Today I wanted to talk about using templates to create your journals from & why it's something that you should be doing.

First of all using a template is going to save you lots of time, money and energy. Once you have a template set up you can work from it multiple times by simply making small changes to it.

Why I Love Creating Journals

My favorite program for creating journal templates in is PowerPoint. While most people use Word or Open Office I prefer PowerPoint for a number of reasons.

  1. It's easy to move graphics around
  2. Creating tables is quick and easy
  3. Once you have your basic pages in place you can duplicate pages in a snap
  4. You can save any slide in your document as an image
  5. Exporting or Saving to a PDF is simple
  6. You can even create a book trailer or sales video from your slides

Overall I find have more control over the page design in PowerPoint. I can drag an image into place and resize it without things moving or popping over to the next page. You do have the option of creating custom sizes as well. So it's easy to create a 8.5 x 11 or 6 x 9 inch journal.  To increase or change your margins you simply go to View Notes Page and you will see your layout. Simply click on the box to select them and drag the edges in or out. You can also move text or image boxes as well. If you just need one main page then delete the top box and increase the size of the text box.

 

This is especially useful for creating your manuscript for uploading to sites like Createspace and Lulu.

I have been creating journals and even planners and printables in PowerPoint for a while now, and recently had the idea to create my own Signature Course. This way I can share with other business owners how they too can create their own items to sell. Then, of course, they could apply these tactics to templates they purchase from me!

Createful Journals Course

At the beginning of this year I started planning out my new course. It took almost two months of planning and recording videos to finally get it ready for launch. I wanted to make sure I covered not just how to create journals. But how to set up your website and create a buy button for your new products.  Including a basic overview of selling journals and planners on places like Etsy, Gum Road and Createspace.

Here's a basic overview of some of the course contents:

  1. Module 1Overview and Introduction
  2. PDF which covers the basics of using PowerPoint – nice handy reference that you can print out
  3. Practice Session
  4. Module 2 covers the meat of the course where you learn how to edit and make changes to your journals, create a new journal from scratch and more
  5. Module 3 covers selling options for journals and planners – Etsy, Shopify, Gum Road etc
  6. Module 4 covers selling from your website
  7. Module 5 talks about marketing your new journals
  8. Module 6 covers Advanced PowerPoint tips including creating tables, fun icons and more

I have also included a set of Practice Templates as well. These include ones that I use in the course videos and allows you to follow along more easily.

Once you have finished editing and branding them to suit your business then you can resell or give these away to help grow your customer base.

Journals, Planners and Printables are in hot demand right now and this makes creating them a perfect business model for lots of people. Including work at home moms, students, seniors, those travelling in RV's and more. There's a low cost for starting up this type of business. You can just use an Etsy store to start with if you like. You only pay $0.20 for each listing after the first month and each listing runs for 4 months before renewing.

If you would like to learn more about my new course then visit this link. 

Journals for Commercial Use

For those of you who are new to buying items with commercial use let me clarify how this works.  The term commercial use just means that you are allowed to sell your end products to your customer's and clients. There are many other terms that you might hear that are similar. These include Private Label Rights (PLR), White Label Rights, Editable Content, Brandable Content and others.

The most important aspect of this type of license is that the original Templates belong to you only. You need to rebrand the templates and then save this new version as a PDF file before you can resell it. You CANNOT give your customers the templates or editable files. If they would like to have access to them, they must then purchase their own set of Templates. To sell these templates you would need to become an affiliate and that means every time you make a sale you get a commission. That's another way to make some great money, but I don't want to confuse you by going into that topic here. I'll keep it for another blog post.

When you download your new templates you will find either a link to a License Webpage or a ReadMe document which explain the license terms of the particular template that you just purchased. Unfortunately this varies from seller to seller, so always check the license terms first. If you have questions be sure to email the vendor for clarification.

As an example here's the link to my License Page

If you have any questions be sure to leave them in the comments below. Starting your own journals business is a fantastic business model that can open up a realm of new possibilities for you.

Sue 

 

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