Self-publishing: Amazon KDP Self-publishing: Book Publishing

In this lecture I discuss the fundamentals of book cover design focusing on images, text and colored boxes.  All addressed are making text pop, full page vs inset images and branding.

In this course addendum I correct and clarify directions provided in the following videos regarding Canva book cover creation.  There are two:

1) Click the "Create a design" button near the upper left of the screen and search for the "Book Cover" design by scrolling down in the design list rather than selecting "Kindle Cover" which appears for no one but me.
2) When exporting images, click the Download button then change the default download format from PDF to either JPG or PNG by clicking on the down arrow to the right of the selector.

Please report any problems or confusion as you encounter them so that I can produce the best course possible.

---Brian

In this lecture I provide a demonstration of creating a free book cover using a Canva theme, which pretty much lays out the whole book cover allowing you to change the text and picture to make it yours.

In this lecture we use Canva to build a book cover from the blank page up.  No more depending upon themes.  Here I demonstrate the use of raw Canva.

In this lecture you graduate from novice Canva book cover creator to expert.  Watch as I delve into the guts of Canva's inner workings.

This is the first section project in which you'll be asked to post a piece of your work based on this course to the Q&A section found in the menu at the top of the screen.

In this lecture I include the self-publishing options including traditional vs Kindle Create formatting and the new option to publish you manuscript in Print on Demand (POD) paperback via the KDP interface.

In this lecture we begin the process of formatting your manuscript for publication using the traditional or manual process.

In this lecture we conclude the process of formatting you manuscript for publication using the traditional process.

In this lecture I explain how to install the Kindle Create Microsoft Word plugin in preparation for using it to format your manuscript for publication.

In this lecture I demonstrate the use of the Kindle Create Microsoft Word plugin to format your manuscript for Amazon publication via KDP.

I conclude with the Kindle Create formatting odds and ends.

This section project involves providing a status update to let me know how you're doing on formatting your own manuscript.

In this lecture, I demonstrate how to publish your manuscript for Kindle distribution using the Amazon KDP web-based interface.

In this lecture, I provide a few pointers on how to write compelling copy for your Amazon book description.

In this lecture, I demonstrate how to publish your book in POD paperback format using KDP.

Watch as I publish a Microsoft Word manuscript (.docx file) in paperback format on Amazon via the KDP web-based interface.

In this lecture, I discuss the Amazon review process and things you can do after your book is published to monitor sales, change your book and run promotions.

Amazon just released a new feature that allows published authors to automatically generate audiobooks for publication on Audible in minutes using AI and a synthetic voice.  This is a free additional revenue stream that enhances the appeal of your eBook/book display and only takes minutes to setup.

In this section project you're asked to let me know if you're a published author yet.

In this lecture you'll learn the two options for creating a paperback book cover in KDP.

In this article, I plead with you to please leave a review for the course.

This is the beginning of 10 book marketing tips that are free and easy to implement.

This is the conclusion to 10 book marketing tips that are free and easy to implement.

This lecture includes two more book marketing tips on going permafree and using KDROI to advertise you book promotions.

This lecture provides a concluding grab-bag of tips on marketing your book.

In this lecture I provide updated statistics showing the free promotions made possible via including in the KDP Select program do improve book sales and Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read.

This lecture provides a short demo of using the free GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) in place of Canva to create your book cover.

This lecture provides a quick demo of using Microsoft PowerPoint to create your book cover instead of Canva.

This lecture demonstrated using Canva to create the sample book cover.

This demonstration lecture shows how to create a book cover using Canva.

This demonstration lecture shows how to use the traditional formatting method to format your manuscript for Amazon publication.

This lecture concludes the demonstration of using the traditional method to format your manuscript for Amazon publication.

In this lecture, I demonstrate the publication of your Amazon Kindle ebook using KDP.

In this lecture, I demonstrate the publication of your POD paperback using KDP.

A review of traditional publishing vs self-publishing shows that there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches but that self-publishing wins out in the end when compared with its older sibling.

An overview of the self-publishing process from the writing of the manuscript through the money generated through sales on Amazon

Where to self-publish?  KDP, Nook Press, Smashwords, CreateSpace, and ACX, in that order.
-or-
Join the Kindle Select program and publish only through KDP, CreateSpace, and ACX.

A brief description of the course contents.

A discussion about why I recommend using Microsoft Word to format your documents and a quick aside look at the Navigation Bar and how to display it.

A brief overview of displaying formatting characters.

Getting rid of tabs and replacing the -- with an em dash.

A discussion of how to set styles for the body of your text, chapter headers, bold, italic, and underscored text.

Learn how to apply our style formatting to the document.

Although it's probably trivial, we address the page layout, and although it's definitely not trivial, we focus on page separators.

An example of using a well formatted document to cut & paste a title page and about the author page into your manuscript (see the Microsoft Word template at the end of this document for an example).

Add a Table of Contents to your manuscript.

How to format the title page and chapter titles.

We review the manuscript formatting process and then save our work for publication.