so it definitely
helps me out as well and I'll see you
guys at the next one
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you
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