In September, I was curious about AI and jumped onto Youtube to see which platform was recommended for visual artists. I then stumbled across a Paul Marles video showing viewers how to use Midjourney and Canva to create coloring books to sell on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP.) Being quite spontaneous, I jumped right in and starting making coloring books that day. Two months later, I've made 23 coloring books and have them all posted on KDP where they are making a small amount of money most days.

It's been quite the ride so I'd like to share what I've learned in hopes of making your journey on KDP easier. (For those who have been asking, KDP is different than becoming a seller on Amazon and selling products. KDP allows users to create content that Amazon publishes upon an order.)

First things first, fair warning that your cut of the royalties is quite small. For my each of my Space Series books, I include 40 images on 8.5 x 8.5 white paper. For these specs, the printing cost is $2.84 a copy. Currently, each book is posted on Amazon for $7.99, and for each sale, I receive only $1.95 as my portion of the profit (25% of the listed price.) 

Secondly, setting up a base of clients to get ratings, reviews, and a better spot in the listing is tricky. You have to find as much of a niche as you can while making sure there is still a market. And then it seems you have to dabble a bit in advertising. I started by just asking my friends and family to purchase and leave reviews and ratings. While there were many generous purchases made by my caring community, very few left the ratings/reviews that were the vital part. So I tried an Amazon Ad since they offered a $100 promo. It was a bit of headache to actually get the credit applied to my account, but in the end, I spent around $8 of my own money to make around $55 in profits, so that was a helpful exercise. However, despite far more purchases I'm still lacking in reviews and ratings. 

Thirdly, if you'll be using AI to generate some of your coloring images, it's more difficult than you think. I'll be writing another blog on that soon! My best tips are to find what prompts work for you in as few words as possible so that AI can focus on the unique element of the prompt. For example, writing "no shading" doesn't seem to work yet so you might as well leave that out of the prompt. Toy around with the differences for you with "black and white" vs "no color" vs "vector image" etc. The element that tripped me up was missing "AI Oopsies" and only realizing after I received my own copies of the coloring books that there were horses with 5 legs and dogs with 5 paws or birds with 1 leg. AI is learning and growing and will probably be able to do these things soon enough, but for now you have to be vigilant in your visual checks of the images. And if possible, avoid hands. Dear goodness the hands [rubs forehead stressfully!]

So my first three months have been a mixture of experiences, but I would say I'm still keen to keep learning and creating. So far, I've only netted $131 in royalties. Keep in mind that I've spent around $80 for Midjourney and advertising. My hope is that this endeavor is a slow burn as making $50 over 3 months of hard work is obviously not worth the time put in as of yet.

So here's to the journey and tinkering with what works!

I spent 13 consecutive years of my career as a full time teacher or tutor. Then I had a child, and now my career isn't the focus in this season of life.  Yet, I still am keen for ways to stay creative and active. I still crave intellectual stimulation. And I still want to be a financial contributor in my household. But how to do that in a world where childcare rates seem absurdly high and part-time job rates seem confusingly low? 

Quality remote jobs have thousands of applicants. Tutoring online does not bring in enough money (through all of the companies I've interviewed with/researched.) The internet is full of videos about ways to create passive income for yourself that promise figures that are, frankly, unrealistic. 

As a stay-at-home parent, I'm currently making small but consistent amounts of money through the following outlets:

• working at a local school dorm kitchen for special events (or as a sub)
• teaching exercise classes at a local YMCA
• tutoring private art lessons
• selling coloring books online (as well as art lessons) on Amazon, TeachersPayTeachers, and Etsy

One difficulty is in building up my base in all of these endeavors. For the kitchen gig, it hasn't brought any further opportunities around town. For the YMCA, it takes a while to build up a class following which would allow me to teach more classes. For tutoring, I'd love to build up my tutoring clientele, but am currently struggling to do so. I've put up flyers on all the local community boards, ran an ad in the newspaper, and put my. name on a list of tutors at the local school. And I have one student. And I was a teacher here last year! And finally, for online books and art lessons, there's just a lot of competition! Even trying to find niches, use the right keywords/SEO, and experimenting with paid advertising hasn't gotten me too far yet. Hopefully this last endeavor is a slow burn. 

While this blog post isn't especially helpful or clever, I post it to share the realities of what finding side gigs is like in the US in 2023. I will keep you all updated should I find increased success and can share the love.