what's up guys happy new year i'm joined
today by rj martinez what's up rj
what's up dog what's going on what's up
ryan hey man happy new year i'm excited
to finally have you join me for a video
on my channel it feels like
we've talked before but i guess we
hadn't done one for youtube
yeah no we've i think we talked in like
in the dms and stuff like that
um and we kind of go back we're kind of
going back and forth about like certain
things that's
kdp one of them yup yeah kdp that's what
i want to talk about today i know we've
talked some amazon merch i know
you've been crushing it in print on
demand for a while but kdp
i gotta just say like i've been guilty
of doing the minimum
and like doing the bare minimum for kdp
like i'm getting books posted
i'm taking the like quality or quantity
over quality approach
um but like in 2021 i want to
i want to know if i can put in a little
bit more effort and see like
a massive return on a little bit of
effort or i kind of want to see if
that's possible so i want to ask you
just what you're thinking about kdp like
what are your thoughts on 2021
anything related to kdp big trends
anything like that
um so with like i think just with
anything with pin on demand we're
noticing
there's more competition right um and
and i noticed that if
it's gonna take it takes a little bit
more work if it takes a little bit more
work it scares people away
and i think that's the cool thing about
it because um
literally with kdp it takes a little bit
more work and there was like for example
when i uploaded my first book on kdp
i i got it rejected like for like two
weeks
and i was trying to figure out like hey
there's something wrong the sizing's
wrong
and the next thing you know the covers
this cover the sizing for the cover is
wrong we've all been there and it's like
yeah dude i'm just like dude okay all
right i'm not gonna give up okay i'm
gonna figure this out
and then i see people uploading like
notebooks and stuff like that and uh
how many notebooks did you upload this
week oh like a thousand i'm like what
the heck
hold on what it's like and then then
these early
early birds right that got on there and
uploaded a ton of notebooks
are crushing it but now it's like that
doesn't seem to be working
yeah it's getting harder
[Music]
yeah so uh as far as that is just like i
talked about this with you too as well
just
it just the the more effort it takes to
create a book
the less competition you're gonna have
and the more sales you're gonna make and
that's what i've been doing
you think quality like we need to level
up the the quality game a little bit
like
and in in saying that are you saying the
quality of the graphics in the book
cover or are you
referring to maybe the interiors yeah
yeah and then saw the interior so
um so for example like a coloring book
right um
you can literally take out let's see if
you have custom illustrations you can
take out the colors
right and just put the line drawings
inside the books inside the color like
inside of a coloring book
but then there comes a point to where
like okay if i want to dominate this
space and be
number one in my niche like i actually
have to create a damn coloring book
i can't just right i can i can't just um
you know i got to create a really
awesome cover
i got to create an awesome interior and
kind of put everything together
and then next thing you know you have
like a brand for coloring books or
whatever type of books it can be even
this is what i recommend too just when
you're starting off with kdp you can
just
start with low content books right or no
content books or whatever you want to
call it
um and then you just work your way up to
where
there's very little competition and next
thing you know you have a book that's
selling
over and over and over and over and
you're like the only person that needs
you the best seller in that niche
and i've done that this year i've been
number two with one of my books right
it was pissing me off man it was pissing
me off i was number two with one with uh
number two in my niche and then i was
like dude i need number one that number
one best seller man
yeah i was like i need number one and i
finally got it i was like yes
but it just it took like about a year
but then as i started getting more
consistent sales and then you should
start
you know what i mean going like booming
and start making more sales so
nice is that a coloring book yeah
yeah nice a coloring book so uh no uh i
and i think that's it's huge because it
was it was up for a year
and i hit i as soon as i uploaded it the
first week
and made sales right and then next thing
you know it a year later
it's got a ton of reviews and it's
ranking pretty well
at a few different niches and it's on
the front page and then you know you get
the snowball effect and it's
consistently making sales
dude that's sick so that does that mean
i can put in the title of this video
number one amazon what do they say like
amazon best-selling author
yeah dude that's a crazy thing and then
i get here
i'll get people like you're not an
author i'm like uh you don't know what i
do
because the first thing they think of is
rj's grabbing his shitty t-shirt designs
and uh putting them on covers and then
like you know uploading them
nah no i i i'm guilty because i did that
before too
um and i'm just like you know what i
mean i was like you know what i gotta
take it to the next level because
if i'm uploading like 300 or 400 books
right and then only like one of them are
selling it's like kind of like
a waste of your time in a way right as
you start to learn the platform and i
think that applies to everything right
same thing with you ryan like you
you learning you're learning like new
things and stuff like that as you're
as you're doing merch by amazon as
you're doing all these other platforms
you learn
you learn that if you do something that
has like
you make something that someone wants
really wants they're going to buy it
that's it yeah that's a good that's a
good point and i really believe that as
the increased competition kind of shows
up amazon's engineers like world-class
engineers
are smart enough to tweak the algorithm
to more than likely i mean i've never
seen anything official but
to bury things that just aren't
performing well you know that it may
deem as old news you know or i don't
think they deem it as like spam because
i think they would just cut it off
before it even went live
if there was a flag for that but i think
like once it's gotten some impressions
and not gotten clicks or conversions
they probably just let it go
you know i mean once you're on page two
that's the equivalent of being let go
anyways
yeah everybody going there yeah yeah no
no uh that's the s that's the sucky
thing too because sometimes you'll
create something
right and you think you think it's gonna
be really good and then it goes to like
page five page six page two and you're
like dang it
what am i going to have to do to get it
to page one and then of course you can
run
test some ams and then sometimes that
don't even work right
and it just this is just real life stuff
happens like you know what i mean like
sometimes like the demand is not there
then you thought it was gonna be there
and then you end up with a little a dud
but then it makes sales
you know once a month you know every two
months every three months but
it's not a consistent seller but hey
it's not saying that six months from now
that it won't start selling consistently
right so yeah and
you can get a sale every month or every
other month and go the quantity route
and like if you get enough of those it
does add up
you know like i always think about if
you know if you make three dollars a
month or whatever
from a t-shirt or a book once a month
and you get a thousand of those it'd be
three three grand a month
so i always kind of like i initially
lean that way
thinking like well if they let me upload
a thousand a week i'll just do it
because it's
that's an arbitrary number that they
decided on so why not try
but i hear you and like also when it
comes to creating like a
coloring book for instance like what's
your go-to is there a go-to
best practice in your mind for like page
count
um i do uh no less well in the book
world right it's no less than 40 pages
um i haven't got to the point where
because once you start to because you
can create like a in the book world you
can create like a like coloring book
world you can create like a
like a ultimate edition right once you
put all your illustrations and all your
line drawings
together one book you can have you know
it's not don't overthink this a lot of
people think oh
i'm gonna create a book and um it's
gonna take me months like no
it doesn't take months it can be done
within a few days if you do it correctly
but
um no less than 40 pages uh but then
you can get going to where you can
put all your illustrations into one book
and then next you know you have a 80 or
100 page book right with
50 illustrations in one book line
drawings right
and literally like like that and you can
have another book
so um it all depends like how how you're
gonna approach this but i like to
keep it easy for yourself at first like
you want to
set up a template you know set up a
workflow this book is only going to have
uh 20 line drawings on it which
equivalents to 40 pages
because you're going to do one line
drawing on the front and then on the
back end it's going to be blank so it is
like you know you know what i mean so it
doesn't bleed through when they're
coloring it okay um
yeah no that's that's what i like to do
so it's that way it's not
because it could be overwhelming when
you're creating something like this and
next thing you know you don't end up
creating it
so it's a template putting a template in
place for yourself and putting like a
hold yourself accountable to that
workflow you know what i mean so
40 pages per book and then just keep
going
i like it man and uh do you mind me
asking like pricing wise
is your pricing strategy elastic do you
adjust a price after a certain number of
sales or reviews
um what do you start at if you don't
mind sharing yeah no no um
so at first i i'm always a big fan of
like pricing real low
and uh just to see if it works see if
it's like you know sales in that niche
but for the most part it's going
straight to 6.99 but um i've tested
where i just start off at 3.99
or yeah 399 i got the cost and it will
start selling
you know what i mean it'll start selling
so i'm just like you know what i'm gonna
bump it up but then there comes a point
like okay
like this is a really good quality book
and i know that i'm the best in this
niche
um that doesn't make no sense for me to
price it real low
and then uh price it up to the kind of
because i feel like i at a certain point
where i just want to go
instead of wasting my time of going
backwards i'm like all right now i got
to put the price up because they're just
made to sell i'm just like damn
i used to do that all the time um but i
like with merch by amazon with tearing
up and stuff like that it's a little bit
different because
i do recommend that because that way you
can get the uh the sales
velocity going on your account you don't
have to worry about like okay i'm have
these many designs up but i'm stuck
because i can't tear up yet but with kdp
it's a little bit different because
you don't have that you know that
limitation on you right yeah no tier
restrictions i
agree i agree um and i am experimenting
with increasing some of my amazon merge
pricing
uh at this point because being in tier
100 000 too it's like
suppose changing my my pricing doesn't
make a difference then i can pretty much
like
double my daily income by increasing the
prices just a little bit
and i think you know talking about
pricing psychology
and you know it's you know we're trying
to guess what customer perception is but
when something's like super
low priced they typically do associate
that with low
quality and then high price high quality
and what's a high price within reason i
mean 9.99 doesn't even seem that high
for a
coloring book that's got a bunch of
reviews and is the number one bestseller
so
or like a t-shirt that's the equivalent
of that so i think maybe 2021's the year
we
up our prices yeah yeah i know for sure
then also too just
you know you know that too with the bsrs
and books right that's what
amazon started with was just with books
um
when it comes to comparing like merch by
amazon to kdp
the shipping times they have their
shipping times down pretty good
it was like you're getting sales at the
very like to the 22nd
21st or something like that 23rd um
to christmas like compared to merch by
amazon where it fell off like on the
12th or the 13th
yeah so you get like an extra like like
a week and a half almost
and i think machines they probably don't
require
humans or if they do maybe just one
human where don't the like t-shirt
machines require like three or something
yeah that's what i just said you know
what i mean that's what i'm that's what
it comes down to and just a book
putting in a package and ship it off
yeah so that's a good tip too
yeah for the next q4 um what else for
kdp like
outside of coloring books are you
dabbing
dabbling in any other space like i've
done some
puzzle books using the puzzle wiz
software i've done a couple different
various types
uh using that like have you experimented
with other stuff as far as the low
content side of things goes
um so like activity books um i want to
say like like
crossword stuff like that yes i have
messed with that um
i don't even know how to say it was a
suduko yeah
i messed around with that a little bit
um but
activity books were because literally
you have your line drawings already
right for the holiday
um and then you can just replace it with
crossword or
or or help the irish guy
find the irish leprechaun find the
treasure you know what i mean stuff like
that
that type of stuff you can do that type
of stuff and you call it activity book
right
and uh that niche i'm pretty sure you
know that that niche is like
a big niche when it comes to uh
amazon like it's that sells like crazy
when it gets close to any of the
holidays or just in general
evergreen niche uh anything with
activities for kids especially when uh
all this pandemic the pandemic happened
like all the bsrs for books just dropped
down like crazy because kids were going
to homeschool
um and i was like dude this is big right
here we got to take advantage of
something like this because
creating stuff like this for kids at
home and keeping them occupied
and you know as the parents go to work
and stuff like that um it's going to be
it's a huge niche you can see the bsr
has dropped from
you know 30k bsr all the way down to
2000 bsr like dude this is crazy
yeah yeah it makes sense any like and
plus like not just activity but it's
like the getting their brains going too
so it could be
spun positively i like that and you know
those of you guys that haven't checked
out like
puzzlewiz or i mean i'm sure there's
other softwares i think um
uh what's his name bose publishing uh he
does
he does it as well um where you can
generate these puzzles you just feed in
a list of words so you'd have to build
like a list of words related to st
patrick's day and then
it'll basically do it for you so pretty
cool stuff out there
and um i wanted to ask you too like how
can people
use pixel pod studio to benefit their
kdp
business oh okay no no um so if you guys
are unaware of pixel pod studios uh
something
um that i've created to help people with
the
interiors right um one of the things
that i recommend is like when you're
first starting off
with um just kdp in general
like you can start off at the very
beginning i'm always a big fan just like
getting a head start trying to jump
ahead
and start making money right away before
you start like investing
more into the business so if you can
make 100 bucks or 200 or 300 bucks
um and these are what these interiors
are are uh are made for
um there's a few people that are selling
uh uh books for 18.99 19.99
and i found a few of them i was like hey
these are selling they actually uh
you know what i mean took the time to uh
create something and make it their own
um so with pixel pod studio we
like i do a lot of the research and
stuff like that so as far as keyword
research
um and the research for the actual niche
itself or the interior
i do a lot of that because i just i look
at the competition
and i want to see where it where there
is a demand
but very little competition gives you
the opportunity to make your first sell
and i think that's big
right and i do this to this day with
merch by amazon right everyone a lot of
people say that's like
very competitive yes it is very
competitive but if you do your research
correctly
like you can make sales in a niche
within a week and um
that's what i do a lot of the time so
that's what i do is like i take my
expert expertise
[Laughter]
right now you have a youtube channel
yeah my expertise and i uh apply that
to the business because it's just like
if you uh i believe that if you
you give a good product there's really
nothing you can say bad about it right
um if it works
like like if it works why uh like
there's nothing you can say bad about it
um
and me personally helping thousands and
thousands of people online make money
um just something that i've done for a
very long time on like my youtube
channel
help people make money for very long
time and then you know i was like you
know what
just makes sense i'm gonna start i'm
gonna create something and uh
charge people for it and then help them
out at the same time
um and then we can all win yeah man it's
mutually beneficial and that's like
those
those win-win situations are um they're
you know they're they're great
and you're helping people get started
with kdp you're helping people that are
already in kdp
step their game up i don't like to start
any business if i don't have
some sort of i either need to have an
edge
like feel like i'm a step ahead or have
a plan
you know for how to get there so uh
something like pixel pod studio man it's
awesome that you put that together and
i'll put a link guys if you want to
check it out
uh in the description and again it's
gonna help jump start your kdp business
if you're new
or if you're established i mean you can
still check it out and branch out into
some
various uh new niches right because
you've got the assistance there with the
interiors and that's what basically in
my mind at least sets a lot of the
kdp books apart more so than like a
cover you know a variation of power and
then re-uploading which is kind of the
easy way out that i
did mention that i've been doing lately
yeah i know
also to just adding to that just the
goal behind this too as well is just to
jump start and get your first few sales
on
kdp and then once you get us consistent
income it's like you can jump to
coloring books you know once you get a
better understanding
children's books like children's books
are not that hard to make guys you put a
few illustrations with some color
put two sentences on one page or each
page and then you have a children's
color
i mean a children's book right um but
just even if you can go up to like
higher content that's what i recommend
too
get up into that level where you're
creating like romance novels and stuff
dude you can crush it with that because
there's like it takes more work
and you can obviously if you're not a
good writer you can just ghost writers
too as well out there
that you can hire but as you get to that
level it's just like less competition
you know what i mean you're hanging out
where all the money is and
i have no competition i love it man so
hey
2021 subscribe
to rj's channel i'll also link that in
the description and follow his journey
to become a number one
amazon bestselling author in the romance
novel uh category
okay all right keep us updated with your
progress but amen
happy new year thanks for being here
yeah man thank you very much thank you
for having me on man i appreciate it
all right i'll see you