Amazon's Badass KDP Leader with Tammie Chrin - Seller Roundtable Episode 135 - Part 1

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Things we discussed in this session:

A. Part

B. Part 2

Things we mention in this session of Seller Round Table:

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Transcription in this episode:
[00:00:01] spk_2: Welcome to the seller Roundtable E Commerce, Coaching and Business Strategies with Andy Arnott and [00:00:07] spk_0: Amy Wees. [00:00:08] spk_2: Yeah. [00:00:09] spk_1: Hey, everybody, what's [00:00:11] spk_0: up? [00:00:12] spk_1: This is episode 135. I can't believe I can't believe how long how many episodes we've had of the celery round table. And I'm Amy Wiese and my co host and, er not is not here today, but that's okay, because we're going to go on without him, even though it's snowing and I don't know right now, he says he's embracing it. Last week he covered for me. Well, I was in Colorado, where our guest, Tammy, is from enjoying the snow, enjoying the clean, clear mountain air and the cold. So, you know, we're back in the warmth of San Antonio now, and I'm excited to be here. So, uh, Tammy, it's so good to have you and you guys you you're going to learn so much today from Tammy because she has a really cool story as a seller. But she's also learned to do things with Kindle direct publishing with using publishing books on Amazon that I promise. Like I said in the Livestream earlier, I promise you haven't learned Yeah. So, you know, because she kind of, like, figured all this stuff out on her own. So, um, yeah, it's really cool what she does, and we're going to learn from her today. And Tammy, welcome to the show. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about you and your background? As much as little as you want to tell us. Sometimes we ask for blood samples. You know, I just want to just that kind of stuff. [00:01:43] spk_0: Right? Your curlers. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me, Amy. I appreciate everybody joining us and being here with us, and and, um, yeah, she said, My name is Tammy, and I have been I've actually been in an entrepreneur about 30 years, So I once I was five, I figured, but I had a brick and mortar business for many, many years. And as our lives were starting my husband, I was starting to transition out of the parents or daughter's graduating college. And we lived in California. We lived in I grew up in Sonoma, California, which is by Napa Valley. So I grew up in a very beautiful area, but we decided to move to another beautiful area and moved to Colorado, where Amy was just visiting, which it was just awesome to see everything that you were doing up here and and in great on Facebook. But so I had run a brick and mortar for 30 years. My daughter was graduating from college and we decided to move to Colorado. But before that, so my brick and mortar business was going to be done. It was a hair salon. I owned a salon for many, many years and, um, did that and it was fantastic. Loved every minute. But moving meant I was leaving my business so it could not follow me with my clientele. So in 2014, we got it. My husband decided to check into doing, uh, retail arbitrage, flipping the products on Amazon. But, you know, kind of. I think a lot of people start out that way. Is just the retail advertising, I would say. So we got into that, and so that would carry this out to, uh out here to Colorado. And my husband still had his corporate job, so we were able to transition him out of that and about a year into it. After we moved to [00:03:25] spk_1: Colorado. [00:03:26] spk_0: So I have been in Katy Perry into Amazon selling for quite a while. So 2014, we did that, and I I I liked it and everything, but I started, um, had that creative field, that I really wanted to try something. And my husband said you should get into the KDP, and it was merch and kdp Merck, which came out, I think before kdp anyway. Where? So I just I'll dabble in that a little bit, you know, with my Amazon business. And then I'll do the KDP, and I found that I really, really enjoyed it. And so I started creating books and putting up on Amazon and thinking they were just gonna magically sell [00:04:08] spk_1: anybody who's ever done. KTT is like, you take all excited about creating a book, and you're like, Okay, I'm going to create this, but I have a couple of books here, You know. I've got my little books over here. Yeah, the [00:04:23] spk_0: little journals, you know, and all that stuff. [00:04:25] spk_1: Yeah, and then you realize that the listing capabilities on Katie are not the same as listing a product on Amazon. And then you realize that you pretty much. You're never going to get traffic unless you drum it up yourself. Correct? [00:04:41] spk_0: Correct. And then you realize that [00:04:43] spk_1: advertising is completely different for books than it is for anything else. So there's like this whole cycle and process to selling books on Amazon, and I think it's so cool that you figured out how to bundle books with your products and we'll get get in in a minute. But yeah, I mean, was that a big surprise for you when you started creating these books and you realize like, Oh, this is not not the same. [00:05:15] spk_0: It was definitely a shocker because, you know, our Amazon business was doing well and we were flipping doing all this stuff and, you know, and I think that the books up thinking it was going to happen. And it was like cricket nothing. Nothing was happening. I was like, And then I found one of my books sold, and I thought it was my sister, of course. And I was like, Well, that was nice of her. But in the big picture, you know, it's kind of like, well, not be paying the mortgage with these books, so so taking all of that and my background being in business, I started kind of leaning towards more of branding booklets for businesses, and so I kind of went down that place and and started creating these Brandon booklets. But then what will be great for you guys is branding these booklets for your products, and this is where I'm where I want to lead you guys with. This is because there was a way where I said I was branding for businesses. But then why not for Amazon sellers or or other people are selling on different platforms to create Brandon Booklet for their product? And so I started looking at that and how that would really look for people and started asking questions about branding booklets for businesses and using them and putting them in your product. So let's [00:06:29] spk_1: talk about let's back up and talk about how you. So you discovered that just selling a book on Amazon was not easy. You had to drum up your own traffic. How did you come up with this idea of making books for local businesses? Talk about how you came up with that idea and what your first, your first book was for local business. [00:06:55] spk_0: All right, so one of my first books, I started getting into health and nutrition. So I was at a lot of gyms and I was working with a lady who owned a nutrition company, started going to gym for my personal self. And I started thinking about if I could sell these books to a business, so if I could brand these books to a business. So I started using gyms. Gyms were my first one nutritionist gyms that kind of thing in my local area and ask them the question. Would you consider having a brand new book for your business? And it happened to be [00:07:25] spk_1: this business here [00:07:27] spk_0: anytime. Fitness, which is a franchise, uh, fitness company, because I was noticing and taking a look around as as a business person. We're gonna look around and everyone was writing things down because I know a lot of people think, uh, no one used books anymore, you know, it's all digital. But that wasn't the case. Everyone had some type of notebook was tracking there. You know, reps on how many weights they were lifting all these things that they were tracking. So I asked the business owner, You know, do you have anything from your company? And he said, No, I just had a piece of paper. They print off and you know, a new client would come in and they go through all the machines and check. And so when I asked him, what would you think of having your own branded booklet for your business? He was over the top like it was He's like, how? How and how can you do it and all these things. So I said, yes, I can. And we sat down and mapped out a whole plan. And he has this great Brandon booklet for himself that is ordered off of Amazon and KDP. So that was my first business that I started thinking about. [00:08:31] spk_1: Wow. And so you had already created a couple of books in KDP and yes, on your own. So you'd already dabbled in it. So you knew how to do it. You knew the process. Then you go to anytime fitness because you're a member there and you're getting into health and fitness, and they give you this booklet of this manually printed thing. [00:08:51] spk_0: And it was just you know papers. You know, we have papers, [00:08:53] spk_1: and just [00:08:54] spk_0: you're letting us out like [00:08:55] spk_1: this. Could be, like, more legit. Like hope you make this world. Exactly. Yeah. So [00:09:04] spk_0: that's kind of that That So I thought, Well, we sat down. What would you like in that? And that's sort of how the KDP for me to be was sort of, um, started was basically in a gym and, you know, watching everybody track everything. And I thought if I could create this brand of booklet for them, it's under my KDP account. And then they get the the business is buying the booklets from Amazon or a call host sale from Amazon, and they're driving traffic to the book. So I make a recurring income stream from them every time a book, a book is published. [00:09:39] spk_1: So that was your first way. That was my first way. Driving traffic to books is you had a client that needed I did this with Amazon merch. So I found on Amazon merchants the same thing, like you create a T shirt. But there's 50 million other people who create the same T shirt on the same right, and you're like, Okay, How am I supposed to sell this thing? So I started going out to like, um, local sports teams and stuff like that that needed T shirts. And I'm like, Hey, I can make this shirt for you. Actually, I did this with my daughters so they can make this shirt for you. And, um, you can just buy them on Amazon. They'll be ready within 72 hours. And, you know, we can price them. However you want to price them, and And I would give my minimum, right. So I'm making a little profit, right? That's what you do with the books. And then they would they would do it, too. And what's cool about KDP and what's cool about Amazon merch is you can order either samples or you can just put it on Amazon and you set the price over the cost. So, yeah, that was my way of driving traffic. Yeah, T [00:10:43] spk_0: shirt. Yeah, it's the same principle as that. And and then what's great is once you create the book and you know then that the business owner is driving all the traffic, so you have to have to do the marketing anymore. You don't have to do. Even the listing doesn't really even matter because it's not driving the traffic by either buying them themselves or their customers buying them, and we'll get into more. But it's like Q R codes worked really well to drive the traffic right to the book from the business side. So you have to remember this [00:11:13] spk_1: is through the business side, [00:11:15] spk_0: so it's been a really great way of doing that. But then the other part of it is adding this into your product because that's that. I know that's how your audience is waiting to hear that because, you know, it's exciting to know [00:11:30] spk_1: that work for them. Tell me a little bit about how you decided to start bundling, because this is actually kind of hard to figure out. I was unable to figure this out how to actually be bundle a book, and I know so many people are wanting to know how to do that. So I create a book in KDP, and I want to sell it alongside of my product, like bundled with my product. How do I do that? And how did you discover how to do that? [00:11:59] spk_0: Well, I found out a few friends. You know, a lot of friends do, uh, private label and, um, also do what we call bundles. But we're just calling a bundle because you're adding a book to it. So, um, so this is one of the examples here. This is a coffee, um, coffee booklet, a tasting booklet. And so, um, we we branded this booklet for Alexa coffeehouse and you can see, you know, we got a little, you know, q r code on there. So they can, you know, customer can go right to their stuff. And then so let me back up before we get too far into it. But so how I decided that would work well is I found out that a lot of people were jumping on other people's listings. I would hear that that rumble since being in the Amazon business. I hear that rumble, and it's like, Well, I've got this great product, but that gets tanked because people are jumping on my listing, I think cause Amazon You know why we're in it. For a long time ago, it wasn't as hard as it kept moving forward. It kept tanking people's listings and they were like, Well, what do I do? You know, how do I How do I add something that's different? And sometimes people add promo cards and things like that. So I just kind of was, you know, hearing that rumble out there and, um, the lady who has this, uh, this book here She has a whole course on bundling. And so we got to talking a lot about how to bundle this book. She's all what do I do? You know, And how can I add this to it? So basically, you create a KDP booklet, and then you're going to have them sent wholesale to yourself, and then you're gonna send them in with your product at the same time and bundle that together. [00:13:38] spk_1: Okay? Got it. So in order to do it so there's no way to basically list that book on. You can list it separately on Amazon as well. You can make money. You can sell this refill. Yeah, exactly. But you would make it on KDP and you would order a sample, and then you would bundle that with your product. So if your if your folks, if your stuff is in China you might create that book and then just have you could have sample sent to yourself because most of our listeners are private label sellers or white label sellers. So they're going to one of two ways the first way would be create that book on KDP and print. Have it printed. Have the sample sent to your place, right and then or to your prep center or wherever they're going to bundle it with the product and send it in under one barcode, right or the other option would be to to finish that book. And then you could actually work with your supplier in China to print to go to their printer and actually print the books and put it in the package with you right then and there. Because once you create it in KDP, you also have that ESPN number. Everything else there. Um so you could also send it there for them to print. Am I right there? [00:15:06] spk_0: Yeah. You could do something like that. You can get Spn numbers is just You can only use it with Amazon or you can purchase. I ISBN numbers and and have it, um, sold other places or sent to other places. So there's there's, you know, there's a little bit of a wiggle room in those ways that you're, you know, depends on your audience and how they're, um, suppliers and how they're getting their supplies. But basically, yes, that I think that is a perfect example is they could have it, um, created in in China and then have it sent to their prep center, you know, and have it or whatever they're [00:15:43] spk_1: doing. Like if their supplier princess in China, then they can. Their supplier can bundle it right in with the box with their best. But going through this process to actually create it on KDP will be super helpful, because that way they kind of understand the templates and how it works, because any printer is going to need the same thing. So I had a client that creative books and wanted to have them printed in China. And so she was able to go, I believe on who was the other one besides KDP, where you can get a free I S D N number. It's a [00:16:20] spk_0: Ingram spark [00:16:21] spk_1: Ingram Spark. Yeah, I believe. I believe that's it. There's a few different ones. There's a few different ones angry. I s p n. So that's what she ended up doing, is just skipping the KDP route. And she went and got a free I ISBN number. And then But she went through the process on KDP because you can learn how to actually format that book and set it in a template and understand what the popular sizes are for books and all of that. And then once she kdp you guys is free to join, and they provide free templates for all the different sized books and everything. So you could literally create your book on Amazon KDP on its own, get a free I E S P n number, publish it for free and then you could take that same, um, you could either take the ISBN number that's already been given to you for that same book and have it printed elsewhere and have them just put that bar code on it or once you go through the process and you learn it. If you want your supplier in China to find a printer and print it so that it's bundled right there in China, then what you do is go through that template process. Create your create your book, right, your template for the book. You're going to send that to your supplier the template intact. They'll find a print or get printed off for you with the proper ESPN number on it, and it will just get listed right there with your product. So you'll have two different ways that you can do that, Um, and either bundle it on your own and sell it separately on Amazon for free. It doesn't cost you anything except for your time, you know. And so let's talk about designing. Let's talk about the actual process of creating a book, Tammy. So you have all these different books with these beautiful covers, and my first book cover was horrible, by the way. But let's talk about the process of actually creating a book like What's your process? Kind of from start to finish. If you had to kind of dumb it down for us. What's the process that somebody needs to follow to create a book? [00:18:26] spk_2: Thanks for tuning in to Part one of this episode. Join us every Tuesday at one PM, Pacific Standard time for live Q and A and bonus content after the recording at cellar roundtable dot com, sponsored by the ultimate software tool for Amazon Sales and Growth seller s eo dot com and Amazing at home dot com.