Journal Empire

How To Make Money with Journals and Planners

Diana Heuser

PLRPlanners.com
Copyright: Diana Heuser 2019
 Contents

Dedication .................................................................................................................................. 6

How To Use This Book .............................................................................................................. 7

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 8

Are You Sure You're Ready To Launch A Business? No? Read This! .................................... 10

Before you Start ....................................................................................................................... 18

There is nothing stopping you, except yourself ........................................................................ 19

What are ‘low-content’ and ‘blank books’ ................................................................................. 20

Are people still buying journals and planners? ......................................................................... 22

Principles of Success ............................................................................................................... 23

Find something you love doing ............................................................................................. 23

Focus is Critical .................................................................................................................... 23

Start with a Narrow Niche ..................................................................................................... 24

Commit to a certain number of hours a day.......................................................................... 25

Instant Gratification vs Long Term Results ........................................................................... 25

Mindset .................................................................................................................................... 26

Tough Love .......................................................................................................................... 27

Dealing with Setbacks and Imposter Syndrome ................................................................... 29

Book Formats........................................................................................................................... 31

How and where to sell your books ........................................................................................... 32

Amazon ................................................................................................................................ 32

Your own website ................................................................................................................. 32

Etsy ...................................................................................................................................... 33

Amazon Sellers Account ...................................................................................................... 34

Schools and Churches ......................................................................................................... 34

 Your Local Markets .............................................................................................................. 35

Facebook Marketplace ......................................................................................................... 35

Book Production....................................................................................................................... 36

Tips to speed up production ................................................................................................. 37

1000 Books in a Year? ......................................................................................................... 39

7 Ways to Grow Your Email List .............................................................................................. 42

Give away a freebie .............................................................................................................. 42

Participate in a bundle sale .................................................................................................. 47

Website Lead generator ....................................................................................................... 50

Website sidebar.................................................................................................................... 53

Facebook Groups pro tip ...................................................................................................... 56

Other Freebies ..................................................................................................................... 58

Add a Read Me file to your Product Download ..................................................................... 59

Market Research ...................................................................................................................... 62

Persistence Pays Off ............................................................................................................... 66

Training Schedule .................................................................................................................... 68

Your next steps .................................................................................................................... 68

Free Training – Power Publishing ........................................................................................ 68

Creating your first journal in MS Word .................................................................................. 69

Creating Book Covers .......................................................................................................... 69

How to upload your book to KDP ......................................................................................... 69

Resources ................................................................................................................................ 70

Automation Tools To Speed up Production .......................................................................... 70

Book a Day System .............................................................................................................. 71

Kickstarter Membership ........................................................................................................ 71

 Spiral-bound Printers ............................................................................................................ 71

Ready Made Commercial Use Journals ............................................................................... 73

About The Author ..................................................................................................................... 74

 Dedication

To my children, who have never lost faith in me, throughout all the tough years.

You are my WHY.

 How To Use This Book

This book is designed to give you a high-level overview of the low-content book publishing
business.
There are no guarantees in life and this book does not promise that you will have the same
results I have had or will have in the future.
Your efforts and commitment will determine your results.
I do not claim to be the expert in this industry. There are lots of other people out there making
more money than I do. But I believe the market is big enough for all of us.
I am a firm believer in the abundance theory, and that even my so-called competitors are
valuable. There is great power in partnerships.
My suggestion is that you read through the book once to get an idea. Then read it again and
make some notes on ideas or concepts that jump out at you.
Take some time out to think about your options.
• What are you currently doing?
• What could you change?
• What areas do you need to focus on?
• What is the first task or option you will tackle?
Write all your thoughts and ideas down, either in your own notebook, or the Journal Empire
Workbook (8.5 x 11 PDF) that you can get off my website for $2.00
Then pick one task or option. Set a deadline for it and then start. Track your progress in the
workbook.
Measure your results and outcomes.
Now you are ready to move onto the next task or option.
Do that until you have completed your entire task list.
N.B. At the end of the book I have a 100% discount voucher for the PDF version of this
book AND the companion workbook and planner that you can download off my site. Use
the workbook to track your progress and notes in conjunction with this book.
I wish you a profitable and abundant journey, and may your dreams come true.
 Introduction

Once upon a time there was a young girl who loved to read. As a well-established bookworm, it
was not unusual to find her with her head buried in a book, often at the expense of her school
work and real life. The world of fiction was fascinating, and it allowed her to escape to lands filled
with adventure and excitement.

That is until, one day, she read a book called “The Woman of Substance” written by Barbara
Taylor Bradford.

This book changed her life forever. The story of Emma Harte touched the reader deeply and her
life-long dream was born out of that book. She would become a rich and famous business
person, building a huge empire that would take care of her family and friends in perpetuity.

She was fifteen years old at the time.

Little did she know though, that it would take decades before she came even remotely close to
achieving her dreams.

I have been in the self-publishing business since 2010, and I had very little to show for it.

It took me nearly seven years before I finally figured out what I was doing wrong.

For years and years I struggled to make consistent money online. The only way I survived was
to hire myself out as a service provider to other people by building websites and ghost writing
for them.

I had one client who paid me $1000 a month managing his web projects, but he was making
$25,000 a website.

Another client paid me $250 to ghost write a book for him. He ended up selling thousands of
copies of that book. I made his dream of passive income a reality, while I struggled to do that
same thing for myself.
Another client was paying me $1000 a month, right up to the point where he was arrested and
his bank accounts frozen.

The bottom line is that until about three years ago, I was struggling to make ends meet. I was
working for other people and helping them achieve their goals and dreams, while putting my
goals and dreams on the back burner.

Then I made a life-changing commitment to my own future

I decided to focus on creating as many low content and blank books as possible over the next
two years. But in order to do that I needed a system in place that would speed up the process. I
fine-tuned my Word and Photoshop skills. I started creating templates for myself that I would
use over and over again. I could create 100 new journals or planners just by tweaking a few
words or cover graphics with just one template.

At the same time I put those skills to use by providing templates to other journal creators out
there. Bill Platt and I started the Book a Day System which provided a monthly pack of JPG
templates in the three standard book sizes with full commercial use. The concept took off and
we are about to go into our third year of that membership program.

In April 2018, I decided to commit myself to getting 1000 new books on Amazon by December
2018.

I achieved that goal within 5 months, just by doing the same thing every day until I had reached
the goal.

In June 2018 I analysed my business again, and made a strategic change to help other people
change their financial futures for the better. That is when I consolidated all my training and
products into one site called PLR Planners.

Less than a year later I had tripled my monthly income.

I want the same thing for you. I want you to be able to live your life without the month end terror
of not having enough money to cover your basic expenses. I want you to have the freedom of
having enough money brings to you in terms of lifestyle choices.
 Are You Sure You're Ready To Launch A Business? No? Read
This!

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us."

Marianne Williamson's poem, "Our Deepest Fear" is a favorite among many entrepreneurs. It's
interesting that she is also seeking the 2019 Democratic nomination for U.S. President, because
who can forget the battle cry that rang out loud and clear in 2008...

"Yes, we can!"

Obama won the presidency on it. Surely you can start a business using it!

Yet fear is often the key to the locked chains that shackle your imagination and hold you back
from trying hard to build the business of your dreams.

There are two kinds of fear a business builder must fight down.

One is common. It's the "fear of failing".

Paradoxically, it's also the kind that's rather easy to understand - and easier to fight down, once
you figure out the root of it all.

Because let's face it. Even though you're afraid of failing, you don't really have much to lose yet,
do you?

Where You Are - And Where You'd Like To Be

Let's imagine a typical scenario.

You've been thinking about launching a business online.

And being the keen student that you are, you've diligently done your research. Googled articles
about online business. Followed blogs written by successful entrepreneurs. Signed up to email
newsletters from the gurus of e-business.

Let's also say you've chosen to sell a book - and follow it up with a more detailed course about
a subject close to your heart, one in which you're some kind of expert.

You understand what it takes to build a "sales funnel" - and so

• you write the book,

• create a short special report to introduce yourself to your audience,
• craft a series of emails to warm them up to the idea of buying your book, and
• maybe even outline the course that you'll create once you've got some traction in the
marketplace.

But suddenly, you lose your nerve.

You're anxious about taking the important next steps to launch your business, to put your product
out there for the world to judge.

You've developed the "fear of failure".

You imagine the happy state you'd like to be - having sold thousands of copies of your book,
followed by hundreds of delighted fans, who are simply raring to throw their money at you to gain
access to the fantastic and detailed course you're putting together just for them.

And you contrast that against where you are today and ask:

"Can I really do this? Will I even get halfway there?"

Hesitant, unsure, doubtful, you seek feedback from...

The Absolutely Wrong Person!

Your friend. Or your family. Or your social media networks.

Why do I call them "the absolutely wrong" people?

Well, because unless you're a business networker who engages in conversations with many
experienced entrepreneurs, chances are high that your typical social network includes people
just like yourself - with little, if any experience in building or running a business.

So how could they possibly give you a valid opinion about your proposed business and your
plans for it?

There is one thing they do know well, though. They know YOU.

And so they'll respond to your request for feedback - based on what they know about you as a
person.

The little they know may suggest that you can't possibly succeed at a business.

That you won't be able to cope with all the stress and hassle.

That you can't really be serious about it.

That you're just passing through a phase, and the feverish craze will soon subside.

That it's all wishful thinking, with no hope of success.

Yada, yada, yada.

Effectively, they'll just project their own insecurity and uncertainty upon you - but make it seem
as if they're actually looking out for your wellbeing.

Maybe you instinctively realize this is true.

But no, like most people, you'll probably still go to those you already know - and ask for their
advice, even if you know the person you're asking doesn't have a clue!

Listen...
If you want frank feedback about your business plans, ask a successful business person. That
person will tell you what you need to hear - not what you'd like to. And while it may not be rosy
and pleasant either, at least you'll be able to make corrections and improvements to your plan
based on what you hear.

For instance, they might listen to your idea of selling a book and following up with a course, hear
you express your fear of taking the next step, and then stare right into your eyes and ask:

"So what if you fail?

What Do You Have To Lose?

Because look at what you've done until that point.

You've written a book - of maybe 100 pages. If you're a lazy writer, and manage no more than
4 pages a day, that's 25 days of work.

The free report introducing yourself to the audience is another 12 pages - so that's 3 more days.

Putting together a website with a form to grab your prospect's email address and pitch your book
to potential buyers took maybe a week longer.

So your "investment" into your business is 5 to 6 weeks of unpaid labor.

And the worst thing that could happen if you try launching your business plan and fail... is that it
goes to waste.

Big deal, right?

Even if you created your entire detailed course before you got started, it still would only cost you
another couple of months of effort.

Losing that isn't a major problem, is it?

Nope!

Then what are you really afraid of?

Back to Marianne Williamson...

"Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

Yes. What you often suffer from is not "fear of failure" - but the opposite...

"Fear of SUCCESS"

Let's face it. Success IS scary! Everything changes - suddenly. If readers love your book,
suddenly you're the focus of attention to a lot of people. They'll want to ask you questions about
the book. They'll start acting on your advice. They'll try out what you suggest. And when it works,
they'll scream in delight and excitement, before rushing to tell their friends to buy a copy.

It just keeps growing bigger and bigger, like a snowball rolling downhill.

Now THAT'S scary, indeed!

Silence That Nasty Little Voice.

Deep inside your mind, the little voice that's grown used to everyone (often including you) saying
"You can't do it" and "You're not good enough" - that voice now issues a stern warning.

"Are you sure you want to risk making a fool of yourself?" it asks, in the silent darkness of the
night, when you're lying awake, plotting the launch of your new business venture.

It's the time when your defences are down, your confidence at its weakest, your worst fears
linger just beneath the surface.

And it's at times like this you should summon up, from deep within you, the courage and boldness
to address it firmly and strongly.

You'll answer that little voice - with a loud roar:

"Look! I've got nothing to lose. I'm going to give it a shot. So there!"

Bye-bye, fear of failure.

Bye-bye, fear of success.

You're ready to get going - on the most exciting journey of your life.

A journey that may end in wild success, or maybe miserable failure. But even if you "fail" the first
time, you'll learn so much from the experience, you'll be better equipped at your next attempt to
win through.

Most important, you'll have beaten back the demon of FEAR that threatens and throttles you
from chasing your dreams.

Remember when you first decided to try your hand at launching a business?

What made you get started? Surely you believed there was some way you could add value to
people through your business.

• By sharing your experience and knowledge.

• By helping them with something.
• By assisting or doing things for them.
• By making their life easier.
• By connecting people, supporting them, encouraging them.

Whatever.

That's still true, isn't it?

Then why let an imaginary "fear of success" (or "failure") hold you back from even trying?

Push Past The Resistance

Two things help you push past that looming barrier of fear and uncertainty.

• Your Purpose
• Your Passion

Ask yourself WHY you're doing what you plan to do. What is your underlying purpose?
 • Is it to take better care of your family or people you love?
• Is it to add value to other people's lives?
• Is it to leave your mark on the world in some way?
• Is it to earn a boatload of money that'll ease your life and buy you stuff you want?
• Is it a spiritual calling, or the urge to fulfil a deeper longing?

Whatever it is, define it clearly - to yourself.

That is what will keep you pushing through any hurdles and roadblocks you run into as you build
and grow your business.

And then, connect it with your passion.

What do you LOVE doing - so much that you'd do it even without getting paid for it?

That's your passion.

If you can hitch your purpose to something you're passionate about, nothing can hold you back.

And what you're passionate about doesn't even have to be directly connected to your purpose.

For example, there's an accountant who loves working with figures and financial data (passion).
His purpose is to help underprivileged communities. So he does pro bono work for non-profit
organizations.

He says: "When I add up numbers in rows and columns on a spreadsheet, I don't see the
figures... I see the faces of the people I'm helping"!

Another writer gifts his book to charity organizations, and asks them to sell it to their fans and
volunteers - and keep all the money as donations.

He gets readers for his writing (passion), and helps worthy causes with the money raised that
way (purpose).

So Here's What To Do...

To put it all into a nutshell, let's distil this lengthy post into short, crisp actionable points.

• Follow your heart. Launch your business. Don't let fear hold you back.
• Don't be afraid of failing. At this point, you really don't have much to lose.
• Don't be afraid of succeeding, either. It may be different. But it's the nice kind of different!
• Focus on whatever you hope to achieve through building your business (your purpose).
• Try and link what you do to stuff you enjoy (your passion).

We started with a quote from Marianne Williamson's poem, 'Our Deepest Fear'.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness

That most frightens us."

Here's how it continues:

"We ask ourselves

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small

Does not serve the world."

So get out there, you champion, you! Build your business. Grow it bigger. Change the world.

You deserve this shot.

And so do your customers.

 Before you Start

Why do you want to start your own business?

• Is it to make millions and live the life of a wealthy entrepreneur?

• Do you just want to make enough money to cover your monthly expenses and have a
little extra left over?
• Are you hoping to set up some form of income for your retirement years?

Whatever your answer is, it is not wrong. It is important to identify what your purpose and goals
are, before you start building your business. It will save you a lot of work and potential heartache
if you find yourself building for the wrong reasons.

Ask yourself specific questions about your goal:

• How much do I want to earn each month?

• How many hours a day can I work on my business?
• What will be my primary focus?
• Who will do the product creation?
• Who will create my marketing materials?
• Can I outsource any of the functions?

Do you have a clear purpose and plan for your business and where you want it to be in a year,
10 years etc? Have you written it down?

What is your objective for this year? Are you tracking and measuring the results of all the work
that you do? Is what you are doing on a daily basis helping you achieve that objective?

Use the free workbook (link below in the training schedule) to jot down your thoughts and ideas.
 There is nothing stopping you, except yourself

Debbie Miller, a friend of mine that passed away last year, built a stunning business for herself
following a few basic principles.

By the time of her death, she had over 1200 books published on Amazon in the low-content
niche. She was earning over $2400 a month.

She did this while working 40 hours a week making hot dogs and pizza at Walmart.

So how did she do it?

Each night she would come back home, sit down at her computer and start creating planners
and journals. She would use the same interior for a range of planners and then just change out
the covers.

She was publishing eight books a day on average. She did this every single day right up to her
falling ill.

Within a year, she was earning a substantial income. That income is now going to her
granddaughter. What a legacy she created for her family just by committing a few hours a day
to her dream.
 What are ‘low-content’ and ‘blank books’

There is a segment of printed books in the book publishing industry called “No Content, Low
Content Books” or “Blank Books.”

This category includes books such as journals, diaries and planners – any type book where the
customer will write inside of the book. These include recipes, family history, Valentines,
Christmas Planning to mention but a few. The list of topics you could create books for is
unlimited.

Coloring books for example are something that some call “Blank Books,” and others refer to as
“Activity Books.”

“Activity Books” also include puzzle books, drawing books, study guide workbooks, and others.

Some people are even publishing hybrid-versions, where they mix coloring designs into their
journals.

There are no limits to anyone who wants to take advantage of these categories to publish books.

If you stop to think about the “Blank Book” industry, you will start to recognize that few people
bring creativity to this genre.

For example, spiral notebooks like we used in school tend to come with 30-pages, 100-pages
or 200-pages. They also have either no dividers or dividers every 50-pages. Some are hole-
punched, and others are not. Some have spiral-binding, and others have perfect-binding. Some
have blue lines on the pages and others have no lines. Some have a small distance between
the lines, and others have larger spacing between the lines. Some have blue, red, green, yellow
or orange covers on them. Some have artwork on the covers, and others have textured covers.
Some have pockets on the inside of the covers, and most do not.

Then we have the basic journal design, which is very similar to that of a spiral notebook, with
the same variations described above, but with an optional black or gray line instead of blue line.
If we are publishing Kindle books, Amazon prohibits us from publishing the exact same book
under multiple titles. In the Amazon Kindle space, Amazon is committed to preventing customer
complaints, so they won't allow us to put the same book under more than one title, with a couple
of exceptions.

Once we switch from digital books to print books, Amazon is no longer concerned about
having the same guts in more than one book.

If you are doing multiple versions of Lord of the Rings, Amazon may take issue with you doing
that.

However, when you are publishing Blank Books, our customers expect our books will be little
different from those books published by our competitors.

From Amazon's viewpoint, it all comes down to customer complaints. If customers are not
complaining, then there is no problem.

Honestly, I doubt anyone has ever lodged a complaint on the Amazon website about one spiral
notebook being similar to the spiral notebook published by another company. :) The same
sentiment goes to journals, diaries and planners.

Our customers don't expect our version of books in this genre to be substantially different from
those of our competitors, so they don't complain.

The bottom line is that Blank Books is a very special category of print books in the marketplace.

Most importantly, Blank Books is the one category where we can focus on providing lots of
buying options to customers, without having to worry about creating something new every time
we want to publish a new title.
 Are people still buying journals and planners?

In a story in the Financial Times (FT.com), the author says, “Physical diaries and notebooks are
more than holding their own against the digital onslaught of Google docs and online calendars.“

Maria Sebregondi is the co-founder of Moleskine, a luxury notebook company founded in 1997
and based in Milan. 90% of her company’s gross sales are directly tied to paper. She says that
in a digital world, paper is still valued by the young business professionals, who make up her
customer base.

She said specifically, “We always see an increase in annual sales of notebooks and paper
planners despite other digital opportunities.” Her company’s revenues were €128m in 2015, up
from €53m five years earlier. During the first nine months of 2016, her company continued seeing
growth in the sector, with year-to-date net revenues of €95.89m.

Neal Whittington, owns a boutique stationer in Islington, north London, called “Present and
Correct“. Through his store, sales of diaries have increased by an average of 18 to 20 percent
annually since adding them to his inventory in 2009. “And we always sell out,” he says.

Older people tend to favor paper for their to-do lists, journals and personal diaries. But even in
the age of digital, the younger crowds are discovering for the first time the real value of using
paper to keep themselves organized and to record their thoughts and musings for reference
later.
 Principles of Success

Over the last few decades I have learned some valuable lessons and I would like to share them
with you before we start on the meat of the book.

Find something you love doing

I have always loved writing in journals. I could never walk past a book store without going in to
see what books were available and inevitably I would spend a fortune, both on business books
and journals.

Once my digital scrapbooking business failed, I spent several years doing other hobbies but I
missed the design process. Then the low content book market exploded.

I started creating journals and planners for Amazon and was finally enjoying myself again. It
became clear to me that this is the business I loved. I was creating beautiful books and starting
to make some money with it.

Whenever I am designing a new journal or planner, I am in my happy place, because I am

creating for myself. Of course the fact that other people were also liking my journals was a bonus.

When you are doing something you love, it is not a chore or work. It is pure unadulterated fun.

Focus is Critical

There are so many different ways to make money on the internet. It can get a bit overwhelming.
When I first started with my online endeavours, I was all over the place. I was doing self-
publishing, selling t-shirts via Etsy with POD, selling socks, and photographs and canvas prints.

Pick one niche and one avenue to sell your books, and start there. Make sure that particular
revenue stream is running smoothly and all your processes are in place before moving onto the
next idea.

By committing 100% of your time and energy to the one project, you will achieve far more in a
month, than if you focused on 10 different projects within the same time frame.
If you look at the graphic below, you will see that focused attention on one project will yield far
greater results in a shorter space of time.

Start with a Narrow Niche

Often when you hear new entrepreneurs discussing their business ideas, they say the whole
world is their customer base. This is not the case. There is too much competition from other
companies that are targeting every person and their cousin.

Your best bet for success when you are starting out is to find a tiny passionate niche of people
who have a very specific interest or hobbies. The smaller the niche, the more chance you have
reaching those people. Otherwise you just get lost in the ‘noise’ on the internet.

Is there something that you are passionate about? Perhaps family history is your thing. So create
a range of stunning family history journals and planners. You could even create blank lined
notebooks with a family history theme. Create cook books that reflect that theme. Become known
as the “family history journal and planner maker’.

That is just one example. There are thousands of hobbies, interests and ideas out there. Pick
one. Then run with it.

You can always come later and add more ideas and projects.
Commit to a certain number of hours a day

I am aware of the fact that you are busy. You may be working a full-time job, then coming home
in the evening and having to deal with family stuff.

Work out how much you have each day to work on your business? Even it is only one hour a
day, that is fine. Just commit yourself to that hour, and make sure you use the time wisely.

Instant Gratification vs Long Term Results

You need to be patient. When you are starting out, business success is not going to happen
overnight. It takes time to build up your brand, get traffic to your website, and a social media
following.

It really does not matter how old you are right now. Even if you are in your fifties or older, there
is still time. You may not have the same amount of time as someone in their twenties, but they
are not you.

You will be amazed at what you can achieve in a year if you are focused, committed and never
give up.

It will happen.
Mindset
Tough Love

One of my customers asked a question about the figures we mention in the sales letter for
Kickstarter. (See links in resources below). She wanted to know what she could do to replicate
those numbers.

Those sales figures for the three people are all KDP Paperback sales. Those are perfect bound
books printed by Amazon and then shipped to the customer when they place an order on
Amazon.

The reason why they are doing so well is that they have a LOT of books published on
Amazon.

It takes time! Let me say it again. It takes time to get to those numbers. I am not making that
kind of money with Amazon / KDP sales YET but I am getting closer.

I have given myself just under a year to get to a specific number in terms of sales. You can do it
faster or you can do it slower. It does not matter how fast someone else is doing it. What matters
is YOU. Work at a pace that fits your lifestyle.

Secondly, stop second-guessing yourself. If you are going to do this, then commit. And do
something every single day towards that goal. Don’t expect results within a month or two. It takes
time.

What happens is people get excited by those types of success stories and they start out doing
the work. Then they get discouraged because they are not seeing the results. This is normal.
We all go through this.

Some of you might be thinking “Oh, a year is just too long”.

Is it really? Think back to a year ago in your life. What if you had started then and committed
yourself to a task like this? How different would your life be right now?

It took Debbie Miller a year to get to 1200 books. You know how she did it? You read her story
above.
I did 130 books in one day. They were identical lined journals each with a different cover. I
can’t do that every day because I have other work to do but there is NOTHING stopping you
except your own limiting beliefs.

How much spare time do you have in a day? Can you cut out an hour of TV and use that time
to create instead? We know that this works. But it will only work if you are prepared to do the
work. There is no shiny or magic button that will make it happen for you. Only you can make it
happen.

So now for a bit of tough love. I really want each one of you to succeed at this. Nothing
would make me happier than for you to tell me that you are making more money then me selling
blank and no-content books. I don’t care about the amount. What I care about is that your life
has changed as a result of this. That you can go to sleep each night in peace, knowing that you
do not have to worry about finding the money each month to pay your bills and keep your families
alive.

So stop making excuses. Get off Facebook. Stop watching TV. Get up an hour earlier each day.
Do whatever it takes. But just GET IT DONE.

One year from now, you could be in a very different place. Do you think it’s worth it?
Dealing with Setbacks and Imposter Syndrome

Control is an illusion.

You may think you have it all under control and then a freak accident happens. It could be
anything, from you standing up from your desk, hooking your foot on a wire and sending your
external hard disk backup drive flying against the wall, to your daughter dropping the other
backup hard drive a few days ago.

Boom! All my data gone. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It had been one of those weeks where all I want to do is climb into my bed, hide under my blanket
and pretend the world does not exist. Have you noticed how life plays out? When things are
going wrong, everything seems to go wrong. Windows get broken, medical bills suddenly
emerge, customers don’t pay you, people let you down, and you bleed cash like a hosepipe.

It’s times like this when your brain really does a number on you.

I had been experiencing Impostor Syndrome. We all experience it at some point in our lives.
That feeling where you feel you are not good enough and “why on earth would anyone listen to
me” thoughts racing through your head. Couple that with an inferiority complex that suddenly hit
me when I realised that after years of working my tail off, there are a few people making more
money than I am off my Book a Day templates on Amazon. This despite I now have 1200 books
on Amazon. And I am still nowhere near my goal I set for myself at the beginning of last year in
terms of revenue.

Over the years I have learned that there are two ways to handle times like this in your life. The
first is to crawl into bed and hide. And sometimes it is good to do this for a short while. The other
way is to realise firstly that everyone goes through this and not just once in their lives. When this
happens to me (after I have done the blanket fort thing) I know that there are some things that I
must change. It’s time to take stock and look at what is working and what is not working.
What can you do differently? What needs to eliminated and what needs to be added to your life?
It requires a long. hard and often unpleasant look at your actions and behaviours to establish
what needs to change.

But here is the good news.

It gets better. Each time you experience one of these soul-destroying episodes, you come out
stronger and more productive, if you allow yourself to. Life is tough, but so are you.
 Book Formats

There are multiple ways you can publish and sell your books.

Some platforms like Amazon only cater for perfect bound books and e-books for Kindle. Planners
and Journals are not good for Kindle because they are specifically designed to be written in. The
same goes for coloring books. KDP will remove any ‘blank’ books that have been published as
an ebook.

You can sell spiral-bound and perfect bound books on other platforms where you can dropship
your books to your customer directly from your printer.

A cost-effective way of distributing your books is as a pdf. The customer can download the digital
file and print it out themselves. This reduces your administration and order management
significantly.

You can create printables out of your existing journals and planners and sell them a page at a
time for a fraction of normal cost.
 How and where to sell your books

There are so many opportunities for you to start selling your journals and planners, apart from
the traditional approach of publishing on Amazon.

The approaches outlined below range from your own website to Facebook Market Place to
Offline events and organisations. You need to go through the list and decide what would work
for you right now, which would be the easiest to implement and what can you add later.

Amazon

Amazon has a program called KDP which allows self-publishing authors to upload and sell
copies of their books both in electronic format (Kindle) or physical perfect bound books.

The advantage of publishing on Amazon is that there are no costs involved when you start up.
Amazon allows you to list your books for free.

They only start making money when a copy of your book sells. Depending on which format you
have published in and what country the book is sold in, your royalties range from 30% to 70%.

You do have to wait 60 days for any month’s sales, but that is a small price to pay for the large
market that you have access to.

The massive advantage of starting with Amazon as your first step is that it allows you to get
your feet wet in the self-publishing arena without any startup costs. The second advantage is
that millions of people search Amazon every day for products, so the chances of your books
being found are much higher than if you were starting out on your own website.

Your own website

I always recommend to my clients that they buy a domain that reflects their business name when
they start out. You do not have to use it immediately, but it is an important step in your journey.
Although Amazon is a great place to start, you do not own the virtual real estate and you could
be at risk of losing your publishing account if Amazon finds you have contravened their
guidelines and policies.

My suggestion is to buy the domain, then redirect it to your Amazon shop or other third-party
platform that you have chosen. When you are ready to start your own site, then you can turn off
the redirect.

When you buy a domain and hosting, always make sure that it is not part of a shared hosting
program like Wix or Blogger. These are also third-party platforms, and you have no control over
your website if they decide to terminate your account. Get your own independent hosting.

I would recommend that you install WordPress on there, along with WooCommerce, both of
which are free. This will allow you to create a website quickly and easily, and then start listing
your journals and planners.

WooCommerce allows for both digital and physical product sales and has a free extension for
receiving payments via PayPal.

The challenge you face here is that you will have to drive traffic to your website yourself. This
does take time so be patient.

N.B. Make sure that you have a link to all your social media accounts on your website. This
makes it easier for people to find you around the internet.

Etsy

Etsy is an ecommerce website that allows you to create an account and then sell anything on
there. It is one of the most popular sites with millions of visitors and products. Their focus is on
handmade and vintage items, but journals, planners, and stationery fits right in there.

Setting up a shop is simple. You can either choose the free option, or the monthly paid option. I
would start with the free option until you are comfortable.
Etsy makes its money from transaction fees. They take a certain percentage of every sale you
make.

The advantages of setting up shop on Etsy is the huge target market they already have, and the
risk of startup is very low. It is a great place to start building your brand.

You can ship both physical and digital products, so I would suggest you start with PDF download
versions of your journals and planners. You can also create complementary printables to slot
into your planners and journals.

Amazon Sellers Account

Another avenue for your journals and planners is Amazon Seller Central. This allows you to
create a store where you can sell pretty much anything.

I opened mine up to test the sales of spiral bound versions of my journals and planners. It is still
in the early stages but I used both Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) and Seller Fulfilled.

FBA is a lovely option where you can bulk order your journals and then have them shipped
directly to Amazon. When a customer places an order, they will ship directly from their
warehouse to the customer. This eliminates the need for any admin on your part.

Seller Fulfilled requires you to order, print and ship the product to the customer yourself. One
advantage of this method is that your fees are lower, so you will make more money.

The one disadvantage is that it costs you $39 a month to run a Seller’s account. When you are
first starting out you may not be able to afford this.

I suggest that you start off with selling off Amazon KDP. Once you see which books are doing
well, you can convert them to spiral bound versions and then sell those via Amazon Sellers.

Schools and Churches

A great way to get business is to approach local schools, churches and not-profit organisations
and help them with their fundraising efforts.
You can create custom versions of school planners, or scripture journals to cater for their
audience. By adding custom information that is specific to their organisation.

When people know that the profits from a particular purchase are going to be given to support a
good cause, people are willing to over-pay to get those items, because they appreciate the
opportunity to help people and organizations in need.

By offering them 25% to 45% on the retail price, it gives the organisations an incentive to market
the books.

Your Local Markets

Have a few journals printed out and then offer them to craft fairs, local bookshops and gift shops
on consignment.

Test a few ideas based on what is selling in your Amazon or website. Shops and fairs are always
looking for new and unique products to sell.

Facebook Marketplace

Recently a friend of mine started selling stuff on Facebook directly using Facebook Marketplace.
Her niche is vintage collectibles and she posts stuff daily. A colleague of hers makes about
$5000 a month just selling off Facebook.

Now I have not tested this out yet, but I am pretty sure this could be a viable option. Have a few
journals printed and then shipped to your home. Post pictures of the journals in the various
neighbourhood groups you below and test the market. You just never know.

Let me know how it goes.

There are a lot of other avenues for you to sell your books but I wanted to cover the basics just
so that you can get started. That is the secret. Just start.
 Book Production

There are multiple tools you can use to create journals and planners. I will not go into detail of
how you create them using the tools mentioned below but you will find links to resources and
training in the resources chapter.

Word Processing packages like Word, Open Office and Libre are a great way to get started. You
are probably familiar with how they work, so getting started is easy.

Slide presentation software like PowerPoint is another easy way to design planners. What I like
about PowerPoint is that it is very visual and you can see what you are getting instantly. The
only challenge is making sure your margins are set correctly for printing.

Adobe’s Photoshop or Illustrator are wonderful for creating very elaborate layouts but they are
expensive and tend to have a much higher learning curve when mastering the software.

Start with what you feel most comfortable with. Do your first lined journal using either Word or
PowerPoint.

In the Training schedule below I link to some free videos on how to create your first journal and
cover using some of the tools mentioned above.
Tips to speed up production

Each person has to work at a rate that works for them. You may work a full time day job and can
only do the journals and planners in the evening or the weekends. You might work for yourself
and can produce on a daily basis. It does not matter what rate you publish at, so long as you
publish.

However there are ways to speed up the process and I will go through them here:

Pick a journal theme and template

Decide on a theme for the week and format your document according to your theme and subject
matter. Then save the document as a ‘master’ file. If the document does not have a title page
that needs to be changed with each title, then convert that into a pdf and your interior is ready.

If you have a title page, then change the title page for each one and then just save as a PDF.
Save time by not saving it as a doc file. Remember that your ISBN does not have to be on the
book interior, so that will save you some time as well.

Pick a theme for the cover graphics

Design one cover with all the relevant information required and then save it. Now just replace
the graphic, change the colors of the text if required and then save each one as a pdf. I did that
for the journals you see in the blog post graphic. It took me an hour to design 10 book covers.

Create an uploading document

Create a new document that contains the following information:

• Title
• Sub-Title
• Description
• Keywords
• Category
• Price
Now when you are loading your book onto KDP you can simply copy and paste all the relevant
information instead of typing it all out each time.

Every day or once a week?

If you are unable to do daily production you could decide to produce all the books for the week
on a single day. So instead of spending 2 hours a day, you could decide that Saturday is
production day and simply get all your books done in one day. The advantage of this system is
that once you are done, you have achieved your goal for the week and now you can focus on
other stuff.

It does not matter how many books you do on a daily or weekly basis, so long as you are doing
something. By the end of the year you will be significantly further along than you are now.
1000 Books in a Year?

There are three principles that I apply to everything that I create:

1. Re-purpose whatever I create into multiple products

2. Do the work once and get paid for ever
3. Automate as much as possible

Let me give you a practical example of how you can apply this to your own book publishing
business (or anything else you create).

1. Re-purpose whatever I create into multiple products

When I create a journal I will load it onto Amazon as a perfect bound book. Then I will load it
onto my Etsy store as a spiral-bound book and a pdf version for digital download..

That is three products for the work of one.

But you can take it a step further. If you have created the pages yourself i.e. not used PLR, you
can then convert that journal into single pages and sell them as PLR to other authors and artists
to use in their own books. And you can sell it at a slightly higher price because it is a commercial
use product.

So now you have four products that are out there with buy buttons on. That’s an efficient use of
your time.

2. Do the work once and get paid forever.

Once those books are on Amazon and Etsy, all I need to do is focus on marketing and driving
the traffic to the various sites. I never have to work on those books again. They are out there
available for sale.

There is another element to this step. You can create multiple variations of exactly the same
book, journal or planner by changing two things; the title and the cover.
For instance I have over 40 blank lined journals on Amazon that are identical on the inside. The
only difference is the cover. You can do this with any blank book or journal you create because
they are notebooks. They are not fiction or non-fiction books which would cause a problem with
Amazon. A notebook is a notebook and buyers expect that the interior of the book is going to be
similar to any other notebook or journal that is available on the market.

3. Automate as much as possible

Wherever you sell your books, you want the process to be as painless as possible. With Amazon
it’s easy. You load the book onto KDP. Once it is available for sale, Amazon handles the entire
buying process. The customer places the order. Amazon sends the order to KDP. They print the
book and then ship it to the customer. You are not involved in the process at all. At the end of
the month, you get your royalty payment. You literally make money while you sleep.

With my digital Etsy products, the files are stored on Etsy. The customer buys, the money comes
into your Paypal account, and the customer instantly gets a download link for the file. Easy
peasy. There is no work required by you.

The only manual process I still have at this stage is when someone orders a spiral-bound book
on Etsy. My current supplier does not have a working API that integrates automatically. When I
get an order for a physical book on Etsy, I just have to place the order at my printer, then they
print and ship to the client. Each time I create a new journal or planner, I load it onto my printer’s
site and then place the orders as they come in. It takes about 10 minutes to load each book, but
the ordering process is a few minutes work.

How many days are there until December the 31st?

I sat down and worked out how many books I would have to create a day to reach the goal of an
additional 1000 books on Amazon.

That’s 30 books a week. Now before you freak out, this is totally doable. Let’s assume it takes
you about 30 minutes to create a journal. You can do this very easily by using our Book a Day
System templates or by simply creating tables in Word or PowerPoint.
Next you have to design the cover. That should take you another 15 minutes. So far we have
spent 45 minutes on the journal. Now you get smart. Design another 4 covers for the same
journal (15 minutes each). You now have 5 books ready for loading. Total time spent is one hour
and 45 minutes. Call it 2 hours.

So for two hours a day of focused work for the next year and you will have a 1000 books available
for sale.

You can get even more efficient. Why not focus on one theme a week? Instead of designing a
new journal every day, decide on a theme and do variations of the same book for the rest of the
week. You save half an hour a day and you now have 30 books done for the week. That will only
take you about one hour each day. Is that feasible for you?

But wait. There’s more!

Do you remember the point I made about re-purposing everything I create? Now you can add
ALL those journals you created for the week onto your Etsy store or your own website as spiral-
bound books and pdf downloads. That’s an additional 10 products a day or an additional 60
products a week. Each week you could create 90 new books in different formats that have buy
buttons on them. And it means that at the end of the year you have 3000 books available in
different formats. Do you think it’s worth it?
 7 Ways to Grow Your Email List

The most valuable asset you will own is your own mailing list. Most of my marketing is focused
on building that email list. Most of my marketing strategy is focused on building my email list
simply because I have no control over my third-party social media accounts on YouTube,
Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Should those platforms vanish off the face of the earth, I
still have the mailing list.

These are some of the strategies that I have implemented to build my mailing list. Not all of them
would apply to you, but you will get some valuable ideas from that.

Give away a freebie

During December 2018 I released a Christmas Gift for all my customers. After the first day I
was stunned at the results.

I have given away freebies before but this time I did things a little differently. In the past, I would
simply load the zip file onto my file storage site and then share the link. This time, I wanted to be
more strategic with it.
I loaded the product onto my website with a ‘Download” button. However in order to download
the gift, you needed to sign up for an account on m site. Here is where the magic starts
happening.

I have an automatic integration to my email list on Aweber whenever anyone signs up for an
account. I just added all the new accounts to my main mailing list. In hindsight, I should have
perhaps added them to a new list to track the results more accurately, but I did not.

Now I did something I have not done before. I approached several big players (who were not
currently affiliates of mine) in the low content book industry and asked them if they would like to
share the freebie with their list.

This is a copy of the message I sent out:

I have created a Christmas gift for my list. If you would like to promote it to your list, it will allow
you to earn commissions on any products they buy in the future. I am running the affiliate
program through aMember and affiliates get paid out every Monday.

It’s a really good way to get your affiliate promotions on autopilot because they get added to my
email list automatically when they download. I only mail using the raw links, so you would
automatically get the affiliate commission because they signed up from your link.

Here is the product I am giving away: https://www.plrplanners.com/christmas-gift-2018/

If you would like to sign up as an affiliate you can sign up here:

https://plrplanners.com/amember/aff/signup

All commissions are 50% unless otherwise specified. Once you are approved, you just log into
the members area, go to affiliates and get your affiliate link for the Christmas gift. It will be sitting
right at the top.

Thank you

Most of the people I approached just ignored me. That’s okay by the way. Two people responded
with a yes.
Lesson learned: You don’t ask, you don’t get!

So here are the results of the Christmas Gift Giveaway.

Not bad hey?

I turned the Christmas Gift into a paid item on Monday the 7th of January and the site came to
a screeching halt. Yikes!! That is a scary thing to watch.

However January is traditionally a slow month, especially in the beginning when people have
overspent on the holiday, kids go back to school and most people have to go back to work.

Learning from the successful

When Marlon initially agreed to promote my freebie, he asked me this question:

“Why do you not have an OTO on your freebie?”

I replied that this was meant to be a real gift, I do it every year and I like doing it.

“You are wasting an opportunity. Put up an one time offer (OTO) and they can decided if they
want it or not.” was his response.

So this week I spent a few days creating a ton of content and thinking about ways to ramp up
the traffic again. I decided to follow his advice.
This time the Valentines Freebie that I loaded sent customers to a new page after ‘buying;’ the
freebie that offered them a really great discount of 50% on some matching jpg page templates.
So far thirteen people have bought it.

Now it is not huge money, but the conversion percentage was 5% which is not too bad. If that
conversion sticks, I should earn about $0,31 per download over all after affiliates commission. If
I increase the number of downloads, I will increase my revenue.

Here are the results to date for the Valentines freebie:

So both these freebie giveaways have had a significant impact on my email list building:

And I have 876 registered customers on my website!

I am really thrilled with these results.

However, you have to keep testing so I will be trying a few new things during the next few months:

Try a different product for the OTO when I release a new freebie. I don’t think people are that
fond of jpg page templates, so I need to think of something that would increase the conversions.

Drive traffic to the freebie offers using Facebook advertising and monitor the results

Approach more potential affiliates. They can only say no.

Your Homework

What I would like you to do is to think of ways you can provide a freebie for your customers. And
decide on what kind of one time offer you can give them that they will jump at.

If you are on Etsy, have a link to your free offer in your bio.

Integrate your Etsy store with Aweber or Mailchimp or your preferring email provider

On your Thank You Page, have a link or an image to a product that they may like.

If you have a website, you can apply the same principles as for Etsy

If you are using aMember or other software, you can generally setup an OTO or redirect them
to a url when they sign up

If you have any questions or ideas, please ask them in the Facebook group.

PRINCIPLES

• Create a high value freebie

• Integrate to your mailing list software
• Have an upsell offer that complements the freebie
• Approach affiliates to promote the freebie
Participate in a bundle sale

During the month of February 2019 I took part in a bundle sale organized by one of my
associates. This bundle contained about 24 different products related to the low content book
niche. For $27 you got all of the products.

The benefit to the customer is that they got a truck load of goodies for a great price.

As a contributor, I was offered a 75% affiliate commission which I thought was reasonable. Other
affiliates were given a 50% commission.

The benefit to me as a product creator was that I would get the all the email address of the
individuals that bought the bundle assuming of course that they came to my site and downloaded
my contribution using the discount code they were given.

One of the disadvantages of this method is that the customer had to go to 24 sites to get their
products, which is irritating for them.

Customers would prefer to download everything all at once, but that leaves the problem of how
each product creator gets access to the emails. I am still working on a solution for that.

I have learned a lot from my first bundle sale exercise and the results were interesting.
There were 600 sales in total, of which I made as an affiliate. So not only did I generate over
$1600 in revenue for myself, but my list grew substantially.

Here are the results.

Description

New Account Registrations 100

Mailing List Subscribers 299

It’s interesting to note that although there were 600 sales, not all of them have accessed my
product yet.

There are two reasons for it. One they were not interested in my product which is fine. The other
reason is that they have just not yet had a chance to download it.

The only reason why I mention is that it is important to track the results of any promotional activity
you do.

Was it worth my time?

Did it give me the results I expected?

What would I do differently next time?

Not all bundle sales work out that well. I took part in a second bundle sales and personally have
only sold 2 using my affiliate link.

However the sale is doing well, but my list is not that keen on the products supplied.

YOUR HOMEWORK
Find a group of people that are going to be running a bundle sale in the near future and ask
them if you can contribute.

Alternatively run your own bundle sale on a select few of your products.

Make sure you capture the email addresses of everyone who gets the bundle.

Track your results.

Analyze the data.

PRINCIPLES

• Do the bundle products have a good fit with your target market?
• Find quality trustworthy partners to run the bundle sale with.
• Make sure customers do not have to ‘opt-in’ to get their products. The integration to the
mailing list must be automatic.
Website Lead generator

Often people will land on your website but not buy anything. You want to tempt them with an
offer they can’t refuse.

On my PLR Planer’s website, the first thing they see is this:

Now most of you are probably doing this but there is one step that most people forget about and
that is the Thank You page. This is a vital step in the process.

THE “THANK YOU” PAGE

Once they have completed the form, they immediately get redirected to this page:

https://www.plrplanners.com/signuptu1/

This is the Thank you Page and this is very important. What you are doing here is starting to
build a relationship with your potential customer.

Instead of them ending up at a generic page from your mailing list provider, they now learn more
about you.

Stepping out the process for them to follow is a great way to build trust.

Here is what the page looks like:

Look at the different elements I have on the page:

• A description of how they will receive their free training.

• A photo of myself and my name
• Links to all my social media accounts
• An incentive to get some more freebies
• A link to my store and productivity tools

N.B. Having a photo and your name immediately raises the trust level for the potential customer.
They need to know that you are a real person and not some fly-by-night operator.
Your Homework

1. Setup a Thank You page for your Freebie Lead Generator on your website.
2. Tell them what to expect next.
3. Insert links to your Facebook group and other social media accounts
4. Add a Contact Me button if it is not already on your menu options.
5. Add a photo of yourself and put your name on the page.

PRINCIPLES

• Build trust
• Tell them what to do next
• Get them to your social media accounts
• Encourage a purchase
Website sidebar

Your website is your primary virtual real estate that drives your business. You need to use it as
effectively as possible.

Whenever someone arrives at my website, they will see the sidebar, except for the home page.

When I or my affiliates promote a specific product, visitors will land on the sales page for that
product. Each of my sales pages has the side bar on it.

Now most marketers will tell you that this is not a good idea because it is distracting to the buyer
and may send them off in another direction instead of buying.

When it comes to the commercial use items on my site, they are either going to buy it or not
depending on their own personal requirements for their business.

The first thing visitors to any of my other website pages see is this:

They see TWO freebie offers. The first one is a freebie product on my site that they must create
an account for in order to download.

Once they do that, they are added to my list.

Each month I will change the first freebie to either match a season or occasion in order to
generate more signups and potential sales.
I always have an upsell that matches it to encourage someone to spend money with me.

The second offer is my standard lead generator where they get sent to the Thank You page
mentioned above.

Get Creative

You can create a flip book of the freebie and either embed the code on your website so people
can see exactly what they are getting.

Another idea is convert the flip book into a video and embed that on your website.

HOMEWORK
 • Create a second freebie and an upsell with a substantial discount on the normal price.
• Create a mockup for the freebie and place the image in your sidebar with a link to the
product page.
• Redirect subscribers to the upsell page before downloading
• Insert a mockup cover of your main lead generator and embed sign up code in the
sidebar.

Principles

• Provide as many opportunities as possible to get their email address

• Give them huge value in exchange
Facebook Groups pro tip

I am sure you are familiar with Facebook groups and pages, but this little trick I learned last year
when I joined an Amazon Merch group.

Did you know that you can ask people questions before they join your group?

This is great for making sure you are targeting the right customer for your group but … you can
take it one step further.

In each of my groups the last question I ask is this:

“Would you like a free planner sent to your email to get you started immediately? If so, please
type your email address in.”

Of those people that answer the questions, 80% give me their email address.

Each day I copy and past the email address and their name to an excel spreadsheet. Then about
twice a week I just import that Excel spreadsheet into my mailing list.

The automatic autoresponder then sends them the free planner and puts them into the cycle of
follow up emails.

You can set

these questions up under Group Settings.

It will take you a few minutes each day but the work is worth it. This was one of my biggest
contributors to my list growing so fast in the last 6 months.

Homework

• Change your group settings to include a question about a freebie and their email address.
• Create a spreadsheet and copy and paste all details in before approving their requests.

Principles
• You are asking their permission
• Their acceptance is now an indication that they are interested in your product and
services.
Other Freebies

Provide other samples of your work as a free offer on your website. I have a freebies section in
my store that allows people to sample some of my other product range. For instance, on PLR
Planners, I have a set of Pastel Book Covers that are free.

In this case they are not redirected to an upsell. I just want them to register an account on my
website, which then automatically adds them to my email list.

The purpose is to introduce potential customers to my other products that will help them build
their self-publishing business. I supply graphics, templates, book covers and coloring pages.

By giving them a commercial use freebie, they get to see the quality of my products first hand.
This will build trust and confidence and ease the way for them to buy more of my stuff.

HOMEWORK

• Add one new additional product on your store for free

 • Make it different to your other products e.g. not a planner.
• Make the download process easy and seamless

PRINCIPLES

• Provide top quality product

• Think of products that your target market would find very useful.
• Ease their pain.

Add a Read Me file to your Product Download

I have only started doing this recently. It was something I used to do all the time when I was
creating digital scrapbook designs.

Create a document that looks similar to the one posted below and include it in the zip file for
each product you create and sell, including the freebies.

This will encourage people to go back to your website and get a freebie or join the Facebook
group and answer the questions.
 Market Research

In September 2019, I ran a detailed survey for my customers. In exchange I offered them a $20
discount code on my store.

That Market Research just cost me $4520 in 4 days.

Or did it?

226 people responded and eagerly took advantage of the discount.

I was asked how I could afford to give away so much money in an effort to better understand my
customer's needs.

But have I really lost anything?

The information contained in those responses is pure gold. As a result of just a few suggestions
I created a set of templates that sold for $49 and my customers went wild. It is the best-selling
item on my store to date.

I asked the question ‘What is your biggest challenge?” and the answers were so interesting. I
am now able to understand exactly what my customers need and want. Along with the
suggestions of training that they would like, I now have content ideas for Africa.

Apart from the training, I asked what type of low content resources they would like. I got a slew
of stunning ideas. Some of which I had not even thought of. So again, a list a mile long of new
journals, planners and resources to create.

But what about the products they bought with that $20? Have I not lost revenue as a result?
Why did I not just offer a free journal or planner that they could download?

Let’s think about this. Those products were already created and paid for. I did not have to fork
out any cash to get in my store. It’s existing content and I have a lot of it. By giving them the
coupon, they could choose exactly what they wanted. Result: Happy customer.
A lot of the people who used the discount code have never bought from me in the past. They
have however downloaded all the freebies I have on the site. So I have never earned any
revenue anyway from them, but the information they provided me with is priceless.

Other people used the coupon code to buy something that was a bit more than the discount. So
I had unexpected revenue.

So what did this exercise actually cost me?

One hour to setup the survey and make sure that the customer received an instant email after
hitting the submit button. I used Gravity Forms for this exercise (Just LOVE Gravity). Then I
posted in my Facebook groups and sent an email to my list with the subject “How would you like
to earn a quick $20?”

The ROI? Priceless.

Just the one product that I released as a result of that survey generated $8379 in revenue.

HOMEWORK

• Create a survey to find out what your customers want.

• Offer a great discount or free product to entice them to fill in the form.

PRINCIPLES

• Getting your customers to tell you exactly what they want is priceless.
• Give them huge value in exchange
In Summary

Although I tend to use a lot of ‘free’ products to build my email list, it has definitely paid off.

I started PLR Planners in June 2018 and I now have 3030 unique subscribers on my mailing list,
just by using the principles outlined above. When I first published this book in April 2019, I had
1900 subscribers. That is an increase of over 1000 subscribers in six months.

The other advantage is that it drives traffic to my site. Traffic generation is another topic for
discussion, but you can see the results in the image below.

The more traffic I get, the more money I make. In the interest of promised transparency, here is
how much I earn.

I make an average of $0.40 per visitor on this site alone. You can do the calculation.

The huge jump in my email list means that my affiliate promotion income has also increased
exponentially.

Homework

• Put all the above concepts into action

• Create a spreadsheet and start tracking your results from each activity.
• Track your income for each month.
• Is there a correlation?
 Persistence Pays Off

On the 1st of October I finished off my accounts for September and then realised something
incredible.

My business had hit a MAJOR milestone in turnover for this year, and it was only September.

I sat there thinking "I must have made a mistake" and had to recalculate, but It was right.

Not once in all those years since I started my online business did I think I would ever get here.
It has been ten very long, very dark years at times.

I was shattered to be honest. And oddly enough felt a little scared.

So I wanted to share a few thoughts as to how I got here, and hopefully it will help you.

1) Never give up. No matter how desperate it gets, keep on going.

2) You may have to change direction a few times until you find the place where you love what
you doing and it is no longer work in the true sense of the word.

3) It will be hard work. There is no getting around that.

4) You will have to sacrifice something. It could be time, social events, but you have to make
space in your head and life for it to happen.

5) Focus!!! Do one thing and do it well until it is self-sustaining. Then you can expand and move
into other revenue streams.

6) You can't do it alone. You need to surround yourself with like-minded people who will
encourage you and offer constructive advice in your journey. Find partners with the same work
ethic as you have. I have been blessed with partners like Bill Platt, Sue Fleckenstein and Hans
Miedema.

7) Get a business coach. I am so grateful to my coach who is not afraid to rap me on the knuckles
when it is required.
8) Find out what your customers want and give it to them.

9) Help someone else who is battling. A lot of people helped me out during the dark times, and
I will never forget it. The best part is that I am now able to pay it forward.

10) Keep making mistakes. Keep learning new things. Never get complacent.

As a reward to myself I went off and bought myself a big bunch of flowers. Why flowers? Because
they symbolize wealth to me. When I was battling, flowers were a luxury.
 Training Schedule

Your next steps

1. Download your PDF workbook from my site and use the code EMPIRE100 to get it for
free.

https://plrplanners.com/amember/product/131

2. Follow me on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/plrplanners/

3. Follow me on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/DynamicSA/

Free Training – Power Publishing

Publish your low content book in 3 easy steps using PowerPoint.

Creating your first journal in MS Word

Step 1: How to create a Journal in Word - How to setup left and right margins in Word for your
book

https://youtu.be/1erDWW7gNV0

Step 2: Creating a Lined Journal in Word

https://youtu.be/wq4sfxBVBe0

Step 3: Creating a 2 Column Journal in Word

https://youtu.be/KIf9CjnWScE

How to create a journal in 2 minutes with JPG Templates

https://youtu.be/5Qm0KGNwDFE

Creating Book Covers

With Photoshop -

https://youtu.be/3XtJh-qjO74

With Canva

https://youtu.be/IzH2O6Nq5go

How to upload your book to KDP

Kelli Roberts - https://youtu.be/Sc8aWdawE-Q

 Resources

Automation Tools To Speed up Production

PowerPoint Replicator

https://www.plrplanners.com/powerpoint-replicator/

Journal Accelerator

https://www.plrplanners.com/journal-accelerator/
Book a Day System

http://bookadaysystem.com/

Kickstarter Membership

https://www.plrplanners.com/kickstart/

Spiral-bound Printers

Snowfall Press (USA) - http://www.snowfallpress.com/

Lulu (Canada) - https://www.lulu.com/

DoxDirect.com (UK) - https://www.doxdirect.com/

Ready Made Commercial Use Journals

Instead of designing your journals and planners from scratch, you can use some of our ready-
made journals that have full commercial use. This means that you can rebrand them as your
own and publish onto Amazon immediately.

Here are just a few of the resources available on the site.

Visit my site for more resources: https://www.plrplanners.com/

 About The Author

I have been a teacher, a bookkeeper, a web designer, a project manager and a systems analyst
but in all that time I never really loved what I was doing. Now all I do is design beautiful planners
and journals, and I make money doing it.

I am a firm believer in the abundance theory, in that there is enough business to go around for
everyone. To this end I love creating tools and training that will help you grow your self-publishing
business to a point where you are as happy and content as I am.

Diana Heuser

https://www.plrplanners.com/