To Share or Not to Share: My Journey with KDP

A debate I’m sure lots of people have contemplated in the past. There are a lot of pros and cons when it comes to the idea of sharing my journey. The one that mattered the most is that it might help others in some way.

I’ll admit initially I erred against sharing my journey. Competition, copycats, who wants to hear about me, and so on, but what if I was wrong?

What if sharing my journey, failures, successes, and being transparent could help others?

Then I considered the message I might be sending my kiddos, well I was sold. I want them to grow up to be helpful, caring, and willing to share so I’ll err on the side of showing that too.

Here we are…

Where to start? In the beginning…

I was born long, long, long ago…

What!? The beginning is where I’m supposed to start, aren’t I? Maybe I can fast forward a bit.

As a result of Covid-19, I began looking into extra income revenue ideas. The reality of losing my job and primary income set in, and it was scary. It was clear, things needed to change even as the world began to open up. I didn’t want to find myself struggling or rather put my family in the same situation again.

But what could I do!?

I have a background in web development, project management, and digital marketing. A great set of skills when it comes to all things “online” and yet I wasn’t sure how to apply them. I should say apply them to me… I’m not used to being in front of the camera proverbially speaking that is. In the past, I was the one behind the scenes helping others.

Dropshipping?

I knew the concept in an abstract sense, I stumbled upon a few websites that did this in the past and well I didn’t come back. I was expecting my order to ship from the US, not China. Granted that was more so a lack of transparency on their parts.

As I looked into it I also found it required upfront costs and was risky too. Maybe I’ll reconsider this down the line but for now, I ruled it out.

Affiliate Sales?

I’ll admit this wasn’t completely new to me, I had done this in the past. I couldn’t get behind the “business” in the past. Maybe it was the products. Although, I would have imagined dresses with pockets would have been a winner. Seriously, do you know how amazing pockets are to dress and skirt wearers?

In any case, I didn’t have any indication things have changed on my end so it went to the bottom of the list.

Amazon KDP?

Well, I have always talked about writing a book… Then again who hasn’t! As I looked into it I found I would work my way into it. Starting with low content books and moving up from there or maybe finding my niche there.

I could make books with only time as an investment. At least initially. Also, I could also have a physical object. I could say I made this book, that’s always nice. It was also always an appealing element of projects with my kiddos.

That’s when it hit me, all of the elements I could share with them, show them, teach them, so I was sold… ish. If they weren’t on board well I wasn’t going to force them. I presented the idea to them. While a bit confused without having relevant enough visuals they seemed excited.