Tutorials

How To Make YouTube Videos

October 5, 2019 By Kat

I started my YouTube channel Kat Kuan back in 2017 and have uploaded 49 videos and racked up over 31k views since then. If you’re curious about how I make my videos, read on!

1. I usually start with the topic of the video – whether it will be a vlog, a story I’m trying to tell (i.e. a style transformation), or an educational topic like a style tip or some career advice.

2. Then I shoot the footage. I typically use my Canon vlogging camera with the flip screen so I can see myself (and make sure my head is not cut off!). For the equipment I use, refer to this earlier blogpost.

I grab as much footage as I need because I won’t be able to go back for it. So I may do an extra take to make sure I have the right ending, beginning, etc..

Another option is to use the camera on my phone to film and tilt it horizontally. (You could leave it in portrait mode if you want to film for IGTV.)

3. I also try to remember to take a photo for the YouTube thumbnail picture. A custom thumbnail picture makes the video more attractive for clicking on. Example:

4. After the footage has been recorded, I go to my laptop (MacBook Pro) and export the files I recorded from my SD card onto my computer.

5. I browse through the content and remove the outtakes and blurry photos. I’m basically curating a subset of the raw footage that I want to use.

When I’m watching back these videos, I go with my visceral feelings to pick out the most authentic clips. I look for what are the most natural emotions, and usually it’s from the first take. When filming subsequent takes, I start to get in my head and it looks like I’m reciting lines and overthinking the words instead of feeling the words.

6. Then I open up iMovie, create a new project, and then import the raw video and photo files that I want.

7. I start with laying out the video clips I want. I drag the video files down onto the timeline and put them in the desired order. You can also drag the start / end of the video clips to trim them.

Or you can right click on a spot in the video clip and select “Split clip”. Then you can move each part of the clip independently or delete one of them.

This clip was split into two and each one was trimmed for conciseness

8. You can see a preview of your edited video in the top right corner of the iMovie application. Hit play to watch it back.

Within this window, I can also adjust the audio volume in the clip. I may mute the audio completely if it’s a B-roll shot (meaning alternative footage compared to the main footage). For example, if I’m walking up to the restaurant, then I’ll just mute the volume because I’ll add background music later. See the white sound icon with the red line crossed through it.

You can also play with the speed of the video by clicking on the timer icon. Choose Speed as Fast, Normal, Slow, etc.. You can speed it up by 2x, 4x, 8x, etc.. In the below example, I sped it up by 2x.

9. At some point, I usually pick music to go with my video. I pay for a service called Epidemic Sound to get royalty free music for my YouTube videos. This is great for creators because then you can pick from a wide selection of songs and not worry about infringing on copyright issues.

I have their annual subscription, which was about $150 per year but I think the price has slightly increased. These songs are for videos uploaded to YouTube / Facebook / Instagram / podcast, so if you use them for other purposes, you may need to pay a different price per song.

I think this music subscription is worth it if you’re serious about creating videos more frequently. Music adds a fun dimension to your videos.

I choose my songs in a pretty random way. I browse their staff picks, albums, or search keywords. Sometimes I search by genre, category, or even tempo. I like music with a pretty upbeat tempo for YouTube videos because it keeps the viewer engaged.

10. Once I find a couple of songs I like, I download them and import them into my iMovie project. In this below example, I imported 4 songs for this video. Same as with the video clips, I drag the audio clips down onto the timeline underneath the video clips. Drag them left or right or trim them so they line up with your video as desired.

Music lined up with the video clips in iMovie

If you want audio effects like a swoosh or a click or anything, iMovie provides a library of sound effects you can use for free. Click on the “Audio” tab to see and preview them. Drag them onto the timeline and adjust until the timing is correct.

11. Here are some other cool effects. If you are transitioning from one scene to a completely different one, you may want to add a transition like Slide Left or Fade to Black or Cross Blur, among others.

If you need subtitles to describe who’s talking or what’s going on in the video, you can add text by clicking on the “Titles” tab. There are a bunch of preset options and some are animated. You can change the text and font style.

12. Once you’re done with the video, watch the full thing back to make sure it’s what you expect. Then you can export it to your YouTube channel (or as a standalone video file). At this time you can also add metadata like the title and description of the video.

13. I prefer to wait until the video has been uploaded into YouTube to edit the metadata. You can set the title, description, thumbnail, tags, and more.

Metadata page for a video in YouTube studio

Title – Be sure to include keywords on the video. I also use “|” separators to add more phrases like a subtitle. For search engine optimization (SEO) purposes, a good title will help the video show up more often in users’ search results.

Description – I describe the video and include any relevant links to products / people / places that I mentioned. I also include a standard blurb on how people can connect with me on other social media platforms.

Tags – I try to add as many relevant tags as I can to the video, again for SEO purposes to make the video more discoverable. There’s a limit to the number of tags that YouTube allows per video, so I usually keep adding until I hit that limit.

14. As I mentioned earlier, there’s also an option to create a custom thumbnail for the video. The thumbnail is the preview that shows up on YouTube when the video is in a list of other videos, or when you paste the YouTube link in a website or social media post. I like to create a custom one with a clear photo and some text to describe what the video is about.

I create YouTube thumbnails in Canva (see my earlier tutorial post on Canva).

Create YouTube thumbnail in Canva (comes with preset layout ideas)

Example thumbnail I created for this video

Download the image from Canva after you’ve created it. Then set your custom thumbnail on the metadata page for the video in YouTube studio. Alternatively, you can also choose from random screenshots that YouTube selected from the video as your thumbnail. See the 3 photos on the right.

Set the thumbnail onto the video within YouTube Studio

15. Within the metadata page of the video, you can also select “End Screen” to customize what the end of the video looks like. At the end of YouTube videos, you may have noticed that there will be small thumbnails of suggested videos to watch next. Those can be selected by you and you can arrange the layout of them on the screen too!

At the end of this video, I recommend 2 videos for the viewer to watch next.

Select the “End Screen” button and you’ll be brought to a new page.

Select “Use template…” and choose from the templates. You can have up to 2 suggested videos and select which videos or playlists should appear. You can also show a round thumbnail of your YouTube channel icon, so people can click to subscribe on your channel.

In the above example, I chose to add a button to subscribe to my channel and a video that YouTube determines is best for my viewer at that time. These elements are overlaid onto my existing video for the last seconds of the video. You can choose when those elements appear in your video and for how long, but they must occur at the end of your video.

Because these elements overlap the screen, you want to make sure that it’s not covering any vital information behind it. This is why some YouTubers have “End Screen” graphics that have some space on the side for these elements. Or I’ve inserted extra seconds of a blank black screen into my video so that I can add these elements.

In this case, I added a photo of some succulents as the background while these End Screen elements are shown. This is what the video in iMovie looks like.

16. Back to the metadata page of the video in YouTube… Add the video to one of your playlists, if applicable. (I added this video to my Vlogs playlist.)

Then make the video public! Anyone can view it and so that it will show up in YouTube search results / suggested videos.

Set visibility and playlist for the video

Or you can choose to make the video “Unlisted” and only people with the direct link will be able to find the video.

17. As the last sanity check, watch the video one more time to make sure that it uploaded just as you expected it to. Then share with your audience!! Great job on making your first video!!

If you want to see the final product of the video I was making, check it out below.

Here are other types of videos on my channel:

Thanks for reading! And subscribe to my channel for the latest videos!

How to Host a Webinar

January 10, 2019 By Kat

One of my goals for 2019 was to work on my public speaking skills by doing monthly speaking events. But finding speaking events is not necessarily straightforward, so to reduce dependencies, I decided to take it upon myself to host a webinar (an online talk) each month for the whole year, with a different topic each month.

Advantages

The thing with having a webinar, unlike hosting an in-person event, is that there’s no pressure for a certain number of people to come. Whoever wants to come can come! And if they don’t, that’s okay too. Takes some of the pressure off, so I could focus on my speaking part.

First Webinar

I just hosted my first webinar last weekend and the topic was: Making Your Dreams Com True in 2019! I was very happy with how it went. There was 10 of us and we had guided reflection time so we could write / plan out our goals and also talk about them too. It was really great connecting with like-minded folks and being able to share openly about struggles and also tips for chasing our dreams. I can’t wait for the next one!!

Which Technology to Use?

I had to do some research to figure out what technology to use for the webinar. I wanted a low or no-cost option because this is really an experiment, so I had to rule out the platforms that had monthly fees.

GoToWebinar is a popular platform that I’ve seen a bunch of online entrepreneurs use, but when I checked out the pricing, I was like hmmm no, too expensive for me now – it was $90/mo for the cheapest plan. I wouldn’t use it frequently enough for it to remotely pay off.
YouTube Live is another option by just livestreaming on your YouTube channel. It didn’t feel as intimate though, feels more out in the public (which could matter for the participants of the webinar), so I didn’t go with this option. This is a free option, but you just have to meet certain eligibility requirements before livestream is enabled for your channel. Meaning, I don’t think it’s available for brand new channels.
Instagram Live and Facebook Live are also options, but again they don’t feel as intimate. I think people also tend to causally drop in and drop off on those live feeds, if they happen to be scrolling in the app at that time.
Zoom is something I’ve used quite a few times already for video conference calls in groups. They have a free plan, but they also have a paid plan if you want more features (see pricing). They also have a paid plan of $40/mo for “Zoom webinars” with some fancy features to moderate the group and stuff. It would probably make more sense when your business is at a bigger scale.

Picking Zoom

So after all that, I decided to go with a Zoom call. It’s not exactly like a webinar format with a host and participants, but it’s more like a group conference call. It actually worked out quite well for our group size. People could turn on their video and microphone and chime in.

A Zoom call does have limitations though. The free version limits your group calls to 40 minutes. We did end up signing off the call, and then signing back in at the 40 minute mark lol. A tiny hassle. And there is a limit to 100 people per call too.

For your purposes, it’ll depend on what your needs are, what audience size you have, and what type of engagement you want with them. If you’re starting off, I would test out the waters with some free options first.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Pick a date and time for your webinar. Put it into your calendar so you don’t flake out.
Create an image to promote the webinar (refer to my tutorial on creating graphics with Canva).

Announce it on social media, your newsletter, and to friends & family. I mentioned that the webinar login instructions would be sent out to my mailing list, so I directed people towards signing up for that.
I created a new “meeting” within Zoom, and gave it a title and time.

A Zoom web link will be provided, or people can dial in with their phone as well. These instructions are located in the Zoom meeting description page, when you click on the “Copy the Invitation” link.

I sent out the webinar instructions to people on my mailing list so they could have access.
I started prepping the content – first with an outline, then with practicing it and creating slides. I used Google Slides to make a simple presentation.
I did a webinar dry-run to test out the technology. I gave the link to my fiance and he hopped on the call so we could test it out: test out sharing the screen, playing my presentation, the audio and my computer microphone, the group chat feature, etc..
I did some more reminder social media posts and a reminder to my mailing list again.
Then I did the webinar!! Woohoo!

Backup Plan

Technology doesn’t always work when we want it to, and I know other people have had technical difficulties with their webinars (on much larger scale with more complicated technology, but still). So having a backup plan is always good. I had a backup plan of using YouTube live in case the Zoom call didn’t work. But luckily I didn’t need it!

All went smoothly with the Zoom call and I’m looking forward to the next one in February!! Hope you can join me for that one! You can also join my mailing list so you don’t miss out. I’ll be announcing the next topic soon!

Grow Your Instagram Following

October 19, 2018 By Kat

This is intended to be tips for people and small businesses who want to grow their Instagram account.

I know number of followers are a superficial metric, and there’s all sorts of biases like fake followers and people who just temporarily follow and unfollow you later. And I also know that there are many more people with a ton more followers.

Regardless, to build a solid following on Instagram, you have to be able to show up consistently, create quality content, engage authentically – all of which doesn’t just happen “on accident.”

In any case, it’s been about a year of intentionally working on growing my Instagram account @kat.kuan to develop my brand and presence online. I even booked a session with a social media consultant to get feedback and advice on my profile. So these are 5 takeaways I wanted to share with you. First off, I want to start with why this matters.

WHY INSTAGRAM IS IMPORTANT

Sometimes I think Instagram is the fastest way to reach people. Once I post something, folks can “like” my post WITHIN SECONDS!!! I don’t think people check or respond to their email nearly as fast!

For anyone creating a business or having a job in a creative industry (such as art or cooking or fashion – something where you create something), I think it is vital to have an Instagram account to show your portfolio of work. The economy is rapidly changing and I like to think of an Instagram account as a quick-glance resume of what your work is like.

For example, my friend is a hairstylist and captures all the haircuts and hair coloring she’s done for clients on her Instagram @hairstyle_by_natalie. That way, future clients can also check out her Instagram and see her work on past clients within a quick glance.

For my profession of personal styling, my Instagram showcases outfits I’ve created so that people can decide if they like my aesthetic and want to work with me.

1. POST CONSISTENTLY

Content creation is hard. Some creators swear by posting multiple times a day. I tried that, and it’s a little too much for me. I feel like it floods the audience with too much of me, and it’s hard to come up with so much content.

So settle on something that feels right to you. For me, about 5 days a week (basically 1x per weekday) is a good target to aim for.

Your account will grow with time. Here’s the analytics for my account from the InsTrack app. You can see sometimes it goes up faster than others, and there are dips as well. Also, for the time periods where it grew the fastest, I was spending way too much time on there that I was in a bad state of mind. So growth at all costs is not worth it.

And go easy on yourself if you didn’t reach your target. I went through a rollercoaster of emotions trying to be consistent. I would get really motivated and post multiple times a day, and then get busy in my life, and not post for weeks. So I would be super active, then not active, and then super active, etc.. Now I try to be a more moderate amount of active and try to keep that steady.

Because our schedule can vary widely from day to day, the best way to make sure you have consistent content is to plan it out ahead of time. I’ve tried various tools but now I just use a Google Sheets spreadsheet that I call my “Content Calendar” and keep track of the date I want to post it, the name of the post, what format of content it is (social media post, YouTube video, blog, etc..), and any notes.

2. DON’T WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT PERFECTION

Especially when you’re first starting off, I think there’s a desire to make everything look “Instagram worthy” and beautiful and editorial like the mega influencers, but sometimes it’s just better to get it out there and do it consistently. Then you can work on slowly raising the bar for the quality of content – better photography, better graphics, better photo editing, etc.. Just don’t try to aim for all those things at once in the beginning.

It took a while to develop the look-and-feel of my content. I really like clear and concise images. Clarity is super important, and I use Canva for any graphics that involve text. I wrote a tutorial for using Canva earlier, which can be found here.

Let your style and subject matter content naturally evolve over time.

For example, back in September 2017 (over a year ago), I posted random things – quotes, food, personal pictures, drawings, stuff about my children’s book.

Then I started to post more pictures of myself and book stuff – some lifestyle / food stuff sprinkled in here and there. Posting pictures of yourself (while it feels weird and self-centered in the beginning), it’s important because it helps people see and recognize you.

In the summer of 2018, I moved more boldly into posting fashion photos for my personal styling business and developing an aesthetic with the bold text, and using that consistently.

And these are my most recent posts – fall of 2018. It’s includes photos of me, fashion (photos taken by photographer friends), and a consistent font style.

3. SHOW THE PROCESS

Instagram is great for telling a story with visuals. A great image tells a story without any words, without even reading the caption. And over time, the all the images you post will tell another story – a broader story about yourself or your business.

To keep it interesting, I think it’s important to show how you evolve and show timely events and show a growing / transformation process. So if you’re working on creating a product that takes a long time, show the process.

That provides values to your followers and allows them to “follow” your journey.

Example: This is how I documented the journey of writing my children’s book Use Your Voice.

Sharing your story is SO important because it differentiates you from the other people/businesses out there. If you have a clothing line, it can be hard to differentiate from the many other clothing brands on Instagram. Glam shots with beautiful people modeling the clothes can only go far. BUT sharing how you designed / manufactured / and tested out the items can make people more invested in your business and want to be a part of your journey too.

4. BE AUTHENTIC, USE INSTAGRAM STORIES

People come on Instagram to be inspired and to connect as well – to relate to others. I know that the advice of “being authentic” is overused and vague. My tangible tip for that is to use Instagram stories.

This is where you can record short video clips or post images and use their creation tools to add text / emojis on top. The stories only last 24 hours. The stories content DOES NOT need to look perfect. In fact, the more rough-around-the-edges, the more real it feels.

On another topic of authenticity, create genuine connections with people by writing thoughtful comments on their posts and responding to comments on your posts. I think this is an area of improvement for me, sometimes I get carried away on the content part, that it’s easy to forget that the whole point of this platform is to bring people together. So connect and grow your community by encouraging others and cheering them on too!

5. HAVE BOUNDARIES WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

You could get addicted to social media and start scrolling / liking / commenting on stuff all day long, but that is incredible draining and I start to hate Instagram after a day like that.

The reason I stick to weekdays is because social media can be a sinkhole of your time. And too much social media can be unhealthy for mental health because you’re seeing all these other things and can feel FOMO (fear of missing out) or feel like you’re comparing yourself to others, or sometimes people get negative comments, etc.. So I think having limits with social media is good for having balance in life and also having time to focus on just living life, being present, and not worrying about having to capture it for the ‘gram.

To check out my profile, visit @kat.kuan.

Create Social Media Graphics with Canva

September 19, 2018 By Kat

The best tool I’ve discovered for creating social media graphics is Canva.

There’s no need to use Photoshop or other complicated tools.

It’s also FREE!

Canva has tons of templates and layouts that look fantastic and professional.

You just drag/drop your own photos, enter in your own text, and suddenly you have a magical and beautiful social media graphic – without any graphic design experience!

Major props to those who have graphic design experience, I don’t know how you make such beautiful things. The rest of us have to resort to finding tools like this to help us get by!

HOW TO USE CANVA

When you open Canva, you can create a new design.

Depending on what your use case is, you can pick if you’re creating an Instagram post, a Facebook ad, a LinkedIn cover photo, blog header image, infographic, flyer, or a multitude of other options.

It’ll lay out a canvas for you at the appropriate dimensions – so helpful because the variation of image dimensions for each social media platform drives me nuts.

CREATE A NEW DESIGN

I clicked on “Instagram post” so here’s a blank square canvas for me to work with. I can choose from various Canva layouts. There’s a lot of great options for free, while some options cost money.

Once you select a layout, it gets added to your canvas. Then you can start editing the text, photos, and drag/drop to move elements around – change the color / font / etc…

You can upload your own images and drag them onto the canvas. Below is a history of images I’ve uploaded for my past graphics.

You can also search for photos or illustrations that Canva provides. Some are free and some are paid.

Once you finish your design, you can download it in the format you want and use it wherever you need.

ALL YOUR DESIGNS

Canva also keeps a collection of all your past designs. That’s handy when I want to use a similar format / font from something I created before. Make a copy of a design and then edit from there.

EXAMPLE

This is a recent graphic I created for a YouTube video thumbnail.

Side note: I like how preparing my own graphic for the thumbnail makes the video look a lot better (top two video thumbnails), as compared to a random still frame taken from the YouTube video (rest of thumbnails).

To promote the video on my Instagram page, I couldn’t use the above thumbnail because some of the text would get cut off. Hence I copied all the elements over and created a new square Instagram graphic. Download the image and then post it!

By now, you’re probably getting the idea that there’s many use cases for these graphics. If you’re building your own brand, it’s important to have strong visuals. I’m still working on making a cohesive visual brand for myself, but Canva is allowing me to experiment with different styles in an easy way.

For more examples of what I’ve created with Canva, check out my Instagram @kat.kuan.

PREMIUM VERSION

There’s also a paid premium version, which I haven’t tried yet. If you work on a team, then multiple users can collaborate together. You can setup a brand color scheme, logos, fonts, etc.. so that these preset defaults are easily accessible when you’re creating your graphics.

Overall, I highly recommend this tool for beginners. It makes you feel powerful *arm flex* and capable of doing graphic design!

Now go make your social media accounts pretty with Canva!

How to Start a Podcast

July 12, 2018 By Kat

Podcasts are all the rage these days. They’re audio-only and great for listening to while you’re commuting or on the go.

Some podcasts have a special guest they interview for each episode. Other podcasts are more documentary style – such as Gary Vee’s The Audio Experience. His episodes are recordings of his speeches, meetings, and day-to-day life as CEO of VaynerMedia.

WHY I STARTED A PODCAST

I wanted to do a podcast as an outlet for me to share my experiences as a new author and business owner. I want to speak as honestly as I can about the entrepreneurial journey.

Another reason I wanted to experiment with this format was because audio episodes are a lot faster to create compared to YouTube videos. I keep the episodes short – around several minutes to maybe 10 minutes max.

THE EASY ROUTE

To get the podcast up and running, I wanted the easiest option for a beginner.

Luckily, the process is straightforward and free with the Anchor app.

They take care of all the complicated details like hosting the podcast and setting up a RSS feed (which would normally cost money). Now all I need to do is just hit buttons within the app. 😛

Anchor works on desktop (for more detailed features), but I mostly use the mobile app (Google Play, App Store).

GET STARTED WITH THE ANCHOR APP

1. Setup an account with your email address.

2. Pick a podcast name, description, and upload a cover art image.

3. Start recording a podcast episode. You can record individual segments that get compiled into an episode, or just record one segment.

4. When the episode is ready, you can set the episode name, upload an image for that episode (or it will use your default cover art image).

5. Then hit publish!

You can publish exclusively for the Anchor platform, or you can publish it everywhere, which includes other popular podcast platforms. This is one of other great advantages of Anchor because it pushes your podcast out to other services like Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, PocketCasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and more.

For example, my podcast can be found on iTunes!

Note: Beyond rearranging individual segments, I don’t think there’s an option to edit the audio files to clip out or trim sections. But I don’t mind because my episodes don’t need to be super polished. The creation process goes a lot faster too when you don’t need to edit the audio files.

Another Note: If you want more polished audio files, you could record the audio with a voice notes app on your phone. Then use editing software to edit the audio file. Then upload it into an Anchor episode.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE

For more advanced options on how to start a podcast, check out Gary Vee’s article, written by his audio engineer, so he knows his stuff. This is the article I used to start and how I discovered Anchor.

If you decide to create a podcast, let me know in the comments below. Would love to give it a listen!

To check out my podcast in action, visit What Kat Found Out or search for it on your favorite podcast player. 🙂

Camera Equipment for YouTube

June 5, 2018 By Kat

I recently uploaded a new video on my YouTube channel that was a vlog of my Napa trip with friends. This was all made possible by new vlogging camera!

Since this is a decent financial investment, I wanted to share my experience.

WHERE TO GO

First of all, if you’re in the Bay Area, I HIGHLY recommend going to Mike’s Camera in Menlo Park. The staff is friendly and very knowledgeable about camera stuff.

The woman who helped me asked about my intention for the camera and showed me different ones accordingly. My main purpose is to vlog, so I held out different cameras at arms length to see how heavy and comfortable they felt. I also wanted a screen to see myself when I talk to the camera, so that was my simple criteria. She showed me one option where you can attach a separate mic to get clearer audio, but that seemed like more hassle.

THE CAMERA I CHOSE

She told me a lot of bloggers use the Canon G7X Mark II. It’s light and the LCD screen flips up so you can see yourself, so ultimately, that’s what I went with.

Mike’s Camera actually has the same prices as you would find online because and price match with any reputable retailer. Another plus was that they threw in some free extras with my camera purchase like a private tutorial, 100 4×6 photo prints, a big print, a metal print, custom photo gift, and a class. I haven’t redeemed them yet, and I think it may have expired. >.< Oops!

Anyhow, if you aren’t in the Bay Area and can’t stop by their store, here’s the online link to the camera I got.

I bought it earlier in the year in January and paid $679.99 for it (same price as Amazon at the time), but it looks like the price has dropped since then.

There’s tons of articles online where vloggers share which camera they use. I just saw this thread on Instagram the other day. I’m not incredibly picky about the specs of the camera, so I was able to decide within 30-45 mins and walk out of there with my new camera.

ACCESSORIES

I also want to add that while I was at the store, I got some other accessories that would be needed to get up and running.

32GB SD card
JOBY Gorillapod Magnetic 325 Camera Tripod
Lowepro Tahoe 25 II Camera case
SD card reader (got this at Best Buy)
USB-C to USB adapter (got this at Best Buy)

In the future, I wonder if I’ll get a ring light or a taller tripod. I’ve been putting my laptop on an ironing board for my past videos. 😛 However, I want to be careful because it’s easy to get caught up in buying a bunch of high quality equipment that I may not need right away.

At one point, I was thinking about getting the same camera as my favorite YouTubers. But they’ve been doing it for 5+ years, and they slowly built up to that equipment. Since I’m starting off and figuring out whether vlogging is something I want to do long term, I’m happy with what I have now. The key will to keep creating content!

The total for all of this came out to be $840.22 – not bad for a starter kit.

Do you have a nice camera? What do you use and what kind of content do you capture?

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Regardless though, this is my true camera setup.

10 Steps to Create an Awesome Amazon Kindle eBook

May 18, 2018 By Kat

I really didn’t know much about eBooks when I started this process about 2 weeks ago.

I have Kindle devices, but aside from clicking to buy and having them magically appear on the device, I didn’t know much else.

If you’re new to my blog, I wrote and illustrated a children’s book called Use Your Voice and initially released it as a hardcover. I wasn’t starting from scratch, but I thought the eBook conversion process was an interesting experience and worth sharing.

My book Use Your Voice
The eBook version of my book

ADVANTAGES OF AN E-BOOK

I wanted to do an eBook version so that my audience could have another option in accessing my book. The eBook would be at a lower price point and easier to carry around than a physical book. From a marketing perspective, it would also be easier to share my book with influencers digitally instead of mailing them a copy.

Actually these reasons came from fellow author Eevie Jones, so thank you Eevie!

STEP 1: CHOOSE LAYOUT TYPE

The first step is to decide on the format of the eBook:

Reflowable eBook – mostly black and white text, where the amount of text on the screen can be adjusted according to the screen size / font size / other user preferences of the e-reader device
Fixed-Layout eBook – often children’s books or art books that require a specific layout for each page, regardless of the device size

In my case, I have a children’s book and each page needs to stay exactly as-is, so I went with the fixed layout option.

STEP 2: CHOOSE A SERVICE PROVIDER

Initially, I was going to choose IngramSpark to self-publish my eBook because I had already used them for the hardcover version.

In the author dashboard, they offer a paid “Convert to Ebook” option, where they use your existing design PDF files. I didn’t want to go with this option because I wasn’t sure about the quality (it would be based off a format that wasn’t originally intended for eBooks). Since I already had to learn Adobe Illustrator and InDesign for the first book, I figured I could generate the eBook format on my own.

As I was digging through the IngramSpark documentation on how to do this, it appeared that if I created a fixed layout eBook with IngramSpark, it would only be for sale on Apple and Kobo – and not Amazon. Disclaimer: if this isn’t true, let me know.

Most of my hardcover sales from Amazon, and I didn’t want to leave them out, so I chose to go with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

I also believe that the royalty rate would be higher with Amazon, and there would be no fee to upload the book or make revisions. To keep things simple, I focused solely on the Amazon Kindle platform, and didn’t worry yet about uploading to other ebookstores like Apple’s.

STEP 3: DOWNLOAD KINDLE TOOLS

Amazon has pretty good tools for helping authors publish their eBook. Check out this list for which ones would apply to your case.

I downloaded the Kindle Kids’ Book Creator for doing the eBook conversion. Then I downloaded the Kindle Previewer tool for previewing the eBook before publishing.

The Kindle Kids’ Book Creator takes a PDF file and will convert it into the proper format for the Kindle store. Hence, I went back to the design files to generate a proper PDF.

STEP 4: MODIFY THE ILLUSTRATION FILES

There were some changes needed to the illustration files because an eBook is viewed in digital format on a screen (RGB color mode), whereas a physical book is printed on a paper (requires margins / bleed regions for where the paper is cut and needs to be in CMYK color mode).

Let me clarify how my files were set up for my hardcover book:

18 Adobe Illustrator files for each page of my book (including the book cover)
1 Adobe Indesign file that combined all the pages together into a book

I made a complete copy of all my design files mentioned above, and put them into an eBook folder on my computer. I didn’t want to mess up any of my previous files in case I ever need to make changes to the hardcover book.

From the new set of files, I went ahead and made these changes to all Adobe Illustrator files:

Remove the margin and bleed regions that were needed for the print version, so that the illustration on the page goes edge-to-edge (see screenshots below)
Switch to RGB color mode. This was a somewhat involved process because I had to unlock all the layers of my design and make sure I selected all of the layers for conversion to RGB. I still kept these illustrations as Adobe Illustrator (.ai) files. These articles were helpful: Adjust Colors and Converting Color Spaces.

Adobe Illustrator file for hardcover book (There’s a required white margin on the left, and a bleed region around the artboard marked in red)

Adobe Illustrator file for eBook (In this version, ideally, all the art should be within the artboard size, marked by the black border. However, the art still goes beyond the artboard size because I was too lazy to adjust the shapes to fit within the border, but that didn’t affect the final look of the image later on.)

STEP 5: GET NEW ISBN NUMBER

My understanding is that each format of a book should have a different bardcode. The eBook, hardcover, and paperback versions of the same book should all have different barcodes.

From the documentation, I wasn’t quite sure if this was required for Amazon Kindle books. To be safe though, I got another ISBN number and updated the copyright page to mention this new number.

Copyright page – edited within Adobe Illustrator

When I needed an ISBN for my first book, I already purchased a bulk pack of 10 ISBNs from Bowker. Hence, I used another barcode from my pack and assigned my eBook details to it within the Bowker database. The details were mostly the same metadata as for my hardcover book – except the publish date and price were different.

Note: The back cover of my book also contains the ISBN number, but for eBooks, there is no back cover file, so no need to update that.

STEP 6: MODIFY THE INDESIGN FILE

The Adobe InDesign file is what puts all the pages together. Adobe InDesign is used for layout design for things like magazines and newspapers.

I refer to this as the eBook Interior File. It starts off with the front cover of the book. Then I imported each of the 17 pages of my book (Adobe Illustrator files that I had updated in Step 4). I also modified the dimensions of the document to not have any bleed regions.

Next I did a pixel perfect check using the Adobe InDesign presentation mode to flip through the whole eBook. Sometimes there was white line on the edges of the pages because I hadn’t filled the content to the edge of the artboard, so I adjusted accordingly.

Adobe InDesign Presentation mode

When it looked exactly as I wanted, I exported the file as a PDF!

STEP 7: GENERATE EBOOK FILE

I imported the PDF file into the Kindle Kids’ Book Creator, downloaded from Step 3.

There’s some options in the setup process like whether the book is landscape or portrait, or showing 2 pages at a time or 1 page. I chose landscape, 1 page at a time. Then wala! It does its conversion magic. All the pages show up in the Creator like this.

Kindle Kids’ Book Creator

You can also add text pop-ups to magnify the text and make it easier for reading. I tried it out, but it made the experience feel ugly with big ol’ text boxes on top of the illustrations. I also felt like the font in my pages were already pretty big, so I decided to forgo this option.

STEP 8: TESTING

Within the Kindle Kids’ Book Creator, check out the Help > User Guide on how to test and export the eBook as a .mobi file. I also used the Kindle Previewer I downloaded earlier to test the eBook on various configurations like phone and tablet.

When it looks good, then you can do Save for Publishing for the final output .mobi file.

Note: When testing, I was actually able to view the eBook in black-and-white-grayscale on my Kindle Paperwhite (using this method). Later I realized it wasn’t a supported device for my final eBook version in the store though. Weird. Oh well. I think these children’s eBooks are only meant for devices that show color like Kindle Fire devices, Kindle Reader apps on phones, tablets, and on desktop. The available devices are listed on the product page for each eBook in the store.

STEP 9: UPLOAD TO KINDLE STORE

I created a Kindle Direct Publishing account, logged into the dashboard, and added a new book title. I entered in all the metadata (basically the same as what is already listed for my hardcover book, except a new ISBN).

Then I uploaded the .mobi file for the interior of the eBook and also a .jpg file for the cover of the book.

Note: For the cover of the book, I had to export the image in Adobe Illustrator as 300 ppi so that the resolution was high enough to be accepted. Amazon rejects lower quality images. They also have a cover generator if you need help with the cover art of your eBook, but it’ll probably be more attractive to create your own or have someone design it for you.

When uploading to book to the store, Amazon asks you to enter in your price and royalty option. Helpful resources: Amazon’s royalty rate (35% or 70% royalty options), their price requirements based on file size, and the pricing page.

To figure out my eBook price, I browsed through other kids books in my genre – social emotional learning books, Todd Parr books, Sandra Boynton books, etc… For those books, I also looked at how their Kindle book price compared with their hardcover and paperback prices. I decided on a happy medium and felt assured that I could always adjust it later.

STEP 10: PUBLISH

When everything’s entered, they give you one more opportunity to see everything with the Kindle previewer in the browser. Then you can publish! WOOHOO!!!! It said it would upload to the store in about 72 hours.

Once it went live, I tested it of course on my Kindle Fire device, phone, tablet, and browser. It didn’t work on the Kindle Paperwhite, and confirmed that the device was not listed as a supported device for my eBook. I also tested the “gift” option with another Amazon account and made sure that worked smoothly. Yay!

It was nice that the eBook automatically linked with my existing Amazon page for my hardcover book (which was created automatically through IngramSpark). It would’ve been awkward if they were separate product pages. If you have this problem though, check this link to resolve it manually.

Then I shared the happy news with friends and family!

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’ve got to say, it’s quite empowering to have finished my first eBook. *Flexes muscles* ;P And what’s even more amazing is that distribution is all done electronically. One of the lessons learned from being an author so far is that having physical books and inventory is hard! There’s the overhead of ordering books from my supplier, distributing them, needing to store and track this inventory, and sometimes books can be defective or get damaged.

No need to lift heavy boxes this time! I’m thrilled with my first eBook!

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to see the final product, here is my Kindle eBook: Use Your Voice!

For a behind-the-scenes look at how I created the whole book (including illustrating it), check out my YouTube series on Writing a Children’s Book on my channel Kat Kuan:

Playlist of videos on Writing a Children’s Book: http://bit.ly/2USrEEv

How I earned $100 in Amazon credit with an app

August 3, 2017 By Kat

When I see a hiring sign in a local business (at the supermarket, a restaurant, or at the mall), I take a photo and submit it via the JobSpotter app. Each submission earns me points, and the points get redeemed for Amazon gift cards. Over the last 8 months, I’ve earned over $119 in Amazon credit!

Below is my list of submissions within the JobSpotter app. Each submission gets manually reviewed and assigned points based on how valuable that posting was – anywhere from 5 to 150 points. 100 points equals $1 of gift card credit.

As you can see, I earned around 70 points to 80 points for these locations. From my personal experience, taking pictures of generic hiring signs at big commercial banks or Starbucks yields a small number of points (maybe 10 – 20 points). However, taking a picture for a very popular local restaurant (that’s not a chain) can earn you a lot of points (70 points or even over 100 points). That means, on some occasions, I’ve earned over $1 for taking a photo!

Okay, it’s actually two photos. Each submission requires 1) a photo of the hiring sign and 2) a photo of the store name. The app uses your location as well to verify that you physically located at that business.

(Yup, there’s a palm tree at the grocery store. What can I say, it’s California.)

Anyhow, here’s the wallet view within the app. It displays the amount of credit you’ve accumulated. At any point you want to cash out, just hit the “Redeem” button, and an Amazon e-gift card gets emailed to you.

With this money, I purchased a journal, a keyboard wrist pad, slippers, a massage ball, and some other random stuff. It’s fun to go shopping when you have free cash in your account! Unfortunately, it’s almost TOO easy to spend the hard earned money that your legs worked hard for – wandering around the whole city looking for those signs!

Within the app, there’s also a leaderboard that ranks users by number of points they have. The top 3 users each month get an extra bonus gift card ($50 – $300). Pretty sweet! But I will never make it into the top 3 – those people are super serious. I have no idea how they have so much time to take all those photos!

At one point, I was REALLY into this app. I would go out of my way to drive to different shopping center plazas around the Bay Area, get out of the car, and start looking for hiring signs to take photos of. Even in the freezing cold! Well, whatever “cold” means for us here. 😛 It’s similar to Pokemon Go, except instead of looking for Pokemon, I was looking for hiring signs, and getting paid to do it! It was a game that I wanted to WIN! Anyhow, I have calmed down since then. If I see a sign when I’m going out and about in my daily life, I’ll take a photo. If it’s a chain restaurant that probably won’t give me a lot of points, I probably won’t bother.

In case you’re wondering, the app is run by Indeed.com, a popular job site with tons of job postings. I think that this is a great use case for a mobile app. They’re crowdsourcing information from everyday people about who’s hiring in these little suburbs and towns, and giving out rewards as incentive.

Once your submission is approved, you can see it on the Indeed.com search engine by searching “Help wanted” and the city you took the photo in. It should look something like this example. All the fine print and legal details are here. Note: If someone else already submitted a particular sign to JobSpotter, then your submission will be rejected as a duplicate. Within a month though, the online posting will expire, so it’s fair game to go back and take the same photo later. Thus, ideally, you’ll be more successful in a neighborhood where other people don’t use the app.

If you want to try it out, download the app for free from Android or iOS.

Have fun, but stay out of my territory! 😛 Kidding! Good luck!