0:45

Hello, hello. You are listening to episode 196 of

0:46

the Mindful Productivity Podcast.

0:51

And I'm your host, Sarah Steckler.

0:54

This week, we're going to be going over

0:56

how you can begin to

0:56

publish your own planner.

1:01

I'm going to take you behind the scenes,

1:01

talk to you about a couple different

1:04

options, what I prefer, and answer a

1:04

lot of your frequently asked questions.

1:09

Let's go ahead and get into it.

1:12

Welcome to the Mindful

1:12

Productivity Podcast.

1:15

I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and this is

1:17

the place to be, to live a more

1:17

mindful and productive life.

1:20

If you're ready to turn daily chaos into calm and start your days with

1:22

intention, then get ready to join me.

1:26

As we dive deep into mindful living and

1:26

personal productivity, it's time to

1:30

connect with your true self so you

1:30

can live the life you want to live.

1:34

And it all starts now.

1:46

Welcome back to the show. I am so excited to talk to you

1:47

about planner publishing today.

1:51

Years ago, I felt like publishing your own

1:51

planner as a business owner, as Creative

1:56

was, there was such a huge barrier to

1:56

actually making that happen, right?

2:00

You needed tons of overhead, you need

2:00

connections, you need tons of time.

2:05

And now with the invention of the internet

2:08

and so much more available to us at our

2:08

fingertips now, a lot of these things can

2:12

be done through self publishing

2:12

and through entrepreneur work.

2:17

And I just love that individually, we can

2:17

do so much more than we ever could before.

2:21

But that can also make things very overwhelming if you don't

2:23

know where to start.

2:26

So I thought today it'd be fun to do a little bit of a deeper dive

2:27

into how to publish a planner.

2:31

So I'm sure if you do want to publish your

2:31

own journal or planner this year, you

2:35

might have a lot of questions like

2:35

how can I selfpublish my own planner?

2:40

Where can you publish planners online?

2:43

Will there be a bunch of overhead

2:43

expenses to get started?

2:46

How can I get my planner actually in front

2:49

of people so they buy it

2:49

and I make sales, right?

2:51

How much inventory will I need?

2:53

And do I need to use confusing and time

2:53

consuming software to format my pages?

2:59

These were all the same questions that I had before I self published my

3:01

very, very first planner in 2018.

3:04

And there was hardly

3:04

any information online.

3:09

But don't worry, today I'm going to walk

3:11

you through all of these questions and get

3:11

you on your way to publishing that

3:15

planner, journal or

3:15

workbook of your dreams.

3:17

Side note, in 2018, before I self

3:17

published my own planner, I actually had

3:23

went through a traditional publisher to

3:23

get my journal, my Guided Journal 100 Life

3:28

Challenges into Barnes and Noble,

3:28

Target, Amazon and all over the place.

3:33

I'm not quite sure how much distribution

3:33

of that journal is still happening.

3:37

I know it's available at select Barnes and

3:37

Noble stores and some targets, but I know

3:42

it's not necessarily as widely available

3:42

as it was in that first year, but the

3:45

reason why I decided ultimately to go

3:45

through self publishing after that

3:48

experience was it was a great experience,

3:48

but it just took so long.

3:52

It took so long to get

3:52

that thing to market.

3:55

And it was great having a team design the

3:55

pages for me and obviously produce it.

4:00

But I was impatient and that

4:00

process took longer than I wanted.

4:05

And I also wanted to see more of the recurring revenue from

4:06

something I created, right?

4:08

So I actually was paid a licensing fee for

4:11

them to use everything I wrote

4:11

and put it into that journal.

4:15

And then on the other side of things, they

4:17

were able to market it for me and get in

4:17

touch with those distributors, right?

4:21

So it was kind of this really great

4:21

partnership, but self publishing just more

4:25

and more felt like something

4:25

I really wanted to get into.

4:27

And in 2018, there wasn't a ton of

4:27

information online about what you can

4:33

really do and what your options

4:33

are for self publishing a planner.

4:36

So let's walk through some of the options.

4:39

There are three main options that you do have when it comes to manufacturing and

4:41

actually publishing your own planner.

4:46

So option A is that you can find a

4:46

reputable printing company, right?

4:50

You can design your own planner and pay an

4:53

upfront fee to order the minimum amount

4:53

of planners that you want to sell.

4:57

And then you can sell those planners

4:57

straight from your website using

5:01

Squarespace, using Shopify, WooCommerce,

5:01

or another selling platform.

5:05

You could also use

5:05

something like Etsy, right?

5:07

And this won't necessarily include

5:07

traffic to your site, right?

5:11

Because if you just put something up on

5:11

Squarespace or your Shopify site and

5:15

you're not directing traffic there, you're

5:15

not necessarily going to just wind up in

5:19

front of the people that you want to be in front of. Right?

5:21

So this doesn't include things like fees

5:21

and logistics for shipping to customers.

5:26

You also have to consider point of sale taxes and international shipping if

5:28

you want it to be available worldwide.

5:33

So that's kind of your first major option

5:35

is basically kind of taking things into

5:35

your hand and doing all of those steps.

5:40

Option B could be to start a Kickstarter

5:40

campaign to fund your planner idea.

5:46

And if you're interested in Kickstarter,

5:48

there's an episode a couple back with

5:48

Jenny Kawal, and she talks about how she

5:52

successfully used a Kickstarter campaign

5:52

to fund her self care adventure cards.

5:56

It's a great episode. I believe it's episode 193 or four, but if

5:57

you go onto my website and search for it,

6:02

you can find it there, and she talks about

6:02

all the different things she did for that.

6:06

So starting a Kickstarter campaign could

6:09

be an option to publish your planner and

6:09

that will give you more resources and cash

6:13

flow up front to find a

6:13

manufacturer that you like and trust that

6:19

can give you the exact kind of physical

6:19

planner or journal that you're seeking.

6:23

Now, if all of those things sound a

6:23

little overwhelming, then you're like me.

6:28

When I first was looking into this, I was

6:28

like, yeah, all that sounds great, but I'm

6:32

a one woman show, and I really want

6:32

to just get this thing moving.

6:36

I'm also a big fan of taking action versus

6:38

making something completely

6:38

perfect and never doing it.

6:41

So there's also option C, which is to

6:41

use Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP.

6:47

Right? So tons of people use this to self-publish

6:47

their own novels and books, but you can

6:52

also use it to publish Planners because

6:52

KDP actually gives you a pretty wide

6:57

selection of different book

6:57

sizes that you can create.

7:00

And within the past year and a half,

7:03

they've also added a hardcover

7:03

option, which is really cool.

7:07

There's only, I think, three or four sizes that you can do with a hardcover option,

7:09

but that has been a game changer.

7:13

So I've created Planners with Hardcover.

7:15

Some of my students have as well, but you

7:17

can create journals of

7:17

all different sizes.

7:20

So the main Planners that I actually

7:22

created when I first started my Mindful

7:22

Productivity Guide and the Daily

7:26

Productivity and Brain Dump Book,

7:26

those are both eight by ten planners.

7:29

And I'll be really honest with you, I love

7:29

the quality of those paperback Planners.

7:34

I use them every day, and

7:34

they're really great.

7:38

They take colored pencils

7:38

really well, pens.

7:41

Obviously, you're going to see some bleed

7:41

if you use something like a Sharpie, but

7:45

you would see that with any kind of

7:45

page anyway, and I really like them.

7:49

And here's why I love Kindle Direct

7:49

Publishing and why I still use it to this

7:55

day to sell all of my

7:55

planners and journals.

7:58

And that is because when you use Kindle

7:58

Direct Publishing, you're able to list,

8:03

sell, and ship your

8:03

planner on demand for $0.

8:09

And you'll be able to get your planner

8:09

on Google and in search results.

8:15

And it's a lot easier because you're not

8:17

having to pay for that Amazon

8:17

sellers account, right?

8:20

So if you were to create your own product

8:20

and you wanted to put it up on Amazon, you

8:24

would have to pay that monthly fee for an

8:24

Amazon seller's account and then I believe

8:27

a percentage of sales and

8:27

all that kind of stuff.

8:30

What's really, really cool about Kindle

8:30

Direct Publishing is that you don't have

8:35

to pay for you don't have to worry

8:35

about point of sale shipping.

8:40

In fact, we'll get into all

8:40

those details in a second.

8:43

I'm getting ahead of myself, but there's

8:43

just so many options that when I first

8:46

looked into it, I was

8:46

like, oh, this is great.

8:49

I don't have to worry about inventory.

8:51

I don't have to worry about

8:51

pre ordering a bunch of planners and then

8:56

worrying, like, what if they don't sell

8:56

in time and I don't make my money back.

8:58

This was a really great way to test out

8:58

the market and create something that was

9:03

really fun for me to create and

9:03

then actually sell it, right?

9:07

So one thing I will say as a side note,

9:07

right, going with something like KDP means

9:12

that you're not going to be able to

9:12

create a very high custom journal, right?

9:17

So it won't be able to have like gold foil

9:17

on the cover or spiral bound binding or

9:22

anything like that or custom stickers

9:22

or personalized tissue paper.

9:26

But I want to talk about that for a second

9:29

because I think one place that creatives

9:29

and business owners really get stuck.

9:34

Especially if you're doing

9:34

something for the first time.

9:36

Like launching a course or

9:36

starting your business.

9:38

Is that we can get hung up on

9:38

making all the outward stuff.

9:41

Like super fancy without really making

9:44

sure that the product we're offering

9:44

is what it needs to be.

9:48

Right?

9:48

So people can you could spend tons of time

9:51

and money on making sure that you have

9:51

everything set up on your website to look

9:55

beautiful and have the perfect opt

9:55

in and all the Bella and whistles.

9:59

But if you don't really take that time to create a high value product that gets

10:01

people from A to B with a simple strategy

10:07

and it's easy to follow, then all of that

10:07

fancy stuff doesn't really matter, right?

10:12

And to be honest, the journals and planners that have really changed my life

10:14

and by changed my life, I mean have been

10:19

ones that I actually stick

10:19

with and get something out of.

10:23

They weren't life changing because they were spiral bound or because they had a

10:24

ton of stickers or because John Stamos

10:29

jumped out of the packaging

10:29

and shook my hand, right?

10:32

My childhood dream. But really, truly, the things that are

10:33

most helpful for people are not because

10:38

you have all of your videos and 4K quality

10:38

in your courses and it's not because you

10:43

have something that's

10:43

like the highest quality.

10:45

I'm not saying don't make

10:45

high quality things.

10:47

I'm just saying that I think a

10:47

lot of us get stuck there, right?

10:50

We want to create something

10:50

that we're super proud of.

10:53

But one thing I will tell you is that for

10:53

instance, my daily productivity brandnew

10:57

book, which has now surpassed all sales,

10:57

that is now the most popular planner I've

11:01

created and have sold to date,

11:01

is A Very Simple Planner.

11:05

It's a paperback planner. It's eight by ten.

11:07

It's got a very simple system where

11:07

there's a two page spread, you've got a

11:12

brain dump template on the left that's

11:12

different throughout, and you've got a

11:15

daily productivity page

11:15

on the right hand side.

11:18

And it's so simple.

11:18

And you know what people tell me?

11:20

They tell me this is one of my most

11:20

favorite planners because it is so simple.

11:24

There's very little barrier to taking

11:24

action and I actually use it every day.

11:29

So just want to share that. That if you're thinking about creating

11:32

something, it does not have to be perfect

11:32

or super, super pretty in whatever way in

11:37

order to get people results and

11:37

facilitate change in their life, right?

11:42

And there's a ton of students that have

11:45

also created amazing journals

11:45

inside of my program.

11:48

And I will link to I'm slowly building a

11:48

kind of a portfolio page of all of the

11:54

different planners that they have

11:54

created because it is truly amazing.

11:57

And it's been so fun for students to

12:00

realize like, oh, I had all these ideas

12:00

and I thought all these things needed to

12:03

be on the inside of my page, when

12:03

really I just needed to make it simple.

12:07

So I see a lot of journals out there that

12:10

focus on aesthetic alone, and they

12:10

often cost more because of this, right?

12:15

So you'll often see journals and planners

12:15

out there that look amazing, right?

12:19

But they're like sixty eight dollars to

12:19

ninety dollars or something like that.

12:23

USD. And that's because there's higher

12:24

manufacturing costs, right?

12:27

Like tabs fancy stickers

12:27

on the inside pockets.

12:31

But do they actually help me be more

12:31

productive or get me closer to my goals?

12:36

Not necessarily not because

12:36

they have those things, right?

12:40

If stickers could solve all my problems,

12:42

then they would already be solved as I

12:42

stare over at my mountain of stickers and

12:48

all of my Lisa Frank collection, oh,

12:48

I need to go and use more of those.

12:53

But I think what stops a lot of creatives

12:55

from creating their journal

12:55

or planner is perfectionism.

12:57

So I wanted to talk about that. We have this incredible idea that

12:59

we want to share with the world.

13:02

We have a system, you have a solution or a

13:05

practice, and you know that it

13:05

can help thousands of people.

13:08

But you may be getting caught up in

13:08

thinking, well, it isn't perfect, right?

13:12

Aka all of the things we see planners

13:14

being, then it won't help

13:14

people and they won't buy it.

13:18

But that is a myth. Huge myth.

13:21

And I know this because in 2018, when I

13:21

decided to create my first planner using

13:27

KDP and using Canva to design it, I

13:27

made 475 planner sales that year.

13:33

And this was just for me talking about my

13:33

planner on my blog and on my podcast and

13:38

on my Instagram, which at the time

13:38

had fewer than 2000 followers.

13:43

Now, I know social media was a different beast then, and I probably got a little

13:45

bit more reach than I did now, but I did

13:50

not have to go out of my way or

13:50

use paid ads to see those results.

13:53

And I do have a podcast, I do have a blog,

13:53

I do have people coming to my website.

13:58

So I'm not saying that this exact thing

14:00

will happen to everyone,

14:00

but I was really surprised at how it

14:04

didn't take that much to

14:04

see those sales, right?

14:08

And I talk more, I go more behind the

14:10

scenes, and I actually share all of my

14:10

planner sale details and like, which

14:14

planners I sold and how many

14:14

and how much and what months.

14:17

And if you want to see all of that, you

14:19

can watch my free Planner

14:19

Publishing Master class.

14:22

I will link to that below. You can also find that by going to

14:24

publishaplanner.com. But beyond some of

14:29

these things with KDP, I really do

14:29

love the quality of these planners.

14:33

These planners are on bright white paper.

14:36

You can do color interior,

14:36

you can do black and white.

14:39

You can do something as

14:39

small as like four x six.

14:41

I've made pocket journals and

14:41

pocketless planners that I love.

14:45

You can make something as big as eight and a half by eleven, and it's just

14:47

really nice to have that versatility.

14:51

So I really, really love that.

14:53

And there's also four other additional

14:55

reasons why I love using Kindle

14:55

Direct Publishing for self Planner.

15:00

So the first one being

15:00

that KDP is free to use.

15:05

So apart from any creative elements or

15:08

possible support you may want around it, right? Like enrolling in my course

15:10

Publish with Purpose.

15:12

Apart from that, KDP is a free program

15:12

that you can use so you don't have to pay

15:18

any upfront cost to publish

15:18

and sell your planner.

15:22

And that is truly amazing, right?

15:24

You don't have to pay to have

15:24

an Amazon Seller's account.

15:27

It is great. Two, you don't have to

15:28

worry about inventory.

15:32

This is so huge. And it's also, to be honest, really nice

15:36

to not have to worry about finding a place

15:36

in our relatively small apartment right

15:40

now, or my office to put a

15:40

bunch of planners in boxes.

15:44

Right. When you use Kindle Direct Publishing to

15:44

publish your planner, you don't have to

15:48

order or pay for any inventory

15:48

ahead of time, right?

15:51

Apart from getting some proof copies or

15:53

some author copies for yourself,

15:53

everything that your customer orders is

15:58

printed on demand and

15:58

shipped to them directly.

16:01

So it's not even made until

16:01

they order it, which I love.

16:04

Number three, and we did touch on this, but your planner is listed

16:06

for free right, on Amazon.

16:10

So again, typically, if you want to sell

16:10

something on Amazon, you need to create an

16:14

Amazon Seller's account and pay that

16:14

monthly fee to list your products.

16:18

But when you publish your planner with

16:18

KDP, amazon gives you a free listing that

16:23

people will be able to find when

16:23

they're looking for their next planner.

16:27

What does this mean? It means that you are now on Amazon, which

16:31

in a lot of ways is the Google of

16:31

product inventory and shopping.

16:36

So having something on Amazon, that's often the first place people go to look

16:38

for things and to look for reviews.

16:44

I know I can be standing in Target and I

16:44

will look on Amazon and see if the thing

16:48

I'm holding in my hand is worth buying

16:48

because of reviews I see on Amazon.

16:53

It's a powerful search engine, and we go

16:57

in depth in my course into how to optimize

16:57

your sales using keyword research.

17:02

Now, number four. One of the last benefit I'll share today

17:04

of using KDP is that you don't have to

17:09

worry about point of sale taxes,

17:09

shipping, or international sales.

17:16

So when customers purchase your planner

17:16

off of Amazon, you don't have to worry

17:21

about collecting sales tax

17:21

because Amazon does that for you.

17:26

If you were going to go through any other

17:26

system shopify, WooCommerce, selling off

17:31

of your own site, you would need

17:31

to collect sales tax, right?

17:35

But Amazon already does that for you.

17:37

And not only does KDP allow your planner

17:40

to be printed on demand, but your planners

17:40

are also eligible for prime shipping and

17:45

can be shipped with prime

17:45

shipping around the world.

17:48

That means that when someone finds your

17:48

planner, they can order it and have it

17:52

shipped to them with two days without you

17:52

pausing your latest Netflix episode,

17:57

right, so people can get access

17:57

to your planners immediately.

18:01

And one thing I love about this too, is

18:04

that it means you're not

18:04

selling out of things.

18:06

You don't have to worry about inventory. You don't have to worry about disappointed

18:07

customers who go to buy your planner.

18:11

And you're already sold out. So that is another great reason.

18:14

And of course, we all know that passive

18:14

income truly isn't passive, right?

18:19

But this is a great way to have something

18:19

up on Amazon that can truly begin to serve

18:26

as that customer journey

18:26

for your audience.

18:30

So a lot of people will search for

18:30

something, and you can create a planner

18:34

that then serves as a point

18:34

of entry for your clients.

18:38

So let's say that they want to

18:38

learn about patio gardening, right?

18:42

And you know that most of your audience

18:42

are apartment owners or whatever.

18:46

So what you could do is create a planner

18:46

or a journal or a workbook with trackers.

18:51

Here's how you can set up, like your ultimate patio gardening planner, right,

18:53

or pal or whatever you want to call it.

18:59

And that could set them up with the things

18:59

that they need to buy the inventory of

19:05

supplies or things that they may need to

19:05

purchase before they get going, how to

19:10

determine the layout of their patio

19:10

and what plants to put where.

19:14

One of my students, Laura, actually

19:14

created this amazing planner for self

19:20

growth, and then she also

19:20

created that was plant themed.

19:22

And then later her second planner is

19:22

all about tracking your plants health.

19:26

So she actually made this really cool

19:26

diagram in the front of the planner that

19:30

shows how much light is coming through a

19:30

room and where you should position

19:34

different plants based on

19:34

their own light needs.

19:36

Really, really cool. So you could create something like that.

19:40

People search on Amazon for a gardening or

19:42

patio planner, and they find

19:42

your planner, they buy it.

19:46

And then on the inside of your planner, you can have more information about how to

19:48

work with you maybe how to join your

19:52

private community, how to subscribe to

19:52

your Patio Gardening podcast, right?

19:56

You get the idea. Maybe you actually offer one on one

19:57

consulting for patio gardening.

20:01

This begins that process for people.

20:03

And so it's so much more than that money

20:03

that you make from that one Planner sale.

20:08

It begins a whole customer journey for

20:08

that person into working with you and

20:12

being a lifetime customer or client or

20:12

collaboration buddy, any of those things.

20:18

So I go into more detail about this inside

20:18

of my Planner Publishing Masterclass, and

20:23

I also have a free Planner Publishing

20:23

Guide that you can check out that gives

20:28

you a ton of different Planner Publishing

20:28

ideas and interior page ideas and walks

20:33

you through more of the details

20:33

of how this process works.

20:37

So if you want to get the first steps into publishing your own planner on Amazon,

20:39

head on over to publisherlanner.

20:44

comGuide and grab your copy

20:44

so that you can get started.

20:49

I love Planner Publishing. It's been a hot minute since I've

20:50

made a new one, but it's so much fun.

20:54

It's a really great, cozy, creative,

20:56

introverted way of creating

20:56

something for your audience.

20:59

And once you create it, it's up on Amazon

20:59

and you can sell it again and again

21:04

without doing anything yourself other than

21:04

talking about it right and promoting it on

21:08

your different social media channels, your

21:08

blog, your podcast, any of those things.

21:12

So I hope this was helpful in giving you a

21:14

little bit of idea on how you can

21:14

get started with Planner Publishing.

21:18

And I would love for you to grab that free

21:18

guide so that I can help you even further.

21:22

That's available on Publish a Plannercom.

21:25

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead, and I'll see you back here next

21:26

Monday with a brand new episode.

21:29

Talk to you soon.