Hi,
I’m Scott
I teach grade 2 at a Public Elementary School in Mississauga, Ontario Canada. It’s a good gig.
I like my job. I like it a lot. Working with the littles is really cool. The connections I form will, for some, live with them for life and I know that they will look back fondly on the crazy times in Mr. C’s class. I like working with children very much: However, not so much that I want to give some of the best years of my life, (that have not yet happened, to other people’s children, and … side-note, not all of the littles are super fun and easy to deal with, not by a long shot! I’ve got lots of energy for all of my kiddos, but it is draining to put it in g-rated terms. If you have kids, if you have seen kids, if you are a teacher, if you are a living human,,,,then you know, kids are NOT EASY!
And…
Who doesn’t dream of financial freedom passive income, and otherwise just living the dream? Or how about day drinking with your besty, napping, or scaling up one of the multi-nationals that you created after adopting your new “Make Money Online” mindset? Well, that would be me, I do!
Enter the Side Hustle or There’s a Lesson In Here Somewhere or Perhaps Furniture Refinishing Might Not Be My Calling, But It Was Fun
No one has the time, or frankly the interest to read my in-depth attempts at various side-hustles over the years.
So in list form, here they are:
-cleaning rental properties (I’m not really a tidy person, so this wasn’t smart)
-lawn maintenance (I hate physical labor, what was I thinking?)
-renovating (I don’t even know how to use a hammer correctly)
-the owner of half of a non-existent business idea with a ‘friend’ (screwed by said ‘friend’ )
-being a real estate mogul with ‘friend’ and ex-husband (what could go wrong) There must be a lesson for me to learn in there somehwere?? I wonder what it might be???)
-selling vegetables (I ate them first and am not very knowledgeable about growing stuff)
-breeding dogs (i gave up on this before I started)
-coaching figure skating (not even kidding, in fact, my full life of skating could make up another blog, but I will do us a favour and save that doozy for another time.)
-refinishing and restoring old furniture that I found abandoned on the side of the road (thanks Dad for all the help)
-and finally KDP or Kindel Direct Publishing, or Print On Demand Low-No-or High Content Workbooks, Logbooks, Journals, and Notebooks
(sold really well at the beginning, but then hit a cliff and dive-bombed off the edge, right into a brick wall of nothingness—– and yet I can’t stop!)
And so…in October of 2021 Scott’s new sidehustle using the KDP platform and the Amazon marketplace was born!
(with a few wins and many,,,,many crickets)
Alongside that, Dover Cliffs Publishing and Design House was also born!
It started over 2 years ago when I stumbled across the lovely, and very knowledgeable Rachel Harrison-Sund‘s Youtube Channel while looking for ways to make extra money. I went with furniture refinishing, not knowing that I was not really very good at it, and in order to make my furniture stand out,I had to spend an eternity on each piece. I would spend most of that time fixing mistakes that I had just made.
Furniture refinishing was not for me.
A bit over a year later and randomly (or the youtube algorithim knew exactly what I was up to) I found Rachel’s channel again. This time I paid more attention. I thought that with my background in teaching I might just be able to add some credibility to my soon to be published masterpieces and sell bazillions of books and retire before I am 49.
So far, that has not happened! A lot has happened (because I forcibly made it happen) but I am nowhere near being able to sit still and let the cash flow in
KDP is anything but passive, and despite some early excitement it has been mostly crickets.
Chirp
Chirp.
Chirp.
I work hard at my day job. I have learned so much over 17 years of teaching about my own pedagogy of education and how the littles learn. I have also become painfully aware of the huge gap of missing school readiness skills that so many kids start their formal education lacking. (as noted in the article that I just linked to) Many of these are skills that could be easily learned and practiced at home, with a simple step-by-step workbook.
But kids don’t all like workbooks.
But I’m a funny guy (at least my Grade 2 kiddos tell me so!) and I get direct, uncensored, and honest feedback every day about what is entertaining, and what is not, in the eyes of seven-year-olds.
I’ve also been lacking a creative outlet (and extra cash) so this little notebook niche seems like a perfect fit for me to enter. Easy.
I started my design and publishing journey on KDP with no design or publishing experience.
Good idea, right? Nobody said yes!
But was it? It has been 6 months since I published my first book, and the answer to that question remains unknown. Is KDP worth the effort in 2022? Let’s be clear, some Authors/Publishers can make upwards of $10,000 a month on KDP using Amazon as a platform to sell their books selling.
I’m not even kidding.
Not at all.
TEN freaking THOUSAND freaking DOLLARS
I want some of that pie!
Can a newbie wannabe graphic designer with no graphic design skills (me) actually make a healthy chunk of change conceptualizing, researching, designing, publishing, marketing, and selling little notebooks, journals, and workbooks for kids and adults using the KDP marketplace?
Can the same dude, (me) build and scale the business over time so that the ‘healthy chunk of change’ remains ‘healthy’ and the income becomes passive (or passive-ish)?
Let’s find out, shall we?
The first books I published can be found here:
I thought it would be fun to create a series of notebooks (which I found out after I can’t really do that with blank notebooks, so I had no way to market them all together on Amazon that I knew of. Well, I actually knew nothing about advertising and marketing in general, or how to do it on the Amazon platform, but I thought I would give it a go. So I did. I guessed. I guessed more, and finally out into the world they went and people actually bought them. I made my money back on these and even a few extra dollars, but my ACOS (a term for people in the biz (NOT ME) how much it costs compared to my profits to advertise) is nowhere near the 20 percent you are supposed to aim for. Me, I am more like 400 percent the first go (I lost money, alot) and finally down to 80 percent by the time the christmas holidays wrapped up. I made a small bit of money and sold a bunch of books.
I have much to learn.
Look for future blog posts about this part of my journey, in many months is my guess.
But I was hooked. I was all about the online money to be made. Millions!
Or not.
In the meantime, I started a bunch of projects that will hopefully turn into several different streams of income for me. This is what the youtube Guru’s say.
So far I have:
-built a website to sell my books
-learned I don’t know how to build a website
-took a course on how to build a website
-built another website to sell my books
-decided to make a few physical products to sell as well on my website (check them out here)
-learned what SEO stands for and then tried to SEO the crap out of my website to generate more sales (not happened yet, but I hear it is important)
-convinced two of my friends to start a youtube channel (mine is to follow, I hope, if I can muster the courage and find the time)
One of my friend’s YOUTUBE channel can be found here. Stop in and subscribe to Drew’s page, he will really love the new likes and clicks!
Also, I:
-thought it would be a good idea to write a book to sell on KDP, this time a real book that kids will buy, not a low or no-content notebook, logbook, or journal like I had been selling
-decided I don’t know how to write a book so I took another course on how to write a fictional chapter book for kids
-rewrote the outline of my book
-rewrote the outline of my book again
-gave up on KDP and Writing and Everything to do with ONLINE ANYTHING
-started writing a new book, this time making it a spin off of the first attempt, just a simple and cute picture book for kids (ages 4-8) that will make your heart grow bigger (more on this to be linked when I have created something worth sharing)
-rewrote the picture book
-rewrote the outline for the chapter book
-started creating and publishing and posting more books on Amazon to sell but this time I am not using ads until I start making some sort of money (no money left to buy ads with) I think I have 43 different books actively waiting to be bought as of the date of this post
(Here is my author page if you are interested (still no real movement, but I am proud of the books I have created so far, and I have also learned so much)
-started an airbnb business in my basement unit (it’s booked up for 4 months already!)
-began the Blog you are reading.
I’m determined to make a go of it.
Follow me on my journey as I learn how to run a successful business online (i mean, I hope it is successful!), in real time. Striving, Dreaming, Hoping, Laughing a lot and despite all the haters and the non-believers still creating these little gems of notebooks and workbooks for kids and adults (not to mention blogging, youtubing, writing, cleaning my airbnb, commuting to the day job, commuting from the day job, teaching grade 2, walking my dog, and trying to find time to date, eat, and chill with my friends. Easy.
Scott
CEDoE
(Chief Executive Doer of Everything)
Dover Cliffs Publishing House
www.dovercliffspublishinghouse.com
