Transcription
Here's a KDP self-publisher who is making over $14,000 a month, and she isn't running ads. She's using the power of TikTok to drive traffic to Amazon to sell her Bold and Easy coloring books. I showcased her brand in my last video and went into more detail about how much she's making per month. If you have not yet seen that video, I will leave it linked for you down below.
In today's video, I'm going to be showing you how to market your Amazon KDP books on TikTok. This is a full step-by-step tutorial. I'm a complete beginner to TikTok, and so this tutorial is very beginner-friendly.
Before we get started, if you're new here, I'm Katherine Westbrooks. I'm a stay-at-home mom and entrepreneur. I've been self-publishing on Amazon KDP since 2023, and I have generated over $42,000 in royalties. Now, $42,000 in royalties might not seem like a lot over the course of 2 years, but in that 2 years, I took 18 months off and didn't touch my KDP account the entire time, and I still managed to make over $600 per month in passive income. I broke down the exact numbers about how much I made in this video, and I will leave that link down below as well.
Now, I'm a busy new mom, and this tutorial took a long time to make. So, if you want to see more content like this, be sure to like and subscribe so I know to keep making more content like this. Let's go ahead and share my screen and get started.
First thing is that you need a book to promote. I chose to publish a new book under a new pen name and order a copy of your book that you want to promote, not a sample of your book. If you order a sample before you publish your book, it's going to have "Not for Sale" on the cover. So, you don't want that. You want to wait until your book is published and then order author copies.
Now, I was inspired by Sunflow Colors. So, I used Chat GPT to give me ideas of a similar but also unique name. And after some back and forth with Chat GPT, I decided on the name Clover Colors for my new coloring book brand. Now, most KDP YouTubers do not show you their exact book brand, but in the spirit of full transparency and me wanting to help you learn and grow as a self-publisher, I've decided to show you my exact book brand that I'm building. So, here it is. My book is Cottagecore Bold and Easy. And here's the listing page on Amazon. I will also have my book linked down below if you want to click on it and look at it on Amazon. You're welcome to do that.
If you want to see a full flip-through of this book and show you all the coloring pages inside, also my prompts for how I created these images on ChatGPT, and also how I got the full colored version of each image for the coloring book cover, comment "yes, please" down below, and I'm happy to make that video for you.
So, after you have created your book and ordered copies, step two is to create a new TikTok to match your pen name or something similar. For example, if your exact name of your book brand is taken on TikTok, you can try adding things like "colors," "co," or "publishing" at the end, or ask ChatGPT to help you create a username that goes with your pen name. You can create multiple TikTok accounts with different emails. That's what I did. I have several TikToks for different book brands. So, this bold and easy coloring book is under a new TikTok that's separate from my other brands. Here's my TikTok and the videos that I've created so far, which is not a lot. I need to start posting more consistently. But after only posting a few times, here's how many followers I currently have, which is great growth for a brand new account.
Before I ever posted anything, I did go and follow some other coloring book brands who are posting similar content to what I knew I would be posting, which is coloring their own coloring books. So, I did go follow a handful of brands, and I did comment and like their posts. So, that way, TikTok would know what my primary target audience is for my account, which is people who like to color.
The third step is to create your value offer. You can't put a link in bio on TikTok until you have a thousand followers. So, in order to reach 1,000 followers in the quickest way, you have to create a value offer or a reason for people to follow you. Now, I did not do this at first. My first videos were just me coloring my coloring book pages, and then I would just show a picture of my book on Amazon. I would also put directions for how to find my books in my description and the comments down below. And those videos were getting likes but not enough followers. And I thought about it, and I have to give people a reason to follow me.
So, I created a Beacons account to create a lead magnet to get people to follow me. I took five pages from my coloring book. I put it in a separate PDF with a cover page like this and a link to my book on Amazon. And I put this in a PDF and I uploaded it to my Beacon store. So, people could go to my Beacons page, put in their email, and then get my free download. Now, currently, I have the free Beacons account, which is all you really need to get started. Once somebody subscribes to my email list, they will get this email in their inbox. I use ChatGPT to help me draft this email template. If you scroll down, "Get my free pages." If I click on that, it's going to take me to my PDF that I uploaded into Beacons. Here are my five pages. I made this on Canva.
So, if you're wondering how creating a Beacons account and offering a free download is going to translate to more followers on TikTok, then stick with me. I'm going to show you how you can weave those two things together and make sure that your free offering translates to more followers. For now, we're going to go ahead and skip ahead to step four, which is creating your videos on TikTok.
The only items I used to record my videos on TikTok were this phone mount that I attached to my desk, these markers to color, and this card stock that I just cut to fit the size of my book, and I placed it behind each page before I colored so the markers wouldn't bleed through to the next page. I will have all these items linked down below in the description.
Okay, so we're in TikTok. Here's my account. Now, I already recorded all these videos ahead of time, so they're in my drafts. You would just click the plus button and record your video from there. Now, what I do is I record the entire time while I'm coloring my coloring page. I don't pause the video. So, I just have one longer video that I then edit afterwards. So, all I did was attach my phone to my phone mount, and then I just set up my coloring space and started coloring. So, once I stop recording, I have one longer video that I have to edit.
The first thing I do is I increase the speed for the entire video. I like to do three times the speed on my videos. I find that it's a good pace. Next, I use the split button down below to break up the video into different clips. I usually break up my video into clips about 3 seconds each. I aim to make all of my videos between 30 seconds and a minute long. When I'm deciding on which clips to use, I like to show the beginning of me coloring a certain section and the end of it. And then I'll go back and delete the middle part of that clip. So, I just have the beginning and then the end. And I just repeat that process for the entire clip where I'm coloring.
So, once you're done editing and you have your entire video clip of you coloring your coloring page, then just go to Amazon and take a screenshot of your book, and then just insert that screenshot at the end of your video. Next, you're going to add text on the screen for a call to action. For this video, I just put "Follow for more free coloring pages" as an example, but you can also ask ChatGPT to give you a list of call to actions for people to follow you, and then just change up your call to action every few videos. Make sure you extend your text on the screen so it stays on for the entire frame. Next, you're going to add sound to the video. I usually just choose a trending sound.
Once you're happy with your video, on the next screen, you're going to edit the cover photo. For the cover photo, I usually just choose a photo that shows the picture all the way colored or mostly colored. Then you're going to add your text hook on the screen. I use ChatGPT to give me all of my text hooks and captions. What I recommend is making a list of all of your coloring pages with a brief description. So, for this one, I would do "Cottagecore bunny and flowers." And do that for all of your coloring pages, and then put that list into ChatGPT and say, "Give me however many pages of text hooks and captions for each description." That way, it gives you a text hook and a caption that goes with that coloring page. Then you can just copy and paste from ChatGPT into a note on your computer or phone. So, you can easily just copy and paste into TikTok whenever you're posting.
So, that brings us to step five, which is to get more followers and build an email list. Earlier in the video, I showed you how to create your value offer so people want to follow you and subscribe to your email list. After doing a lot of research between Standre, Beacons, Linktree, I decided to go with Beacons. Beacons is affordable and offered a free plan to start with your basic features that you need to get started. And for only $10 a month, you can upgrade to their creator plan, and you get a free custom domain. I'll have my affiliate link for Beacons down below if you want to use that $20 in free credits.
Now, I'm going to circle back to how you can use Beacons with your videos on TikTok to get more follows and get to 1,000 followers as fast as possible. Remember, you can't put a link in bio like you can here on this account until you get to 1,000 followers. So, that's why our goal is to get to 1,000 followers as fast as possible. Once you do have a thousand followers and you're able to put your link right here, your followers or other people who watch your videos can easily click on your link and find your books on Amazon.
But here's the part that ties all of this together, and this is what most people skip. Before you post your videos on TikTok, make sure you add a simple call to action like "Follow for more free coloring pages." It's a small step, but gives people a clear reason to follow you right away. Plus, it sets you up for what comes next: building your email list. In your description, say something like, "Subscribe to my email list at" and then your website for free coloring pages delivered to your inbox every month.
Adding a simple call to action with a value offer like free coloring pages is so important for three reasons. Number one, it builds trust with your audience. When someone gets a freebie from you, they instantly see the quality of your books. You're also giving value first, which makes people feel more connected to you. Number two, your email list is something that you own. You have a direct tie to your audience, and you can email them whenever you want. Number three, it leads to more Amazon sales naturally. If people love the free pages that you send, it's an easy, non-pushy step for them to go check out your books on Amazon. You can easily include your book link in your emails.
To send freebies to your email list, you can just add your coloring pages for that month or week to your Google Drive and include that link in your emails. Be sure to change the permissions on the link that you include in your email. You want to change it from "restricted" to "anyone with the link." That way, they don't have to be logged into an account to view what you have in that link. Then you can just copy and paste the link into your email that you send out through Beacons.
If you plan on sending out monthly emails to your email list and advertising on social media and showing what your free coloring pages look like, it might be easier just to have all of your freebies in one Google Drive folder and then just share the link to that folder. So, here's my Google Drive with my two freebies. And instead of just linking to one free PDF, I can just share this entire folder. So, up here you want to click "Share." And for general access, you want it to say "Anyone with the link." Here's my email automation for Beacons that automatically sends out whenever someone subscribes to my email list. And I'm just changing this button link to be to that entire Google Drive. So, whenever someone subscribes to my email list, they get access to all of my freebies in one drive. It just makes more sense in my head and keeps everything simple. So, instead of sharing a single PDF, I'm just going to be sharing my entire drive. But you can do it however you want. You can add folders right here, and you can organize it by color or date or holiday season, however you want to do it. Again, I have my affiliate link for Beacons down below so you can try it out. It's a really great tool to grow your email list. Very user-friendly and very easy to use.
As far as what free coloring pages to send to your email list, you can either choose to send a few pages of your published coloring books on Amazon or create new coloring pages in the same style to go with an upcoming season or holiday. For my cottage core coloring book, I could create pages like this to send to my email list subscribers. These are in the same style as my main Cottagecore Bold and Easy coloring book, but just for Christmas. So, I could repeat this for different holidays or seasons.
You can also post videos on TikTok that showcase your free coloring pages and encourage people to like and follow you on TikTok, as well as subscribe to your email list for those free coloring pages delivered to their inbox. So, I would just alternate your posts on TikTok. I would mostly stick to videos of you coloring your coloring pages out of your published book on Amazon. And then your other posts can be your free coloring pages that you're advertising to get people to join your email list.
So, your game plan is simple. Record videos of you coloring your books. Add a call to action at the end of your video, in your video description, and the comments. Be sure to link to your Beacons account so people can sign up for your email list. And then finally, hit 1,000 followers so you can add your Beacons link in your bio. Do all of that consistently, and you'll grow your TikTok, build an engaged email list, and get more eyes on your Amazon books all at the same time.
All right, guys. That's it for today's video. Hopefully, it was helpful for you to start marketing your books on TikTok. Ask me any questions down below, and be sure to let me know in the comments what videos you want to see next. As always, be sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss any future content, and I will see you in the next one.