If you’re anything like me, then you've probably spent a large portion of your grade school, high school and college years, doodling aimlessly in your notebooks. In fact, for the amount of hours I’ve spent doodling throughout my educational years, I should have a Masters Degree in Doodling by now. And that got me thinking. If I’ve been able to make a living over the past 40 years from all of my hours of schooling, then why shouldn’t I be able to make a living from all of my hours of doodling?
And that’s what this channel is all about. I'll be taking a part time hobby that I’ve had since grade school, and turning it into a full time income. Being sure to chronicle everything that I'm doing along the way.
So if you’re somebody who doodles and could use some extra money ... then hit that subscribe button and come along for the ride. From tutorial videos to podcasts, my channel will be educational, as well as inspirational!
So you actually only post a thumbnail on Pinterest and link to the vid on youtube? Do you always do that? Any way of knowing if that actually brings traffic?
If you watch the video, it shows you that RU-vid analytics breaks down where your external traffic is coming from. And it is a great way for small channels to get their initial traffic, and to teach the RU-vid algorithm who to show your videos to. I personally don't use it anymore because RU-vid knows who my target audience is. But that being said, my pins on Pinterest still bring traffic to my channel even to this day.
This is the most overcomplicated way to make Sudoku books. I can literally click one button and make thousands of 100-page Dell publishing-style books.
It's not an app that you download, you simply sign up to the service and the software is on the website. There is a link below, be sure to use my promo code "craigbabin" to save 20%. Book Bolt: Low Content Book Publishing and Research Save 20% Using Promo Code: craigbabin bookbolt.io/957.html
How you choose to use the tools Amazon gives you for advertising and how you approach the research are a big part of the tactics. You could easily just let Amazon do everything for you including bids, keyword generation, etc. That would also be a possible tactic, but I show you in this video how to do all of that manually to get better control and results. But there is only so much you can do within Amazon ads. If you're looking for ways to promote your books outside of Amazon, then check out this video here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PTGSBGr2PU4.htmlsi=J1CcNiZYPc6gmQ_e
do you always have to make a "Shorts (vertical)" version of your video and a normal RU-vid version as the Shorts version doesnt appear under your channel "Videos" section and therefor people think it looks empty and dont subscribe or is there another way? If you need to do two versions then you have to refilm in vertical and horizontal or? How do you do it as to save time and work?
You don't have to do shorts, many very successful channels don't. But if you are going to do them then you want to be filming yourself directly in the center of the screen with approximately 1/3 background on either side of you. That way you can just crop out the back on either side of you for the vertical short video. The key is to shoot a longer form video and then make a couple of shorts from that footage that you can use to further promote the long form video on other platforms.
@@CraigBabin Well, i do coloring vids for KDP so I ll have to see how that can be done. What would you recommend as I am not in the vid but only different transitions of the coloring book and me coloring it.
Hi Craig. I have been learning a lot from you. Thanks so much for the content. I have a question about bookbolt. I had already done some research before I signed up. Does Bookbolt only list Sellers who are independent publishers? I noticed some of the top BSR books do not show up in my listings and when I search by the seller the results show 0. Thanks!!
Hi, I dont get how collecting lots of pins from other people is supposed to be of promo value to you if their pins all lead somewhere else and not to your destination
The pins from others are what draw people to follow your page. The key is to have a folder that contains only your stuff, as well as to mix some of your own stuff in with the other pins. It's like how musicians on RU-vid perform cover songs from other famous artists, on their channel, to get people to watch their videos and subscribe; which ends up introducing those subscribers to their original music as well. Music that those subscribers probably wouldn't have clicked on if it weren't for the cover songs.
I've asked this question before, you are not the first to suggest that the page-turner be checked as Left to Right? I'm American and I turn my pages from right to left. Please help me understand this
"Turn" is actually a bad word for KDP to use here. They should have used the word page "direction". That's actually what they're referring to. What they're basically asking you is, do you start reading on the left page and then "turn" (your head) to the right page, or do you start on the right page and then turn to the left page.
@@CraigBabin That makes sense. I am not an avid reader but what I have read all the chapters seem to start on the right hand of the page, and sometimes that chapter ends on the right, so then you would turn the page for the next chapter and begin on the left page. Oh well, it will be clear once I get into it. I’m sure. Thank you so much for your getting back with me. Have a good night!
It may be a little out of date, but it should cover the jist of it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6aVbQY3ow8Y.htmlsi=KQ0KssvaF2mUJTwp
hey craig, i have a question, fro some reasons my pages do not show up on the right, but on the bottom it says have 130 pages, but i can not see them for some reason, could u help me out please?
Thank you for all the informative videos, I have watched several and have learned much. One question I have on Bookbolt word search, is can I change the spacing between the letters in the puzzle to free up space without changing the font size?
I don't believe you can, the generator uses as many letters as it needs to be able to place all of the words within the puzzle. Although you could try using fewer, as well as shorter words. That may space the letters out a bit.
One question, if I create an image made with artificial intelligence, for which I have a subscription and then modify it a little, could it be said that the product has my copyright? or wouldn't it be like that?
At the moment there is no copyright protection on any images created with AI. You would have to modify the image extensively to even come close to copyright, and even then you would still have to declare to Amazon that you used AI to create your images.
I've had Amazon KDP customer support staff tell me about 6 different file sizes for an 8 x 10" paperback with bleed... they keep adding 0.125 on top of the bleed measurement column.. ?
A lot of people move their margins with their bleed settings and you don't want to do that. So create your book with the 8" x 10" dimensions, then set your margins to whatever size you want them to be (ie .25"); and then go and change the 8" x 10" dimensions to 8.125" x 10.25" and leave the margins where they are. Some people run into to problems because they set the book dimensions to 8.125" x 10.25", and then set their margins to .2" on top, bottom and side. Not realizing that after the .125" bleed has been cut off, they will only have a margin of .075", and that's not enough, so KDP rejects it. If you're creating your book in Book Bolt, just set your book dimension to 8" x 10" and then choose bleed, Book Bolt will do the rest. I hope that helps.
Definitely some food for thought while I’m getting started with kdp. I’m glad there’s RU-vidrs out there like you that will explain the real ins and outs of this or any other business. Thanks for the quality content and keep up the good work!
Hello! Can I use this brush pack to create images for microstocks (shutterstock, creativemarket etc)? All strokes will be expanded and brushes will not be included in the files. Thank you.
You can draw with these brushes and then sell the finished drawings anywhere you want. But you can't resell the brushes themselves or redistribute them in any way.
People on Pubby will leave destructive reviews, basically outing you to Amazon and customers as using pubby, so beware. I may lose my KDP account over using it, beause some dirtbag left a review trying to sabotage me directly, because he didnt like my publishing a classic.
Thanks for the great video. Craig, do you use inDesign very much? If so, I would really appreciate a training video on the easy way to create a table of contents. I've made many books over the years using this program and now logbooks and i just give up each time I try to learn how to make the table of contents. I end up creating them manually and it's extremely time consuming and becomes a nightmare when I want to change things around. Most of my pages are logbook tables, with no separate title on the page outside of the table. If that makes sense. I've watched numerous videos on RU-vid but they just target paragraphs with chapter titles. Mine don't have those. I really need help. ❤️
In your situation, I think manually is the only way to create the Table of Contents. To use the TOC feature in InDesign, you would at the very least need a heading (title) outside of the logbook table. The software won't recognize the title inside of the table. I should make a video on that subject though. If I find a way to make your situation work, I'll include it in the video.
Thanks, that's probably why I can't find information on it. And to top it off, I create a lot of parent pages which I suspect might cause issues with creating a ToC, but I dont know for sure.
Thanks! Just wanted to note that I have sent author copies to different addresses. I'm in Australia and have sent to NZ and Canada as gifts. You just have to choose the appropriate marketplace (and pay shipping as you mentioned.)
The vast majority of people don't leave reviews, the ones that do are either really happy with the purchase or really hate it. That's why most reviews are either 4 or 5 star, or 1 star. 2 or 3 star reviews are from people that are just content with the product, and they very rarely leave reviews.
@@CraigBabin I am a rookie still. I sold 35 books organically but I haven not received any reviews. I don't know how to feel about that, to tell you the truth :)
Thanks Craig for this wonderful video! Its very informative and inspiring and I remember you sharing with me to put things in playlists. I see what you mean now after this video. I will look at my channel and see how I can clean things up and look at my analytics too. I agree that a personal why attached to your youtube channel is the place to go to come from a place of passion and not a place of greed. This was such a reflective video and a video to check in with ourselves :) Thank you again and loving all your content so far. You've always been so inspiring and so happy you are creating again from a place of love.
I have a question regarding the subtitle. The subtitle you entered in the field does not exist on your book, is this ok? Can I just write any subtitle I want even if it does not really appear on the book cover?
The subtitle is just basically a short description of the book. When you create ads, they often only contain the title and subtitle of the book, so you need the subtitle to explain what the book is. That description doesn't necessarily have to be on the book itself, but on my book something similar is on the back cover.
I am going to seek your advice once again at the risk of being a nuisance. You have been so helpful so far that I just want to fill you in on some things in and ask you a couple of questions, please. I am at the point of going to a publisher (KDP)to begin the actual publishing process, but I have a problem that I just don’t understand. I have set margins according to my best knowledge, but I am so afraid that they are off. From everything I read, they might be. I understand the concept of gutters, but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just make the inside margin larger-in other words, why are there two factors inside and gutters? What I have done to help myself I learned from you. I took a book that was published by someone through KDP and I did what I saw you do on RU-vid. I actually measured the space between the inside most text and the edge of the paper which is glued inside the gutter. It was .875 in. The outside margin was .625. I used the .875 as my inside margin and 6.25 as my outside margin. Should I add EVEN MORE for adding a gutter or just leave the gutter at zero? it would seem to me that because of my measurements I’ve already included the gutter in that .875 figure. I hope I’m making this clear. I really need help and this is so important to me. According to my physical measures and calculations, this worked for this author beautifully in terms of what I can see visually in his presentation. But I have no idea as to what the numbers were in the custom margins for him. I tried to reach the author, but did not get an answer. Please help if you can. I wish all RU-vidrs were as kind and helpful and accommodating as you are. Thank you so much, Craig
"Margins" and "bleeds" are two mutually exclusive things and it seems like you're confusing them. When it comes to "bleed", you're only adding it to the top, bottom and outside edges of your page. That has nothing to do with the "margins", that space is beyond the margins (think of it as additional paper around the outside edge of your book). So there's no need to add anything additional to the inside margin when it comes to bleed. You're just adding that little bit of extra width to the inside "margin" to account for the gutter of the book which is held together too tightly to be able to print text on it. Remember, bleed is the part of the book that is going to be cut off by the printer during the printing process. You can't cut anything off from the gutter. Envision your finished book lying closed on a table with the cover on it. But there is a little bit of excess paper peaking out from under the cover on the top, bottom and side (the side that opens), of your book and it's coming from the interior pages. That extra paper is the bleed and it is going to be cut off. So in your situation, your margins all the way around your page are actually .625, you're just added a little more to your inside margin, to account for the gutter and that's why it's .875. This will make the top, bottom, outside and inside margins appear to be the same in the eyes of the reader. I hope that helps.
I loved this video absolutely loved it. ❤❤❤. I especially liked what you did with the paper which really gives a fantastic excellent visual on The concept of margins and gutters etc. this is my fifth book but my first attempt at self publishing and I’m finding the formatting to be very challenging even though I am a daily user for over 20 years of MICROSOFT. I just find that some of the requirements are kind of convoluted in a bit much. I was doing well with the margin formatting after mini trial and error attempts and I’m going to go back to the drawing board now and basically do what you said about adding to the inside margin. What has happened to me is that today I went to PDF for the first time to test it and found that, for example, my page numbers were outside the boundaries of my book size. In other words for a 6 x 9“ book if you counted from the first line on the page all the way down the page number on the bottom of the page was at 9.75 inches! How can that be? My top margin is 1 inch in the bottom is .75 inches. Even though it does not ask you for a header footer measurement., Somewhere the H/D measurement has to be factored in right ? Any help you can offer me, would be appreciated. Thanks for the great video I’m going to go work on it now and I know that it will be a great help.
When you set your margins, they should be set inside of the 6 X 9" page dimensions. All of your type set should fall inside of those margins, whatever they are. Once you have your book all laid out, then go back to the document set up page and add the bleed to the overall book by increasing the page dimensions. After you do this don't resize your type set, leave it right where it is. I don't understand how your page numbers could be outside of your margins. Are you writing your book in another software and then copy and pasting it into InDesign? Are you setting up your page numbers in InDesign or in another software? Also, do your type set and page numbers look accurate in the InDesign workspace? Because if they do, saving the document out in PDF shouldn't make any difference.
@@CraigBabin thank you for your quick response! You are an outstanding RU-vidr! Regarding the page numbers being outside of the margins… I am as perplexed as you are over that. In answer to your question I am only using Microsoft Word no other software no in design or anything. A few c questions… Are you saying that I should add a bleed ( there is no bleed anywhere in my book) ? Is it OK to leave the gutter at zero and just do a bigger inside dimension? I have a book published by KDP by someone I don’t know and I’m going to use their dimensions for a 6 x 9 because their page numbers are almost identical to mine. This guy used inside .875 and outside .625 If there’s any other advice, I am always open to it. Thank you very much for your help.
@@dr.carmencaltagirone5868 No you don't need to use bleed. For some reason I thought you were using InDesign. I don't really use Word for desktop publishing, so I have no idea as to why your page numbers would be off your page. In the version of Word that I have, once you establish your page margins and then choose to insert page numbers, the page numbers are automatically placed just below the bottom margin. And when I save the document out as a PDF, the page numbers appear in the same spot as they appear in the Word document itself. So I really have no idea what is going on with your version of Word software. Sorry.
Simple basic concept before anything else, before getting into the details: if a person cannot draw or is not good in arts, then that person must honestly exercise self restraint from dabbling in serious stuff in that line, but instead go hire somebody else who is actually good in arts or drawing, if he/she still insists in being a player in the industry, it's just like building a house or repairing a car!
True. But remember, most great mechanics started off their careers as inexperienced people who just dabbled. That's why this channel is not only teaching people how to self publish, it's also encouraging them to learn how to draw.
Use layers of graphics with different mode and opacity settings. The idea is to make your background appear to be going off into the distance. I give a better demonstration in this video here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-F67S8K41dKM.htmlsi=eF3TzWHQQEItA-yp
This is the second video I've watched that completely skims over how to group the solutions on the same page. I finished one activity book and just ended up doing one per page because for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to combine several pages onto one. Yes, I know how to shrink the size of the solution, but that doesn't tell me how to put more than one on the same page.
You didn't show them how to delete multiple pages at once. Holding shift or ctrl key to pick multiple pages, and then right click and delete pages. Yes it did it when video recorded. You go over moving pages and you clone and delete and everything else. Why aren't you using page up down and move page to, it shows up right on your menu when you right clicked! For word search extra words, don't add a blank. Just use row 1 to 22, then a blank row. :)
1. Most people know how to select multiple pages, it's the same in every software. 2. The question that I was answering in that section was actually "How to reorder pages (if the move feature isn't working properly)?" This was when the studio was fairly new and quite glitchy. I was just giving them an alternate way to do it. 3. The point of that section was just to include some additional shorter word options for the generator to choose from.
Brillant Craig. I am going to follow you all the way. Your delivery flows like water. I just have a quick question: When I first loaded my content on Amazon KDP, there is that department on the first page called keywords which hass you to fill out 7 lines..not single keywords words, but lines. What relationship does that content have with the Amazon advertising campaign whilst using the aid of Bookbolt?
Those are basically search phrases that a customer might use to look for your book on the Amazon platform. Those phrases should contain keywords that pertain to your book. The keywords in those phrases are what Bookbolt is looking for when it does searches. So if you're using Bookbolt to find keywords that are getting a lot of searches, try to incorporate those keywords into KDP's 7 keyword phrases.
@@CraigBabin Thank you for the quick reply. This is so interesting and helpful. So, just to be clear, do I need to make sure that all my keywords that I am researching in BookBolt are only derived from what I have in those 7 phrases on my KDP account for that one book? If so, what is the recommended maximum, because I am now thinking I need to completely start over and could find an infinite number, if you know what I mean?
@@audiovisualdesignprint You should be researching highly traffic keywords in Bookbolt before you create those 7 phrases in KDP, and then use those keywords in those 7 phrases. Keyword traffic changes over time, so if you find that your books aren't getting a lot of sales after a year, research new keywords and change your 7 phrases.
@@CraigBabin Thank you again. So, to get this right, I only need to prepare 7 phrases to get going, right? I noticed you only used 2 words in the first part of your tutorial "lyrics Journal' . Is there a general rule of the number of words to capitalise on in each phrase?
It's in this video here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PTGSBGr2PU4.htmlsi=iLIK2gQZ40b1r-KK But I don't think that KDP allows you to do that any more. If I'm not mistaken, KDP now lists your book into additional categories automatically, based on which 3 categories you initially choose. But you can try it to see if they still do it.
