Hey everyone and welcome to today's video.
So you've created your book cover and you've created your book interior.
Well,
now it's time to upload both of those files to Amazon hit
that publish button and get your book published.
Now I'm going to be using this book cover and this lined
notebook interior, which I created in my last video. Now,
if you've not yet created your first book or you're new to this whole business,
then I suggest going to watch that video,
which I'll leave a link to in the description below,
that'll walk you through step by step,
the whole creation process of a lined notebook, or journal. Now,
the process I'm gonna show you today can be applied,
whether you are publishing a line journal, a low content journal,
such as a coloring book, puzzle book, or log book.
And also if you are publishing a written non-fiction or fiction book,
and you want to publish it in paperback or hard back version.
So the first step,
we've got our two files downloaded onto our computer for the cover and the
interior, we then need to go to our KDP dashboard.
Now it's free to open an account at KDP and relatively simple.
All you need is a bank account to which Amazon can send your
royalties. And we want to click on bookshelf, at the top.
So this then takes us to our bookshelf page, where we upload our books.
So just click on create, then click on, create paperback.
The steps I show you today are exactly the same for a hardcover as well. So,
first of all, in language, I leave that as English,
as the paperbacks primary language. Ignore this box here,
where it says list helper.
That's just because I've got a plug-in installed on my browser.
So we come to the book title.
Now your book title has to appear on the front cover or spine of
your book. Now, the book I created has notebook written on the front.
So that is going to be my book title. Very adventurous, I know.
Now the subtitle,
I treat this as a kind of mini sales header and mini description of
the book. And I normally split it into three parts.
First is an alternative description,
and I normally use different words here than what I've already used in the book
title. So I'm going to call this a cool stamp themed journal,
comma.
Then I usually just do an additional short descriptor for this.
I'm going to just put 120 pages.
Then I normally write in who the target market is for this book.
So I'll write something like ideal for mom, dad, kids,
and stamp lovers.
Now what the subtitle isn't for it isn't for a place to stuff lots
of keywords into. It's something I see all too often.
The problem with that is that it looks awful when it's published and it does put
customers off. I understand why people do it.
They try to cover loadsof different search terms that people may put into Amazon
and hopefully get a click. That doesn't happen. Also,
make sure you do get your punctuation and capitalization of your words
correct? Okay. Onto the next section, series.
This doesn't apply to the type of book we're publishing nor does addition
number. So we can leave those alone. Now, when it comes to author name,
this can be your own name. It can be a pen name you've made up or a brand name.
For all my books I tend to use a brand name.
What I suggest doing before you use it is just doing a quick search
for the name or brand name you're going to use just to make sure it's not
being used by someone else. Okay. So for this,
I'm just going to make up something on the fly and call this simple cool
press. Doesn't have to be three words. It can just be two. If it is two,
then delete that one in the middle. Contributors.
Here you can add the name of someone else.
If they've maybe helped you create the book in this case,
it's just me creating it. So I'm going to leave that blank.
Now in the description again,
I describe the book in a bit more detail and again,
who the target market is for. So I'm just going to again, keep this simple,
just for an example,
a stamp themed blank lined
notebook, 120 pages,
six by nine inches. Perfect for mom,
dad, grandma,
granddad and stamp collecting
enthusiasts. Okay. The next box publishing rights. I click on,
I own the copyrights and hold necessary publishing rights. The other button,
this is public domain work.
This mainly applies to publishers who are publishing
written work, nonfiction and fiction work that's in the public domain.
Next, we come to the keywords.
Now here I put in alternative words that people
may be using when they're searching for my book.
Now it does take a bit of research.
It does take a bit of thinking and brainstorming to think up all these
alternative words.
Now I have done a video devoted to these seven keyword boxes, which again,
I'll leave a link to down below in the description. Basically,
when filling out these, you've got two options. One, in each box,
you could put a search phrase.
So you could put something like by a stamp journal and then
do a similar search term in the second box and so on.
Or you can put individual words.
And you can put more than one word in each box.
And I tend to use this approach. So in the first box,
I might write something like notepads, pad, book. Again,
I tend not to repeat words that appear in the title and subtitle of the book.
I might put additional words for the target market, pop, mom, boy,
girl, grandson, etcetera.
Then I might put in some reasons why this book would be bought. Gift, present,
birthday, Christmas. And these extra keywords,
just help your book get found when people do their searches on Amazon. Now,
categories.
There are reports this may be changing soon and there may actually be a
box to tick specifically for low content books.
In terms of picking two categories.
There's no easy way around this other than to go through these
lists of options. So I'm just going to go through nonfiction,
gonna click on antiques and collectibles, scroll down.
I think we've got stamps there. I'm going to click on that.
And I'm also going to click on crafts and hobbies and click
on general. So that's my two categories. There are some tools that can help.
I think on Book Bolt and Tangent Templates,
they do have a category search tool,
which you can put in keywords related to your book and we'll suggest some
categories. Adult content. Well, it's just a line notebook so we'll click on no.
Save and continue next. We come to the ISBN.
Now this is something that may also be changing quite soon.
I think some people may have been messaged about this. I haven't.
So I can't give you any further details. When I have further details,
I will do a video to update you on that. But apparently what,
what may happen is that you have a choice between either providing an ISBN
number that you've paid for or not having an ISBN number
at all on your book. At the moment as we stand here,
we can get a free ISBN number off KDP.
So I'll just click on that and click on assign ISBN.
Publication date we can leave blank. Now, print options.
We've got these options here.
The most common you would choose is black and white interior with white paper,
which is what we're going to choose today. But we've got other options here.
You could have a color interior and also premium color interior.
Now in terms of trim size,
the book that we're going to be publishing today is six by nine inches,
which is actually the most common size for lined notebooks or journals.
If you want a different size,
you just click on select a different size and you've got all these options here,
or you could enter custom numbers. Now, bleed or no bleed.
This causes a lot of consternation. Again, I've done a video devoted to that,
which I'll also link to in the description.
Basically with this particular book that I'm publishing the lines,
go from one edge of the page to the other,
which means this book has bleed.
So we're going to click on bleed. And in terms of paperback cover finish,
that's entirely up to you.
I tend to create books with a matte finish cause I like the feel.
I like the look of them, which is what I'm going to do today. Next,
we come to our manuscript, which is the interior of our book.
So I'm just going to click on upload paperback, manuscript.
And you just upload your interior. Next, we click on the button where it says,
upload a cover you already have. Then click on upload your cover file. Again,
find where you've downloaded your cover and select it.
Once that file is uploaded,
which may take a few moments you'll notice that this button here turns orange.
So what you need to do is just click on that. This will take a few moments.
So we'll jump into it when it appears.
And then you are presented with this page where it will tell you if there are
any issues or errors related to your book,
cover or interior. So, if there are issues,
you'll find that there will be the occasional little red triangle,
either on the cover or if there's issues with the interior,
they'll be normally located around this dotted border area.
And also in this left hand side column,
there'll be information which will tell you more about what the issues are with
your book. So we can see, there are no issues here on the left hand side,
we don't have any little red warning triangles. So our book cover looks okay.
And then have a look at the interior pages.
Now you can flick through all 120 pages if you want to,
but during creating this book, all the interior pages were identical.
So I don't anticipate any errors.
So I'm not going to go through all 120 pages. Next thing to do, bottom right,
click on approve.
You'll notice here at the bottom right of the page it will now tell you your
printing cost. So next we want to click on save and continue.
And we go to the final page. Next, in terms of territories,
I normally leave this as all territories, worldwide rights.
Primary marketplace, I always pick amazon.com.
You can pick one of these other options if you so wish,
particularly if maybe you are publishing a book in a different language.
Next, we come down to the pricing.
Now for most line journals, I price my books. $6.99.
You will find a lot of people do publish their books at $5.99.
I always stick to $6.99. In fact, I had a book that was selling very well.
I think the best sellers rank was around 15,000 and as an experiment,
I reduced the price from $6.99 down to $5.99.
Guess what happened? The number of sales also reduced.
And I think one of the issues is people see a book that's cheaper and think the
book is cheap and they see something slightly more expensive. And.
Especially if they're buying it as a gift,
they'll choose that slightly more expensive option because they're perceived,
they're getting more value. So all my books I sell at $6.99.
Now Amazon will then according to the US dollar price will give all these
suggested prices for all the different markets in the different currencies.
Now you could leave those as is,
or you could go and change those to whatever you want. So you may think ooh,
in the UK, I want to charge slightly more.
So you could put something like £5.87.
And also on the right hand side here, you can click on expanded distribution.
Now for some books, especially books like these line books,
I don't think they'll allow the expanded distribution.
I'm gonna leave that as is for the moment.
I always see books published and sold via expanded distribution as a,
just a little bit of extra icing on the cake. I don't get too worried about it.
The amount of royalties you get per book, a lot lower.
You don't sell too many of them.
So it doesn't make an overall impact on your income.
It's just nice to have that little bit extra. But don't get too worried. If you,
if you find that the type of book you're publishing,
isn't allowed to be published on expanded distribution. So that's it,
you've now priced your book.
And the next step is to hit that publish your paperback book
and congratulations you've now published your book. If it's your first book,
congratulations, you're now an Amazon publisher.
I find there's a great deal of satisfaction to be had from publishing your own
books and with a bit of luck and a fair wind you may make some sales,
or you may make a lot of sales depending on the type of book you've created,
how good your cover design is, how good your interior design is,
how good your keyword research has been and your use of keywords in the
titles and subtitles. Now, as I said earlier,
if you haven't yet published your own book, I suggest watching this video next,
where I run through the whole process step by step of creating the cover and
creating that lined interior. And it's a great way to get started.
Thank you very much for your time. It really is very much appreciated.
Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and until next time, goodbye.