Help CenterThis article is written by Mark, not Neil just to be clear. If you are new, I get that you just want to jump in and make books. It is exciting. You have seen video's on this. Looks easy, tons on YouTube do it and make thousands (don't believe everything you see, they show you what they want and show static screens of fake numbers which is easily done on a webpage and in reality, most are their for the views and affiliate clicks. they also mention it is passive income and easy). Well nothing is easy. There is not many things that have passive income without learning and doing the work. Everything we do in life that is new, we take time to learn, or you should and this is no different.
In my journey, in short, I jumped in and made over 20 books, lined notebooks, journals, planners, etc. Month later no sales. then I started watching the live calls, the 2 oldest videos in live calls, read some articles, asked many questions. I finally got it, the importance of research, finding the niches, creating quality over quantity. then I was on my way and every month made better books. Sales increased. Learned about A Plus, added it to every book. Learned about ads, took the time doing just one ad and learning all there is to know about it. Then I created more ads. Did the price thing so I tried to make 2 bucks or more per sale, harder to get sales that way. I would rather sell 50 books making a buck or just under it, than 5 sales and make 2 dollars per book. Fixed all them. I have a lot of books now that sell with no ads, majority of them. A lot are evergreen books. Some get 3 to 5 sales a month. Some get 6 to 15 a month. A few get 16 to 50 a month.
So please take the time to learn, play in the studio, create a test project. Try to watch 2 or 3 videos a week, and or read 2, 3 or 4 articles a week. By the way, all those 20+ books, all unpublished now. they were terrible, and not niched down, and covers were lacking. I was honest with myself and compared to books in the top 50 in sales. They sucked. Be honest with yourself. You are making books for others, not yourself.
First off, we have a ton of resources to learn from. We offer over 400 Videos, Articles, Blogs, FAQ's and Troubleshooting Articles!
If you are new and just want to jump in and learn it, you could by just creating a project in the studio. From the drop down menu click on Project > New Project, leave all the settings to their defaults, except for Project Name, add a name, for example, "Testing", Change Trim Size to 8.5 x 11, and Page Count to 50 pages.
From there, try out the things on the left menu, for each thing you do on the left, options will appear at the top. Just try things out and learn the software. Learn the ins and outs, so you don't feel so lost when it comes time to actually start attempting to make a book.
Just creating a random book, without doing the research and finding the niches with low competition probably will not get you a lot of sales if any. This is the step missed most by people. There are millions of books on KDP. Do you think you can just make a book in a few minutes then upload it and it will be better than the top 200 sellers in some random niche, over the successful ones just by chance? You make a random book and no research and it ends up there is 40,000 books in the niche it is, you will be on page 2,253, ask yourself, how many people search Amazon and click to get to that page? So we created a short article on research that you can spend your time on. BOOK BOLT RESEARCH HELP
If you are going to jump right in, at least read this article first, so you set-up your project the correct way and less chances of being denied by KDP, What Project Type Should I Pick For My Book - NOT Interior Only and Cover Only - KDP Rejection, Size is Not as Expected.
Did you decide on your book type, paperback or hardcover, the size, type of paper, are what you want to make a thing on Amazon, research will tell you. Did you check out the minimum price you need to sell the book for. Please see this article as well. [KDP ROYALTIES] Is There a Way to See the Costs, Price & Royalties On A Book Before Creating It?
If you want to spend a couple of hours or even longer becoming well versed in all the ins and outs, it is easy to do. In the drop down menu's in the Studio, we have one called Learning. This gives you access to over 400 Blogs, Articles, FAQ's, Walkthrough Video's and more! We suggest below some area's to explore initially. Also we included those same links below in this article.
Before you begin, we highly recommend looking at these 3 articles to save you from getting a rejection email from KDP. From the Studio, click Help then click Troubleshooting and read this article: Rejection Emails From KDP - Their Meanings & What To Do From Here. If you read it and all the links, this will save you from some rejection emails from Amazon. If you want to skip that article, at least read the articles on Cover Issues and Interior Issues before starting. Cover Issues with KDP & Interior Issues with KDP. By far these two issues are the most common post in the facebook group as well as the help tickets submitted. It is highly recommended you check these out. There are pictures, with examples, as well as video. As well, the next most important thing is making sure all the choices you made in Book Bolt, you do the exact same thing on KDP. Bleed or No Bleed, Paper Size, etc. If you skip this and if you don't take the time to learn, you may up end delaying your book being published. If you do it wrong, KDP will send you a email, saying this and that need to be fixed. Then you fix, re-submit and wait again for approval.
For a quick walkthrough on the book creation part you can watch this video here. Just to get the jist of it and how easy it can be, but spent the time learning a lot more on what you can create.
Please spend time learning about images and using them. This is probably the number one reason people get banned from KDP or at best KDP emails back and ask you have permission to use. As well as most bans, seem to happen to people who are newer to KDP and didn't take the time to learn. So we please ask that you do take that time. Read this article for more information. Can I Use Images From Pixabay, Unsplash or Other Free Image Sites?
As well, check out the top 10 FAQ on our facebook group, so you get a head start on the most commonly asked questions. Top 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions.
We can not stress the importance of learning enough, as well as doing the research before making a book. From using the tools available, to checking out prices and your royalty, along with many other things, like is the demand there, will people by it, etc. To see your potential royalty check out KDP's Royalty Calculator.
From the Book Bolt Studio Drop down menu:
Learning > Book Bolt Blog. This is the first choice in the Learning Drop menu, click on "Creative" as well as "Design" on the right side of the page. There is an assorted variety of articles there to read, some with videos.
Learning > Book Bolt Weekly Calls. We hold a weekly live call, where Neil shows you a Low Content Niche of the Week, updates everyone with some Housekeeping and then he answers peoples questions. You can watch all past weekly calls here. Also, since Live Call 37, we have added chapters each week in the video. Click on the name of the video in the video preview and it will open up on YouTube, click see more in the description and you can click to any part of the video. AS WELL, scroll down to the oldest 2 video's watch the oldest and then second oldest (these are linked below). They have a ton of information in them!
Keep in mind the old Book Bolt Designer is being shown in one part of it. This is no longer available and has been upgraded to the Book Bolt Studio now. Everything else is still revelant.
This video first:
Then this video second:
Learning > Walkthrough Tutorials. We have over 25 short videos in this section, you will see many things in this video that will help you learn some parts of the Studio. All the video's but four, are under 4 minutes.
Learning > Book Bolt FAQ. We have over 135 FAQ's. Sorted by the category. Scroll down to the [Studio] section, any question you have about the studio, will be probably be in here and answered. Most of these are short, might have step by step instructions and some with short video's. If you read through everyone of these, this could help you a lot in the long run.
Learning > Book Bolt Studio. Over 20 articles about the studio, again shorter sized articles and most will have video's to help you with your learning journey.
Learning > KDP Research. Click the very first article if you need help on researching niche's and the whole process, in the article linked, is all the past Niche of the Week, Neil does at the start of every live call. You can make a book he shows off, but what you need to focus on mostly, how every week in a minute or two, how he drills down to find niche's. Learn from the same process over and over again. Do this as Neil does them in the video. Search like him, using the tools we give you. Low Content Niche of the Week (How to Find Niches).
All of the above links, are always available from the studio at anytime from the drop down menu, "Learning".
If using images, even if free for commerical use, always check for them on images.google.com and see if being used. Make some sort of changes to them, to make them your own. Make sure in license, that you can modify. Make sure you understand any license for a picture, some will say you must modify.
Also, you should read this article as well. [KDP REJECTION] Reason’s Why Your KDP Account Could be Suspended or Banned.
Besides the creation part, don't forget we have a ton of other resources available for Research, Finding Niche's, Publishing on KDP, etc. All these are available as well from the Learning drop down menu.
If making puzzles for the first time, don't just run a full book of them, then want to change the font, or the color, after you edited each page and made it unique, or whatever reason. Run one puzzle. Happy with the font? Happy with the color of it (darkness or lighter)? Happy with each aspect with t? If not, delete the puzzle, start the puzzle again, change some options, then run it. Look it over, not happy, then repeat. Happy? Then delete the puzzle and run it on all your pages. Make a note of the options so you have them for next time!
Also in the studio, top right is a link that says "Create Your First Book - Tuturial"
Click it and do a easy to follow walk through to see how the most basic things are done.
You may have turned off Walkthrough Bubbles early on, click help and turn them back on if you need more help, they can be helpful.
You may want to read this article as well, even if newer, and if not, later if you are struggling. What Do I Do Now That I Have Published My Book(s) / Why Don't I Have Any Sales?
As well we have a newly updated video on the process of uploading to KDP. KDP has changed many things, especially on step 1 of 3 steps of the adding a new book part to them.
Remember; everything we do in life, we need to learn. The more we learn, the more we know. The more we know, the further ahead we are than others. The further ahead we are, we have a better chance at success.