How to Create and Self-Publish a Journal

For so long now I’ve wanted to self-publish a journal. My 28 Day Self-Love Journaling Challenge has been my most popular post and is still going strong 3 years later.

Journaling has been a huge part of my healing journey and I still love it to this day. But I just didn’t know where to start. I saw a few videos on Tic Toc but I’m the kinda person that needs things in a very clear, step-by-step process. 

Then I saw my amazing friend, Ruth Ridgeway’s post on Facebook, she had created The Journal Template Kit (this kit is no longer available) and I was instantly sold. Ruth creates some amazing designs and I’ve done her courses in the past, so I knew this one would be good!!

And I wasn’t wrong!! 

It only took me a week to create my journal (and most of that time was proof checking) and the lessons were quick and easy to follow. 

Not only that, Ruth had included templates for the journal, so you only have to create your cover and add your journal prompts…..how cool is that!!

I’m pretty new to design, well apart from making images on Photoshop, so this was super useful for me. I decided to try Affinity because it’s super cheap and it’s a one-time payment (rather than InDesign that’s monthly) and it seemed pretty easy to use. 

The good news is The Journal Kit includes templates for both InDesign and Affinity 🥳🥳 and it didn’t take me long to get used to it (it’s quite similar to Photoshop) 

Anyway, I really enjoyed making The Self-Worth Journal and I plan to make so many more. 

Turns out that I really love creating digital products!!! 

So you wanna know the steps to create your own journal??

The Steps to Self-Publishing a Journal

Here is the simplified step on how to self-publish a journal

1. Sign up to Kindle Direct Publishing

You will be selling your journals through Kindle Direct Publishing and you can sign up here:

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/

I’ve ordered my book and they are actually really quick to send out, it only took around 2-3 days to arrive. I was a very happy girl 🥰🥰

2. Write Your Journal 

The next step is to write everything you will need for your journal. This includes the following

• What your journal will be about – mine was self-worth obviously 😉
• Your journal title and tagline, you can see mine in the image below
• Your journal prompts – the template has 100 but you can have as many as you like
• Your introduction to your book 
• Any quotes you want in your journal 

If you are looking for templates you can use for your journal or digital product, check out Jessa’s Digital Product Creator’s Pack or her Journal & Planner Creator Pack

3. Create a Cover

To create your cover you will need to decide what size book you want and how many pages you have. This is so you can get your template, to make sure your cover fits within the borders of the book. You can get your template here: Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing: Self-publish your book to Amazon’s Kindle Store

Once you have created your cover, you need to save it as a PDF

4. Upload it to Kindle 

It’s pretty simple to upload everything and add all your information. Then you get an option to proofread, which I highly recommend as I had quite a few mistakes (every time I fixed one, I found another after uploading again 🤣) 

When you’re happy with it, you can submit it to be reviewed. You can either order an author copy or wait until it’s approved and buy one yourself. I went for the second option, as I wanted one without any watermarks. 

And that’s it!!! 

It was so much fun and really flipping easy to do, I can’t wait to make my new one!!

So are you ready to self-publish a journal?!

Let me know in the comments if you are planning to try this and if so, what kinda journal will you make??

Happy creating! 

Lots of love

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