Create a KDP Planner to Sell on Amazon for FREE

in this video I'm going to show you from start to  finish how to create and publish a book on Amazon   and we're going to be creating a weekly planner  for 2023. now this type of book falls under the   umbrella of books like no content low content  and medium content books and these include things   like notebooks journals planners log books and  even books like coloring books and puzzle books   and planners come in various different types of  things like weekly planners daily planners teacher   planners and student planners but we're just going  to be doing a weekly one for this video now why   we're going to be creating this type of book well  first of all they are easy to create as compared   to say a 30 to 60 000 word piece of fiction or  non-fiction they're very cheap to create and   in fact what I'm going to show you today you can  create a book for absolutely free of charge they   sell very well all these different types of  books sell incredibly well and I started this   business back in 2018 since then I've sold over  80 000 books and made over 150 000 in royalties   and that's pure profit and in fact after trying a  number of different types of online business this   was the the first one that really worked for me  which I was then able to sort of develop into a   business and it's also a good business if you're  a creative person it's a great way of exploring   your creativity you can experiment with all  different types of books different designs of   books and it's very satisfying when you publish  your books on Amazon especially your first book   it's incredibly satisfying so who is this suitable  for well the steps I'm going to show you today is   suitable for a complete beginner those have  published a few books and those that may have   published a lot of books but are not yet getting  sales because you may pick up some tips and   tricks on things like cover design interior  design and also the upload process to Amazon   now if you're 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   so this video is going to be split into three  main steps first of all we've got the creation   of the book cover then we've got the creation of  the book interior and I've got a solution for you   with regards this which we'll discuss when we  get to that particular section and then finally   the upload of all these components to the Amazon  platform where you can finally hit that publish   button now you're going to need first of all a KDP  account and you can get one of these absolutely   free of charge by going to kdp.amazon.com where  you from there you can just sign up you're gonna   have to give them some details you're probably  going to have to give them your bank details   because if you do make sales of books you're going  to receive royalties and Amazon are going to need   to pay you somewhere now think you can also get  paid by check and even possibly payoneer as well   if you do have issues with bank accounts in your  country okay so let's get on to the first step and   that is creating the book cover itself and we're  going to be creating this on a website called   canva which is an excellent Suite of software that  we can use which is free of charge there is a pro   version where you pay a monthly subscription but  we're going to be using the free version today   now there is a link down below to canva if you do  take out a subscription for the pro version I do   receive a small commission doesn't cost you any  extra but it does help support this channel for   which I'm very grateful okay so to get started  the top right we click on create a design then   we go to custom size now here we have to put in  the dimensions of our book cover what does this   include well here I've actually got a KDP book  it's not one of mine it's a book I bought for my   son so the size of the document we're going to  need is going to include the whole of the book   which includes the back cover front cover and the  spine so we're going to need a template for this   and we can get one of these free of charge from  KDP itself so once you've logged into your KDP   account and gone to your dashboard the top right  you just click on help this will take you to this   page here and on the left hand side just click on  format your paper book which will take you to this   page you just scroll down to this section where it  says download a cover template and click on cover   calculator and templates so here we just need  to put in some information so binding type we're   going to select paperback interior type we're  going to select black and white paper type is   white paper turn direction just leave that as left  to right does sound confusing but that's the one   you need to choose measurement units we're going  to stick to inches an interior trim size this book   is going to be 8.5 by 11 inches so choose that and  the page count well this book is going to have 122   pages and then we just hit calculate dimensions  and then you want to hit download template and it   will download a file to your computer which will  look something like this and you've got a few   options a PDF file a PNG file and this readme text  and we're going to be using this dot PNG file so   just double click on that and it will open up the  template and you can see we've got the area here   on the left for the back cover the bit down the  middle for the spine and this area on the right   for the front cover but the important figures  we need at this moment are these here which it   says is the overall dimensions which is 17.525 by  11.25 so we go back to canva and just put in those   figures so 17.525 here's the first mistake a lot  of people make I've not chosen the correct unit   it's here it still says PX for pixels we need to  change that to inches and just put in 17.525 by   11.25 click on create new design now the first  thing we need to do is upload that .png template   we've just downloaded from KDP and this is going  to be the guide for creating our cover so on the   left hand side in canva click on uploads and  then all you need to do from the file that you   downloaded to your computer you just need to drag  across the .png file into the upload section and   that will upload once it's uploaded just click  on it and it will appear in your document then   just drag to the top left corner of your document  and then just drag down to the bottom right hand   corner so here we have the template for our book  and so now we need to fill this with the contents   of our book cover and this is where you get to  explore your creativity and on canva we do have   some options on the left hand side here if you  click on elements you've got options for graphics   images of stickers you've got photos we don't  want videos and if you scroll down we've got   these here called Collections and these are  fantastic because they contain collections   of images which all have those similar design  features so you can create a book cover that   looks quite cohesive now something just to note  you'll see a lot of images that are free to use   you can use these in your free account but you'll  notice some images do have this little crown   icon and those are for only accounts that have  subscribed to the pro account and when using any   image from any site you've got to make yourself  aware of the licensing agreements now the images   that are free you can use in commercial projects  that is at the time of doing this video but I do   suggest wherever you use images even canva you  just check the licensing agreement and they do   have this licensing agreement page here as you can  see okay so let's start filling our template with   some images and I'm looking for something that  stands out and looks striking actually I quite   like the look of these here which look very  bright and bold so I'm going to take a look   at this one here I'm just going to drag this  to the top left hand corner and we're going   to enlarge this until it fills in one side of  our cover so I just want to stretch that so it   goes about halfway to our template or halfway  along into the spine and it actually clicks   into place when you get there okay that looks  promising I'm going to right click on this and   I'm going to hit duplicate and then I'm going  to move this over to the other side and again   that will just click into place now that looks a  bit odd so what I'm going to do is click on flip   click on flip horizontal and now everything should  line up nicely I think that looks pretty good so   now we want to add some text so I'm going to  hit the text button on the left hand side here   and we're going to click add heading first of all  I'm just going to double click on that and type in   weekly and then move this into position now I want  to change this font so I'm just going to double   click on the text at the top here we've got this  drop down menu which gives us all different fonts   that we can use we're going to use this free one  here called archival black so it's going to just   reduce the size of that slightly now holding  down the option key or I think maybe ALT key   on a Windows computer just hold down the option  key and left click on the mouse and just drag   downwards and it'll duplicate the wording and  then double click on that and write in planner   now what I want to do is have this as the same  size as the word weekly so it's going to line that   up on the left hand side and then reduce this in  size and then holding down option or ALT key again   left click of the mouse just drag downwards and  I'm going to put in 2023 I'm going to move this   across and you'll see it will click into position  and you've got those little guidelines and then   I'm just going to drag to increase that in size  then I'm just going to click on 2023 and then   just move that up so it's a similar distance to  the words weekly and planner now I want to change   the color of this text so I'm just going to click  on weekly and in fact I'm going to hold down shift   click on planner and click on 2023 I'm not sure if  that's selective planner think it has now then at   the top we're going to click on text color now one  of the good things about canva is it will give you   a color palette of the colors that are already  appearing on the book cover foreign so for this   I'm going to click blue now the text on the front  of the book this applies to the actual title of   your book Because when we come to writing out the  title of our book the title has to be either on   the front cover of the book or the spine of the  book now for this book we're just going to call   it a weekly planner so we've got that text on the  front cover so that's fine if you didn't have it   on the front cover or didn't want to put it on  the front cover then you've got the option of   putting it on the spine so in order to do that I'm  going to select this main front color image and   just turn the transparency down on that same for  the back cover turn the transparency down on that   and we're going to increase this some more and our  text would have to be in this white area we don't   want it overlapping into this pink area which is  the bleed trim area so again we could take our   text write something like weekly planner then we  can rotate that through 90 degrees and then reduce   the size of that and move it into position over  our spine area so if you wanted to call your book   something different you could do that and put it  on the spine but we're not going to do that today   we're just going to leave it on the front cover  now just another note we can see here that our   text is within this pink border which is our bleed  trim area so any text or anything you don't want   cut off when the book is made then you need to  keep it within this pink area and we can see we've   done that okay so we need to turn the transparency  back up on our front and back cover images so   there we have our cover so the next stage is  now to download this as a PDF file so top right   hit share then download and then in this drop  down menu choose PDF print hit download So once   that's downloaded we can take a look we can just  double click on the PDF file and that all looks   pretty good okay so now we come to the interior  of the book and this is going to be basically an   initial page which says this book belongs to then  we've got a couple of yearly calendars there 2023   2024 then we've got these monthly calendar pages  followed by the weekly pages and opposite to each   weekly page is going to be this lined area so when  the book opens on one side you've got this weekly   calendar and on the other side you've got this  area to write notes now it does take quite a bit   of time to create one of these types of interiors  particularly with the calendars because you've   got all the different dates now I have created  one of these already for you and this is a 122   page PDF file and this is ready to download or  upload direct to the KDP platform so you don't   have to create this interior yourself and you can  find this in my gumroad shop I'll leave a link to   the Gumroad shop as I said it's absolutely free of  charge for you to use there's no restrictions in   terms of licenses you can do whatever you like  with it and you can use it commercially now if   you're a little bit more advanced you might want  to ask well how do I go about editing this file   because I think editing the file is probably a  good idea because you can add your own touches you   could add images to pages you could change the the  fonts you could just add some tweaks to the design   well there's two ways that I would suggest first  of all you can do it in canva and the way to do   this is on the home page click on create a design  then at the bottom here click on import file and   then you take that file that you've downloaded  from Gumroad double click on it and just upload   it to canva it takes a few seconds to upload and  once it's uploaded just click on it and it will   open this document within canva now it's not  perfect reason being you can see straight away   you're going to find that there are elements that  may not be aligned properly and need tweaking so   for instance for this we'd need to change like so  move it up a bit and the same goes for these other   pages particularly the calendar pages because  you can see some of the elements aren't aligned   and overlap with each other and so you can change  these within canva it's all absolutely editable   all the the words all the dates you can change the  actual monthly calendars themselves there's only   slight issues here at the top again which are  easily changed but the other pages the weekly   calendar pages look fine as do the lined pages  you'll find all the content on these pages are   within the margins so that saves you a headache as  well so that's one way you can do it another way   is to open the PDF file in something like Affinity  Designer Adobe Illustrator and possibly Inkscape   I haven't tested it with Inkscape but there's no  reason why you shouldn't be able to open this in   Inkscape which is free image editing software  I'll quickly show you in The Affinity Designer   by just dragging over the PDF file into Affinity  Designer and showing you what it looks like and   this is what you see you see all 122 Pages here  everything should be aligned nicely and you can   enlarge each page make any changes you want you  can add images to the pages change the fonts   etc and then save this as a PDF file which you  can then upload to the KDP platform Okay so   with godar book cover PDF file we've got  our interior PDF file the next step is now   to upload all of this to the KDP platform so  when you log into your dashboard you want to   click on bookshelf and it will take you to this  page here and you just click on create and this   is going to be a paperback so first of all the  language leave that as English ignore this list   helper box here you won't see that unless you  have an account with something called tangent   templates first thing you're going to need to  fill out is the book title as we mentioned this   needs to be on the cover of the spine of the  book so this is going to be weekly planner then   we've got a subtitle so I'm just going to say cool  weekly planner for organization and productivity   in this area I would put in some keywords  and these are words which help get your   books found on the Amazon platform and I'll  mention keywords when we get to the keywords   boxes in a moment but you don't need to worry  about that particularly if you're starting out   it's just a case of getting these areas filled  in hitting that publish button and getting your   book published ignore the series ignore Edition  number next we come to author now all my books   are published under a pen name but in this area  I'm just going to put in my name for the moment   but you can pick a pen name here what I would  suggest not doing is using what we call keywords   in these awesome names because Amazon doesn't like  it so contributors leave that and description okay   we're gonna keep this very basic so I'm going  to write in here a weekly planner for 2023 and   I'm just going to put in some details about the  book A 122 page planner for those that like to   keep organized view this as your sales page  so you can write a couple of paragraphs or   just write some details in list formats you know  white paper 120 Pages 8.5 by 11 inches matte cover   some sentences this is a weekly planner for 2023  would suit people who enjoy staying organized   and are productive so on you get the idea next  publishing rights click on I own the copyright   next we come to keywords these are the words that  will tell Amazon what your book is about and will   help get your book found on the Amazon platform  when people search for things like a weekly   planner so we'd have words like weekly planner  in there 2023 I might put things like notebook   journal who is a book for now I have done  two videos one on keyword research for kind   finding keywords you'd put in these seven  keyword boxes and another video on how I   use keywords I'll leave a link to both of those  videos down below because those videos will help   you fill out this section again if you're just  starting out I wouldn't get too worried about   this just put in some words that you think might  be relevant to your particular book I what type   of book it it is who the audience is so it might  be Mom Pop dad son daughter could be a gift idea   I would fill all these boxes with all the relevant  words and keywords related to a book as I said   watch those videos for more explanation next we  come down to choose categories now there's no   shortcuts around this so what you do is click on  choose categories and you've got these different   headings this would be a non-fiction book  so it could go down look at maybe business   and economics maybe office equipment and  supplies that could be one and I'm going to   choose secretarial aids and training because I can  imagine you know secretaries might use this type   of book in the office again there's no shortcut  you just got to go through and find a couple of   categories that are most relevant to your book now  the next option here is low content book here it   says an example are planners so that's exactly  what I would choose here so I would tick that   adult content nope save and continue now as we've  ticked the low content book option we've got two   options here on the print ISBN section and that  is publish without an ISBN or use your own ISBN   what I recommend doing is just publishing without  an ISBN publication date can ignore that next we   come to the print options where we choose our  size so we're going to select a different size   then we're going to find this one here 8.5 by 11  inches this particular book has no bleed that's   the way I design the interior so you could just  leave it as no bleed cover finish matte and then   we come to upload the interior which is the  manuscript so just click on upload paperback   manuscript find that PDF interior and just double  click on it and upload it once that is uploaded we   come onto the book cover section click on upload  a cover you've already made or have then click on   upload your cover file just upload that PDF cover  we made you can leave this box here that mentions   a barcode unticked and then next we click on  this button here the launch preview now this   can sometimes be a few seconds to a few minutes  KDP is preparing all the files and it will give   us a preview of what our book looks like and tell  us if there are any errors and there we have it   now this is the first time I've uploaded these  files so fingers crossed they're all going to be   good now what you'll see if there are any issues  you'll see some error messages here and you'll see   some little red warning triangles this all looks  pretty good then we can click and have a look at   the the interior and again we're looking for any  red warning triangles which we won't see because   there are no errors in that left hand box but  just have a quick flick through the pages just   to make sure everything does look alright those  dotted lines are the margins on the page and   everything is within the margins we'll just go  to our weekly calendar pages and again that all   looks pretty good so we can hit approve so next in  this summary it tells us how much it will cost to   print each book in this case it's 2.31 so just hit  save and continue next we come on to territories I   leave this tick to where it says all territories  worldwide rights primary Marketplace amazon.com   you can change that if you like and now we come to  pricing now you'll find a lot of books like this   with 120 Pages this sort of size usually sell  for around the 6.99 Mark and so that's exactly   what I'm going to put in here you notice here that  Amazon and will automatically change the pricing   for different countries so once you're all happy  with that next thing to do is just click this   button here that says publish your paperback book  and congratulations you've published your first   book and that's it or you need to do now is wait  for it to appear on Amazon now if you find the   idea of publishing a planner a little bit daunting  then you could start with just a plain lined   Journal if you want to know how to create one of  those then I suggest watching my book tutorials   playlist here where it shows you how to go about  creating a basic line Journal similar process to   what I've showed you today thank you very much for  your time it is very much appreciated I hope you   found that beneficial don't forget to hit the  Subscribe button and until next time goodbye

Channel: Paul Marles

Views: 32,201

Keywords: amazon kdp, low content books, kdp low content books, canva tutorial, kdp publishing, amazon kdp tutorial, kindle direct publishing, side hustle, passive income, canva planner tutorial, low content publishing, create planner in canva, no content books, kdp tutorial, create planners to sell, make money online, canva book cover tutorial, low content books canva, amazon kdp شرح, kdp low content books canva, paul marles, canva, kdp interior, kdp cover, kdp upload

Id: fUjhMNTidl0

Length: 25min 50sec (1550 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 02 2023