Stop, stop, stop. Stop creating the problems
I'm about to show you. Now,
a lot of people contact me because they're not making sales of their books.
They're getting errors when they try to upload the books.
When they do upload them, they're getting them rejected. And in some cases,
getting their account outright banned or terminated.
So I'm going to give you my top seven areas that are causing people problems
and how you can prevent these issues yourself. Now,
if you've not been to this channel before then welcome,
my name is Paul Marles and I do videos on how to make it, keep it and grow it.
And that's your money I'm talking about. If you do like videos like that,
then please do give it a thumbs up,
hit the subscribe button and smash that notification bell to receive
notification of when I produce more videos like this.
So let's get into these seven areas straight away,
and this is all part of the KDP, no content, low content book upload process.
Now the first area is with regards titles.
And we can see I've got two titles here. The top one is good.
The bottom one is not so good.
And the first issue is around the use of keywords.
Now using keywords in the title is a good place to get your main
keyword, which can help customers who are looking for your book, find your book.
Now the top example is mileage log book, and this is a good keyword.
If we go over to the Amazon search platform and put in mileage log book,
we can see here from the Amazon suggestions that this is one of their
suggestions.
So they're telling us that people are actually searching for this book
and people that are searching for mileage log books are obviously looking for
mileage log books. And so if they find our book,
there's a good chance of making a sale. With the second example,
and I see this quite frequently,
people try to be more original with the titles of their books.
So wil l do something like in this example,
call it help the tax man and in the subtitle put something like mileage log book
for taxes and business. Unfortunately,
they're wasting that most important spot to get their keyword in.
And if we go over to Amazon and look at help, the taxman, we can see here,
there are no suggestions. So first of all,
Amazon is telling us that no one is actually searching for this particular
keyword or not many people anyway,
but the other issue would be if someone was putting this into the search bar,
help the taxman. Well,
it could be looking for any number of different types of things.
It could be books on taxes could be books on accountancy,
not necessarily mileage log books. So if our book did appear,
even at number one for that search term,
it may well not be a book that someone's looking for.
And so we won't get the sale.
Second issue is with regards capitalization of the words in the title.
Now you may not think this is a big thing, but it is.
And often a lot of time it can be if English is not your
first language, which is entirely understandable.
And the first example we've got all the main keywords here,
capitalized in the second example one of the main words,
taxman is not capitalized and it should be now small words like the,
and, it, of don't need to be capitalized,
but the main words do.
Now the reason why this is important is because it gives your book that
professional look.
Now when people do find your book and they see it on the search page,
if it's not capitalized,
it say's subconsciously to the customer that this
isn't particularly professional and it can cause your book to get overlooked and
stop people clicking on it. Now, as I said, it is a big issue.
The other issue is regards trademark,
and I get problems. I get questions about this a lot.
And unfortunately,
a lot of the issues and the questions I get are around people's accounts being
banned. And, you know,
Amazon has a zero tolerance policy on this.
And two of the main areas that causes issues are around using Disney characters
in the title or Marvel characters or using the word Disney and Marvel.
For some reason, those seem to be the main areas. What I say is,
if you are trying to make money off someone else's creation or another
company's creation,
then it's likely that you're going to be breaching copyright and be breaching
trademark.
So don't do it if you want to cherish your account. Now,
if you're unsure whether your title is going to breach trademark
or some component of the title is going to breach trademark,
then go over to uspto.gov, click on trademarks,
click on tess to search the trademark database, click on basic word,
search and put in the word or search term or
title in that box and do a search and see what comes up.
You also need to look at the class and also the goods and services under which a
trademark appears to see if that is in, you know,
the printed book matter, that type of thing.
My advice is even if you then are still unsure,
then contact a copyright or trademark lawyer.
My general advice would be if you're still unsure,
don't use it because there are so many opportunities in this business.
If you start looking at words that you're not sure are a trademarked or
copyrighted, the quickest thing and best thing to do, reject it,
go onto something else. Second area the subtitle.
First example, good example of a subtitle. Second example is a poor example.
The first example, simple auto mileage tracking notebook for tax and business.
It reads like a normal sentence.
The issue with the second example is something I see often and that's keyword
stuffing. We can see mileage log book, notebook, auto mileage, tracker, planner.
It's just stuffed with keywords. One, when you read it,
it doesn't make sense which puts customers off.
And there's a chance that you're not going to get your book.
Listed for any of those key words, because Amazon will just look at that.
And you know,
the algorithms do know if you're just stuffing a subtitle with
keywords and quite often it will get your book rejected as well.
So I'd avoid doing that.
Just try and get maybe one or maximum two keywords in your subtitle
and make it read like a normal sentence.
Second issue with this second example is again,
capitalization of the main words.
And we can see these words here and not capitalized.
It looks odd when a customer, particularly an English speaking customer,
which is your biggest market in the US when they come across that it just
doesn't look right. And so again,
stops people clicking on your books and prevents you from getting your sale.
The other option is using strange punctuation,
characters or symbols within the subtitle
here. You've got these, are they characters or punctuations? I'm not too sure,
but whatever they are,
the biggest issue here would be that the spacing between the words and that
symbol is incorrect. You need to put a space there.
My advice is don't use them at all. If you're going to use anything,
maybe just use a hyphen,
a single hyphen within the subtitle,
but avoid using commas, you know, punctuation. Again,
it doesn't make the subtitle look right,
and then we'll put customers off and just looks very amateurish.
Third area that causes some consternation is around the use of series and gets
people's books rejected.
Now series are designed primarily for fiction and
non-fiction works. Think of a series of films fast and furious one,
fast and furious two, fast and furious three.
They're designed mainly for stories or works that have a follow on
to each previous or following book.
So an example I get is someone's created maybe, you know, six,
seven notebooks, all similar titles, subtitles, but in different colors.
And they want to,
or think that is a series and want to include that in their listing,
but they get that rejected. And that's the reason.
Series are not designed for no content or low content books.
It's mainly for fiction and non-fiction works that follow on from each other.
So avoid using series.
Fourth area is around the use of author names.
First example is a reasonable example.
The second example is an example that will get your book rejected.
And the reason is the use of keywords in the author
name. Now, when I first started, you could get away with, you know,
having an author name, like mileage log book,
but Amazon has cracked down on this.
So if you start using things like notebooks, journal,
log book in your author name,
then it's likely to get your book rejected.
And yet you just have to go and change your.
Author name. So avoid using keywords in your author name. Just come up with a,
you know, a pen name or a brand name that doesn't have keywords.
Fifth thing that causes issues is around categories and picking categories.
And lately I've seen books rejected because people are publishing in
categories that are not related to their book.
My biggest piece of advice is don't overthink this.
Just go through the categories.
Most of them will be in the non-fiction section and pick out two categories,
which closely resemble what your book is about.
The biggest problem usually is things like, you know,
just general notebooks and journals,
trying to find something that's mostly relevant.
Just pick something that's closest to it. If your book does get rejected,
then yes, you'll just have to change the category. But yeah, just pick two,
don't overthink it. Sixth thing that causes issues.
Now this causes issues with trying to upload your book.
When you get to launch previewer stage and you get those errors.
First area is around bleed or no bleed.
And that comes from a lack of understanding about what bleed or no bleed is and
not creating the correct interior size if your book has bleed.
In general, if you have content on your pages,
that goes to the edges of the pages, like these two examples here,
your book has bleed. If the content on your pages,
doesn't go to the end of the pages.
Then your book has no bleed. Now, if your book does have bleed,
you need to make the pages larger here. In this example,
we've got a six by nine inch page. And for this,
you would need to increase the page size by adding nought 0.125
inches to the top,
not 0.125 inches to the bottom and not 0.125 inches to
one side. So if this was a six by nine inch book,
the interior would now become 6.125 inches by
9.25 inches. This would also be the same.
If you're doing an 8.5 by 11 inch book,
the interior would then become 8.625
inches by 11.25 inches. So that's an important area.
And the second issue comes around margins. Now,
when you have your interior page like this,
you have to have important content,
that you don't want cutoff during the trimming process,
within a border. Here, we can see this red border, which is the margins.
And all important content has to be within that margin.
Otherwise you'll either get the error when trying to upload,
or you will get your book rejected.
Now this applies to whether you're creating a notebook or journal with some
important written content in there, whether it's a log book or even,
and this causes some confusion, if it's a coloring book. Now,
if you've got coloring book and you've got content that goes to the edges of the
pages,
but you've got content within the center that is important and you don't
want to risk getting cut off when the page is trimmed,
that has to go within the margins. Now you need to calculate those margins.
Now you can go to the KDP help page where it'll tell you what the margin should
be. Or I've created a video on this about bleed, no bleed or margins,
where I'll tell you about the margin sizes that you need to calculate.
So I suggest going to watch that if you need further information on that.
And the seventh and final issue is with regards the cover. And again,
this causes errors at the launch preview stage,
and that's using the wrong size units when creating
your blank templates in the software where you're creating the
the cover. And this is usually when people are using Canva,
which is a common software platform that people use to create their covers
because it's free. And this is the issue. We can see here.
If you download your template from the KDP template
creator, we've got this figure here,
which is the overall dimensions of your template,
which is what you use to create your blank page in your software
platform. So what a lot of people do, when they go to Canva,
is go to the right-hand side, here,
click on custom size and put in the dimensions of
the page or the cover. Now you can see here, it actually comes up with an error,
which I don't think it used to do. Just used to have the create new design.
You click on new design, create your cover, upload it to the KDP platform,
go to launch previewer. And it comes out looking odd.
I think it usually comes out looking and enlarged.
And the reason for that is here, the right-hand side.
Most people just leave this as is, which is px, which stands for pixels.
Instead, what you need to do.
And this is vitally important is change that to inches.
And then you would have to put in the dimensions again.
So now your cover template will be in the right dimensions of 12.52 by
9.25, five inches or whatever size you are creating from your template.
That's a big issue. Many people,
most people don't realize what's actually happened. Everything just looks odd.
That's the major cause. Now if you're new to the whole book,
publishing business, particularly no content and low content books,
I would suggest starting at my book tutorials playlist here,
where I go through all the different stages of creating the books and how to do
it correctly. Thank you very much for your time. It's very much appreciated.
Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. And until next time goodbye.