Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is Amazon’s self-publishing platform for book authors. It is a breakthrough in the book business. Gone are the days of years-long waiting only to get rejected by a handful of publishers. Now, authors can publish their books free, online, and in less than 5 minutes.
How is this relevant to an Amazon seller who’s not in the book business? In two words: product bundles. Amazon KDP can be a useful marketing tool if you know how to take advantage of it. Think about the instant value that a bundled booklet can add to your product. Think about how something as tangible as an actual book can spread the good news about your brand.
This was Tammie Chrin’s idea when she discovered how easy it is to create KDP branded booklets and sell them B2B. Now she teaches the process through an online course she has put together for Amazon sellers. Check out our featured Seller Roundtable episode today where Tammie chats with Amy to share her KDP journey:
Always Add Value – and Other Tips from Tammie
Going the extra mile is always appreciated in business. A freebie bundled in with your product could be that one stand-out factor that will lead to a conversion. Tammie pushes this insight through her KDP branded booklets and shares tips on how to make it more valuable:
- Create beautiful branded cover designs using Canva or any other graphic design software
- Make it interactive or something that your customer can use
- Align the content with your brand to increase awareness and recognition
- Keep it simple, fun, and helpful
Upgrade The Customer Experience
If you would think about it deeper – your product is more than just a product. Your product contributes value to your customer’s lifestyle. Think about cat food to a cat parent, coffeemaker to a connoisseur, or tools to a handyman. Now as a brand owner competing with thousands of other products like yours, your mission is to stand out. So we go back to value – how can your product stand out as more valuable than others that provide the same benefit? The answer lies in upgrading the customer experience.
The branded booklet idea came to Tammie not as a business owner at first. She was a customer at Anytime Fitness. In gym class when asked to track her progress, Tammie was handed individual sheets of paper where she can write her results. It was the kickstarter to her first booklet idea – an Anytime Fitness branded tracking booklet. At the time, Tammie was already tinkering with KDP attempting to sell her own authored books. She switched gears and used KDP to design a cover, create content, and sell the booklets to her first client. From then on, Tammie knew she had discovered something special.
KDP branded booklets are a simple and practical way of adding value to your product. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. How can your booklet contribute to their lifestyle? Let’s go back to cat food – how about a pet care journal? For a coffeemaker – perhaps a care instruction manual? You don’t have to be a professional writer – Tammie’s fitness tracker proves that simple content can add value. You don’t have to be a graphic designer – Canva’s user-friendly software will allow you to make a beautiful cover in minutes. And don’t forget that you can outsource the content to professionals on Fiverr or other similar platforms.
Tammie teaches us that resourcefulness, creativity, and a genuine understanding of your customer’s journey go a long way. Use them to upgrade the customer experience. Always add value and this will forge a deeper connection. Implant your brand deeper into your customer’s lifestyle. Make sure they remember you.
Start now – KDP is free. And if you need guidance, Tammie’s online course will teach you everything she knows about the KDP process. This is your sign to go the extra mile and have fun with it. The rewards are worth it.
Transcript
Amy Wees: Hey, everybody, what’s up? This is episode 135. I can’t believe how long how many episodes we’ve had of The Seller Roundtable. I’m Amy Wees snd my co host Andy Arnott is not here today. But that’s okay. Because we’re gonna go on without him. Even though it’s snowing in Idaho right now. He says he’s embracing it. Last week he covered for me while I was in Colorado, where I guess Tammie is from. Yeah, enjoying the snow, enjoying the clean, clear mountain air and the cold. So you know, we’re I’m back in the warmth of San Antonio now, and I’m excited to be here.
So, Tammie, it’s so good to have you. And you guys, you’re gonna learn so much today from Tammie because she has a really cool story as a seller. But she’s also learn to do things with Kindle Direct Publishing with using publishing books on Amazon. That I promise, like I said in the live stream earlier, I promise you haven’t learned yet. So you know, because she kind of like figured all this stuff out on her own. So yeah, it’s really cool what she does, and we’re gonna learn from her today.
Welcome to the show. Why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about you and your background as much or as little as you want to tell us sometimes we ask for blood samples, you know, That kind of stuff.
Tammie Chrin: Amy, your hilarious. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me, Amy. I appreciate everybody joining us and being here with us and, and yeah, like she said, my name is Tammie and I I’ve actually been in entrepreneur since about 30 years. I had a brick and mortar business for many, many years. And as our lives were starting my husband is starting to transition out of the parents or daughter’s graduating college and we lived in California we lived in. I grew up in Sonoma, California which is by Napa Valley. So I grew up in a very beautiful area but we decided to move to another beautiful area and move to Colorado where Amy was just visiting.
But um so I had run a bit of brick and mortar for 30 years my daughter was graduating from college and we decided to move to Colorado. But before that, so my brick and mortar business was going to be done. It was a hair salon. I owned a salon for many many years and did that and it was fantastic. I loved every minute but moving meant I was leaving my business so it could not follow meet with my clientele. So in 2014 my husband decided to check into doing retail arbitrage flipping the products on Amazon, but you know, kind of I think a lot of people start out that way is just the retail arbitrage, I would say so we got into that. And so that would carry miss out to out here to Colorado and my husband still had his corporate job so we were able to transition him out of that and about a year into it after we moved to Colorado.
So I have been into Amazon selling for quite a while since 2014. We did that. And I liked it and everything but I started to have that creative feel that I really wanted to try something and my husband said you should get into the KDP. And KDP merch came out, I think before KDP. But anyway, Oh, dabble in that a little bit with, you know, with my Amazon business and then I’ll do the KDP. And I found that I really, really enjoyed it. And so I started creating books and putting up on Amazon, and thinking they were just gonna magically sell.
Amy: Anybody who’s ever done KDP is like, you get all excited about creating a book, and you’re like, Okay, I’m gonna create this, but I have a couple of books here. You know, my little books over here, below journals, you know, and all that stuff. Yeah. And then you realize that the listing capabilities on KDP are not the same as listing a product on Amazon. And then you realize that you pretty much you’re never gonna get traffic unless you drum it up yourself. Correct, correct. And then you realize that advertising is completely different for books than it is for anything else. So there’s this whole cycle and process to selling books on Amazon. And I think it’s so cool that you figured out how to bundle books with your products. And we’ll get that in a minute. But yeah, I mean, was that a big surprise for you, when you started creating these books? And you realize, like, Oh, this is not the same.
Tammie: Yeah, it was definitely a shocker. Because, you know, our Amazon business was doing well. And we were flipping and doing all the stuff. And you know, and I started with the books, I was thinking it was gonna just happen. And it was like cricket, nothing, nothing was happening. I was like, and then I found one of my books sold. And I thought it was my sister. And I was like, Oh, well, that was nice of her. But in the big picture, you know, it’s kind of like, well, not be paying the mortgage, but these books, so.
So taking all of that, and my background, being in business, I started kind of leaning towards more of branding booklets for businesses. And so I kind of went down that place and started creating these branded booklets. But then what will be great for you guys is branding these booklets for your products. And this is where I’m where I want to leave you guys with this is because it there, there was a way where I said I was branding for businesses, but then why not for Amazon sellers or or other people are selling on different platforms to create a brand and booklet for their product. And so I started looking at that, and how that would really look for people and started asking questions about you know, branding booklets for businesses and using them and putting them in your product.
Amy: So let’s back up and talk about how you discovered that just selling a book on Amazon was not easy. You had to jump off your own traffic. Correct? How did you come up with this idea of making books for local businesses talk about like how you came up with that idea and what your first, your first book was for a local business.
Tammie: Alright, so one of my first books, I started getting into health and nutrition. So I was at a lot of gyms and I was working with a lady who owned a nutrition company started going to gyms for my personal self. And I started thinking about if I could sell these books to a business. So if I could brand these books to a business, I started using gyms, gyms or my first one nutritionist, gyms, that kind of thing in my local area, and ask them the question, would you consider having a brand new book for your business, and it happened to be this business here – Anytime Fitness, which is a franchise fitness company, because I was noticing and taking a look around as as a business person, we can look around, and everyone was writing things down. Because I know a lot of people think, Oh, no one use books anymore. You know, it’s all digital. But that wasn’t the case. Everyone had some type of notebook was tracking their, reps on how many weights they were lifting, how all these things that they were tracking. So I asked the business owner, you know, do you have anything from your company? And he said, No, I did. He just had a piece of paper they print off and you know, a new client would come in and they go through all the machines and check. And so when I asked him, What would you think of having your own branded booklet for your business? He was over the top like it was he’s like how and how can you do it and all these things. So I said, Yes, I can. And we sat down and mapped out a whole plan and he has this great branded booklet for himself that is ordered off of Amazon and KDP. So that was my first business that I started thinking about.
Amy: So you had already created a couple of books in KDP. And yes, on your own, so you’d already dabbled in it so you knew how to do it. You knew the process. Then you go to Anytime Fitness because You’re a member there, and you’re getting into health and fitness. And they give you this booklet of this manually printed thing.
Tammie: Yeah, it was just, you know, papers, you know, your papers and just yeah, you’re like well, we sat down what would you like and that that’s sort of how the KDP for B2B was sort of started was basically in a gym, and, um, nope, watching everybody track everything. And I thought, if I could create this brand new booklet for them, it’s under my KDP account. And then they get the businesses is buying the booklets from Amazon or wholesale from Amazon. And they’re driving traffic to the book. So I make a reoccurring income stream from them every time a book is a book is published.
Amy: So that was your first way that was my first way driving traffic to books is you had a client that needed I did this with Amazon merch. So I found on Amazon merchants the same thing, like you create a t shirt, but there’s a million other people who create the same T shirt on the same day. Right? Right. And you’re like, Okay, now I supposed to sell this thing. So I started going out to like, local sports teams and stuff like that, that new T shirts, and I’m like, hey, I can make this shirt for you. Actually, I did this with my daughters. So they can make this shirt for you. And you can just buy them on to Amazon, they’ll be ready within 72 hours. And you know, we can price them, you know, however you want to price them. And I would give my minimum right? So I’m making a little profit, right? That’s what you’re doing books. Yeah. And then they would they would do it too. And what’s cool about KTP and what’s cool about Amazon merch is you can order either samples, or you can just put it on Amazon, and you set the price over the cost. So yeah, that was my way of driving traffic.
Marcia: Yeah, T shirts. It’s, yeah, it’s it’s the same principle as that. And then what’s great is once you create the book brand, then that the business owner is driving all the traffic. So you have to have to do the marketing anymore, you don’t have to do even the listing doesn’t really even matter because it’s not driving the traffic by either buying them themselves, or their customers buying them. And we’ll get into more. But it’s like QR codes work really well to drive the traffic right to the book from the business side. So you have to remember this is to the business side. So it’s been a really great way of doing that. But then the other part of it is adding this into your product, because that’s that I know, that’s probably your audience is waiting to hear that part. Because you know, it’s exciting to know. So work for them.
Amy: Tell me a little bit about how you decided to start bundling, because this is actually kind of hard to figure out, I was unable to figure this out how to actually bundle a book. And I know so many people are wanting to know how to do that. So if I create a book in KDP, and I want to sell it alongside of my product, like bundled with my product, how do I do that? And how did you discover how to do that?
Tammie: Well, I found out a few friends, you know, a lot of friends do private label, and also do what we call bundles. But if we’re just calling out a bundle, because you’re adding a book to it. So um, so this is one of the examples here. This is a coffee coffee booklet, a tasting booklet. And so, we we branded this booklet for elixir coffee house, and you can see you know, we got our little, you know, QR code on there. So they can go, you know, customer can go right to their stuff.
And then so let me back up before we get too far into it. But so how I decided that would work? Well. If I found out that a lot of people were jumping on other people’s listings, I would hear that that rumble since being in the Amazon business, I hear that rumble and it’s like, well, I’ve got this great product, but it gets tanked because people are jumping on my listing. I think because Amazon you know, I were in for a long time ago, it wasn’t as hard as it was moving forward. It kept taking people’s listings, and they were like, What do I do? You know, how do I how do I add something that’s different. And sometimes we will add promo cards and things like that. So it just kind of was you know, hearing that rumble out there. And the lady who has this, this book here, she has a whole course on bundling. And so we got to talking a lot about how to bundle this book. She’s like, What do I do you know, and how can I add this to it? So basically, you create a KDP booklet, and then you’re gonna have them sent wholesale to yourself and then you’re gonna send them in with your product at the same time and bundle that together.
Amy: Okay, got it. So in order to do it, so there’s no way to basically live So that book on you can list it separately on Amazon as well, you could make money, you could sell this briefly.
Yeah, exactly. But you would make it on KDP. And you would order a sample, and then you would bundle that with your, your product. So if you’re, if your folks, if your stuff is in China, you might create that book, and then just have, you could have samples sent to yourself, because most of our listeners are private label sellers, or white writing sellers. So they’re going to one of two ways, the first way would be create that book on KDP. And friends, have it printed, have the samples sent to your place, right, and then or to your Prep Center, or they’re going to bundle it with the product and send it in under one barcode, right. And or the other option would be to, to finish that book. And then you could actually work with your supplier in China, to print to go to their printer and actually print the books and put it in the package with you right then and there. Because once you create it in KDP, you also have that ISBN number everything else there. So you could also send it there for them to print Am I right there?
Tammie: Yeah, you could do something like that. You can get ISBN numbers, it’s just you can only use it with Amazon, or you can purchase ISBN numbers and have it sold other places or sent to other places. So there’s there, you know, there’s a little bit of a wiggle room in those ways that you’re, you know, depends on your audience and how their suppliers and how they’re getting their supplies. But it basically yes, that I think that is a perfect example is they could have it created in in China, and then have it sent to their Prep Center, you know, and have it or they’re doing like, if their supplier prints it in China, then they can, their supplier can bundle it right in with the box with their best. But going through this process to actually create it on KDP will be super helpful because that way they kind of understand the templates and how it works because any printer is going to need the same thing. So I had a client that created books and wanted to have them printed in China. And so she was able to go I believe on was the other one besides KDP where you can get a free ISBN number. It is in Ingram Spark. Ingram Spark. Yeah,
Amy: I believe I believe that’s it, there’s a few different ones, there’s a few different blends, yeah,
Tammie: ISBN. So that’s what she ended up doing is just skipping the KDP route. And she went and got a free ISBN number, and then but she went through the process on KDP. Because you can learn how to actually format that book and set it in a template, and understand what the popular sizes are for books and all of that. And then once she KDP, you guys is free to join. And they provide free templates for all the different size books and everything. So you could literally create your book on Amazon KDP on its own to get a free ISBN number, publish it for free. And then you could take that same, you could either take the ISBN number that’s already been given to you for that same book and have it printed elsewhere and have them just put that barcode on it. Or once you go through the process and you learn it, if you want your supplier in China to find a printer and print it so that it’s bundled right there in China, then what you do is go through that template process, create your create your book, write your template for the book, you’re going to send that to your supplier, the template in tech, they’ll find a printer, get it printed off for you with the proper ISBN number on it, and it will just get listed right there with your product.
Amy: So you’ll have two different ways that you can do that. And either bundle it on your own and sell it separately on Amazon for free. It doesn’t cost you anything except for your time, you know. And so let’s talk about designing. Let’s talk about like the actual process of creating a book, Tammy. So you have all these different books with these beautiful covers. And my first book cover was horrible, by the way, but let’s talk about the process of actually creating a book like what’s your process kind of from start to finish if you had to kind of dumb it down for us? What’s the process that somebody needs to follow to create a book?
Tammie: Well, first of all, I want to let everyone know I am not a graphic designer. So you know my books have gotten a bit better but I’m still not to the level of a graphic designer, but you don’t have to think of these books or covers or anything that are going to have to be that spectacular. You can Be very, you know, I, we use a lot of Canva we use a lot of a duty, which is a Book Creator, there’s book ball, there’s a lot of different places, you can use different places to create the books and then upload them into KDP. KDP also has their own graphics and some things you can use inside the platform. But it’s not, it doesn’t have a lot to offer. So a lot of us use other other services that you can create a cover and an interior pages and different things like that. So my process is to basically use a Canva. Or you can use a free Canva if you don’t want to pay for it, but the paid one gives you a little bit more, you know, gives you a little more to use, like different ways to upload it and do different things. But you can use a free free Canva and then upload it right into KDP. After you’ve designed it in the in the Canva. And then go there, you know, if you’re really good at you know, graphics, you you would definitely use InDesign and people who are a graphic artists, they use that you can also go and have somebody create these for you, you don’t have to, you know, if this is something like I don’t want to, I don’t know how to design a book, I don’t have the time because I know as a business owner, you know, I don’t want to learn one more thing, I just want it done for you. And you know, I have some of those services available as well, we can just create the book for you get it done and, and go from there. So there and you can use, you know, five, or sometimes if you just need a cover created, there’s lots and lots of tools for you to use. So I don’t want anybody to get stuck on book creation and layout, it, there’s some really great ways to kind of use different tools, like I said, and create these brand of booklets. And, you know, basically, you could just think of it as a very low content book and the pages can repeat, you don’t want to create one page, you just repeat it. So don’t think that these have to be some type of, you know, very intense books with all these, you know, ideas. It’s like very repeatable week, I call this more of like a low to medium content, it’s, we call low content lines, like a line journal, maybe a prompt, this would be sort of a medium content where there’s a little bit more to it, but basically just copy the pages. And then we upload those things, pages right to Canva. I mean to KTB and, and you create the cover back in front, and you’re off and running. And yes, I also do
Amy: mine 100% in Canva, it’s very easy to do. And you know, like you said, if you’re doing a low to medium content book, you’re just you can just hit the copy button, once you design that page, you can hit the button. And then you can also design your covers in Canva. Yes, and they’re really easy, they’re pretty easy to do. And you can you can get some you can literally just Google on YouTube, there’s lots of tutorials, but as you mentioned, Tammie, there’s a lot of people that are out there that can help you you can Fiverr you can contact Tammy, you know me,
Tammie: I have ways to do that as well. I can help you in those in the design as well in different ways. And I really streamlined a couple ways to do that in different courses that I have a streamline them, so that you can just go for just you know, you don’t want to be a book publisher, because that’s a whole nother level, you just want to get a brand new booklet for your product, I just streamline that in a course that I have that will just take you from A to B quickly and you can get those books up and ready to go.
Amy: Another question for you is the size of the book. So I noticed that most of your books that you’ve created are a certain size. So can you tell me what size you usually use?
Tammie: It’s usually a book for something like a product would be a six by nine, a six by nine book and you can create there’s multiple sizes in KDP. It just depends on what I want you guys to think about when you’re thinking about what kind of book What is your product? What what are you what is the customer going to use that booklet for, you know, this is a coffee tasting booklet. So if that’s what you have, then you create a little tasting tasting booklet. And you can find things on, you know, Pinterest, I suggest just getting ideas don’t take other people’s stuff because there’s copyright infringement. So you have to be aware of copyright infringement. But you can go and get ideas on Pinterest, Google things like what is coffee tasting, it’s the basics. You know, it’s going to be worded, you know, what’s the date of the coffee when where was it roasted or not roasted? Where did the beans come from? You know, that’s the basic concept of a tasting book. And it can be for chocolate, it could be for, you know any products that you’re using. It can be a guide, it can be an informational. So first you need to think about what it is that you’re selling. And what is what is going to benefit your client, because you’re adding value to your product by adding this booklet, so what’s gonna give that value to them? You know? And, and so that’s what I need you guys to think about is what? What is that for you? What is that going to be for you?
Amy: Let’s just run through like, I love this, let’s run through some ideas. Okay, what we could do with products. So if you have a fitness product, let’s say you’re selling a yoga mat, because there’s not enough of those on Amazon, people getting into that, right? You could do a journal of yes, for yoga poses that that person has learned, which would just be like, you know, pretty much kind of like you were saying, you know, you can actually look up existing journals that exists that are out there and see, like, what are the different elements? And how can you add your vibe to it, obviously, not copy it, but add your vibe, make it a little different. You could also do a book of the various yoga poses, right, you could, you know, the most popular yoga poses, you could do a book where you have a pose on each page, and you’re taking people through the sun salutation, or, you know, that kind of thing.
Tammie: Let me showing you a little bit here is like, we just used the machine. So it’s the same idea. So this was a pose here, you know, then then you could just put that in, and what would they read tracking and different ways to use that? So I didn’t interrupt you, but I was just kind of know that, you know, you’re showing that you know, and then how much, you know, people love to track you know, how many, how many? How much time did I spend in yoga? Did I do my meditation, just a little checkbox? Did I meditate? Did I drink enough water, you could just do little water boxes and go, you can even just go online and look like you said all the books, you can go to a local bookstore and just there’s yoga books everywhere. But you’re absolutely correct. But before we go too far, the sizes is there’s all different sizes, you can go from, you know, an eight by 11, this is my favorite size is the eight by five by eight by five. But this is you have to remember about weight too, because I know it could cost you more when you’re with your product. So think about could you just put a six by nine to end 24 pages is the minimum. So 24 pages is all you need. And if you can’t fill it with 24 pages, add a note page at the end and add you know, a few few note pages in the back or something to complete that book. But I just wanted to catch up with you really quick on that, Amy, because I think that for your client or your you know, your audience, it’s the weight you have to be careful with too. So you don’t want to do 100 pages and have a weighted book or a bigger book if it’s not necessary. Don’t do a larger, larger book do a smaller
Amy: Yeah, and I mean for like a full picture book, you know. And so like this was my first book, and obviously, people listening can’t see the screen right now. So I’ll talk about it, it was just a very simple what I did is every day when I was working for the military, I make my own books, because in the building I worked in, I couldn’t bring my phone in or anything. So I would make my own notebooks and I would write the same things in my notebooks every single day. So I’m tired of making my own notebooks, I’m gonna make one on KDP. So I gave myself a challenge. And I said, I’m gonna do this in a weekend. I’m going to finish a book in a weekend and I shared it I like created in Canva I just copied and kind of pasted the pages right right and I created the cover uploaded the template to KDP assign the ISBN which is automatic automatic process on KDP and published it and it was first sailed that week. Amazing how fast to get it done. So there’s no reason that you guys if you’re wondering about this and you’re like ah, it’s just too far I know I can’t create a yield the book for my yoga mat, like create something, give yourself a weekend to create something it doesn’t matter if it’s ugly, go through the process. And that way you can kind of learn look, you can order yourself a sample and then you know you can kind of see oh okay this actually is pretty easy, right?
Tammie: Yeah, and the prices of the of the books are very reasonable and they’re I’ve done a lot of research on different type of pricing. The best thing is you know as as we know the Amazon world is the shipping so they really take care of the shipping costs. And so when you go to printers, a lot of times if you have to ship the books out sometimes that gets a little you know they’re shipping them to you then you’re shipping them back and you know it’s the price starts adding up. But just keep keep an eye on that. So that’s another great thing with Amazon with KDP. But like you’re saying all we’re for you guys, all we’re trying to do is come up with it could be a line journal, it does not it could be a notebook. What we want is you to have no one can create this book, but you this is your product, you’re putting it in to your your price. either making a bundle out of it’s adding value to your product, it’s giving a customer, you know, some way to see your brand. So the brand recognition right there, and it could be lines, lines inside, don’t get too caught up in, I have to create this whole thing for your client, you just have, it’s just a way to add value. And they run around, you know, $2.15, it depends on the pages you put in, but around 215. And then there’s little shipping costs and some other costs. But it’s about $3.18 for each book. So adding that value there. And you could probably get, you know, at least a $10 value with perceived value for these books in your bundle in your product. Yeah, and it helps with the keep keeping people off of your listing because it can’t, no one can duplicate this. And I get this question a lot from other people too, is like they use promo cards. And I think promo cards are great, I don’t have any problem with that. But they tend to throw them out with all the packaging, they don’t tend to throw these away. They don’t tend to throw your little books away, it’s something about a book and throwing away, but you’re also giving them something that they can use. So it’s not just a toss away, it’s something they get, even if
Amy: You’re just providing a notebook with your brand name on it with like, for me, I didn’t have products, right? I mean, I could provide a really cute notebook with a cute cat on the front, and people are gonna keep that and it’s gonna have my brand. And so even though I’m not giving them a guide of how to do something, right, I’m just reading your book with a cute cover of a cat on the front, right? Maybe I could do like the most popular cat breeds like a little cartoon on the cover, you know? And yeah, it’s just a gift from us. And you know, I’m I can bundle that even with my private label unique product, and people will be like, wow, you know, they’re gonna keep it, they’re gonna put it on the shelf, or they’re gonna write in it, they’ll use it for something that kids will steal it if it’s cute, right? Yeah. So you really don’t have anything to lose from that side. And I would love to come up with some other ideas. So like, if you have a fitness product, obviously, it’s pretty easy to do a journal. But let’s say like, I just gave a cat product idea where you could just provide a really cute notebook. What about if you have a kitchen product? What if you’re selling a French press, coffee machine coffee, you could even create the book too. So your french press, you could do the tasting book? Obviously, that would work well. Or you could just say, you know, give some instructions in I’m sure your product has instructions anyway. But if you just create them in the book, maybe that you have to clean the French press. How do you clean up French press like a you’d be something very simple like that. Maybe a checkoff list of When did you clean it last?
Oh, that’s so that’s so good, because you know, every time I buy an appliance, a kitchen appliance, and it comes with a decent book, I keep it, I put it in my kitchen with my recipe books. And then when it comes time to maintain that product, or if I have problems with it for troubleshooting, whatever, then I pull it right out of the cupboard. And again, I have a way to contact the brand. You could also be instructions, and you can have them sign up for your warranty. From there, you could kind of combine your insert with this book, which would be very value added for them because they’re not only getting really nice instructions, I can’t tell you how many brand owners that I’ve I’ve unboxed their products, and they have no instructions. And when I asked them about it, I’m like, Okay, well, you know, what’s going on here, or they have a high return rate. And the big thing is, they’re not paying attention to the customer experience when they get that product. And so just taking that extra time to provide some extra instructions. You know, we do a booklet with our, with our letterbox cleaner, we do a booklet that says you know, welcome to the family. Here’s some tips for using this. Reach out to us with any questions. We’re here for you, you know, all of that. And we actually do have people keep that booklet find us on Facebook, reach out with questions, Tas you know, and it’s
Tammie: like the branding portal portion of it, too, is so good for you guys, because they’re seeing Oh, and not a lot of people use this technique. And so it’s it gets people get excited when they open a package and Oh, I get a book too. And it’s you know, I like to call them booklets because they’re small. That’s just my fun little name for them. But it really does. You know, you could do cookbooks, you could do a little recipe you can’t copy people’s recipes, but you can actually create How do you use the machine you can add a QR code right to a video of how to use the particular machine you’re you’re selling or product you have. So you can use these branded booklets in multiple ways, it’s not just, you know, giving, you know, keep you off your listing, but that is one of the big advantages, but it’s also giving value and people, you know, how do you stand out? How do you stand out from the crowd? If it’s something that multiple people have? And you know, oh, you’ll see you, could you, I would definitely post a picture of what’s in that box. And this is part of what’s in that box, like in a booklet too, and I Oh, that’s great. I can track, you know, who’s cleaning the cat box or whatever you’re doing, or you know, or who’s feeding the cat, or it’s a new kitten, or it’s an you know, it’s a new kitten. And now you have a little booklet, it’s like, oh, my kitten did this. The weight of the cat can be a veterinarian book. It doesn’t have to all go right with your, your product as well. But it could be a veterinarian book, just, you know, my cat had shots. When did they have the shots? You know, just a checkoff list of those kinds
Amy: of things that adds value to the product. And to the customer experience is really fun. Like I said, you know, you could even just do a notebook with a really cute cat on the front. And that just comes in your branding on the back. And that just comes with it, you know? Right, right. Could do anything, really, and they get a lot of fun. So I love it, Tani and Carrie, very cool. Okay, thank you. So let’s talk about just the one question that we like to ask. So you’re you’re not you’re not doing this anymore. Right? You You’re not creating books anymore. You’re now teaching others how to do this, right?
Tammie: Yes, yes. Well, that kind of started out, I have been doing this, I still, you know, I have a few clients and things that I, you know, create just a therapist here with the journal. Here’s my line journal. She sells this like hotcakes to her client, or she actually uses this as a gift for them a lot of times, we Yes, I do. Um, I do still create books. But I have a lot of people have asked me, How do I do this. And that’s when Amy and I started discussing this is how do I do this. So I have put together something very special for you guys. But it’s just basically I wanted to accelerate this KDP process. Because I was thinking as a business owner, like I said before, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the time to another thing to learn. So what I did is I took input the process, super quick, super easy, you could do it, like Amy said in a weekend, and create these brand new booklets and I give you ideas and places to create the books for you and, and all kinds of ideas, sizes of books, what how to choose a book, how to how to pick one for your product. And I created all of that for you and put it in a quick little course for you.
Amy: Amazing, so yeah, I’ll be sharing that in the show notes. Okay, question from a business owner perspective, we always ask, you know, what’s your piece of advice for people just getting started?
Tammie: I think is just don’t credit Don’t be so critical on yourself. Just do it. You know, I like I said, I wasn’t a graphic designer, I just decided I’m just gonna try doing these these books. And what it led to was a whole nother business for me because I started creating now branded booklets for businesses, and now I’m talking to you, but so i My best advice is, you will not be perfect, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Just Just take one step forward. And I think a lot of people just I know is thinking I’m not a graphic designer, I don’t have this background. I’m not an author, I don’t it does not matter. Because you can take you know, you will get better. You will find people that will guide you like myself, I’m there’s a lot of us, you know, out there helping you and guiding you. But you do you have to just take the step. There’s no one else that can do it. So that’s my best advice for all my students is just get one book done, like you did in the weekend. So
Amy: that’s right, challenge yourself to get it done. Take a step four, don’t worry about being perfect or having it all figured out.
Tammie; No, I think that happens a lot to us entrepreneurs, we get a little stuck in the perfection world. And yeah, you know, we want it to look good, but you have to take one step. That’s all you need to do is one step every time and
Amy: love it. And then what about what’s keeping you motivated? So are you listening to any podcasts? Are you reading any books? Is there any, anything that you do to kind of keep you motivated and keep you moving forward?
Well, I love this it motivates me is actually sharing these ideas with people and when I met you know, I was talking to Amy it just gets you so excited. But books. I love any kind of book I love you’re a badass by Jensen cero she’s one of my favorite authors. and just sort of those kinds of things to, to read is is just sort of that how do you make the world a better place to live in and share it with everybody. So I love your podcast, Amy, I always love what you’re doing. I love people that inspire others. So anything that inspires people to be their best is my favorite thing to hear or read. Love it.
Amy: All right, so I guess the last question that we have for you, before we hit stop on the recording button and let other folks that are in here in the room after questions is how can people get in contact with you, of course, we’re gonna share our, our offer in the show notes, but how can people get in contact with you and connect with you.
Tammie: So um, you know, I have my multiple platforms, I have a, you know, Facebook group, as well as under a YouTube channel, all those things, but we in the show notes, this is going to be where you want to click on that link, because that’s going to give you take you right to my website. So all of this is at my website. And that’s Tammy kern.com. And my name is TANM, i e, c h r i n.com. But it’s um, yeah, in the shownotes, I would click on that that link, that will be the best, but the website has multiple, multiple things for you to look at, and templates and ideas and courses and all kinds of stuff for you in there, and how to use. So just search my name, and you’ll find me. Sounds
Amy: great. Well, thank you so much, Tammy, for being here. And thanks to everyone for listening today. Reach out anytime, with any questions you guys have. I want to thank you on behalf of Andy and myself, for voting for us in this year cellar poll. Once again, we you know, ranked in the top 10 podcasts that are out there. I think we were in the top five this year, I think we were number four, which was amazing to us. We’re so happy about that. So thank you guys so much as always for subscribing and listening and giving us your feedback. And this is one of the best things that I do every week is I get to meet with amazing people like Tammy and I get to hang out with amazing, awesome entrepreneurs who are getting it done like Carmel and Marina and Vlad who are here in the chat with us. And you know, I just appreciate you all so much for being here and for listening and we are going to hit stop on the recording here and we’ll see you guys next week on the seller roundtable. Thank you so much.
Tammie: Thank you. Bye.
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