Affinity news, tutorials, and updates

Does every year just seem to go faster and faster? It has already been a month since my last newsletter!

If you are new here, a warm welcome! I send a few newsletters per month about designing & selling awesome KDP books and printables/digital products. I don’t like to invade your inbox if I have nothing to share so I don’t keep a regular schedule.

In this issue:

• Hyperlinking objects and images in Affinity

• Free course on creating kid’s books

• 6 month free trial for new Affinity users

• Bookbeam for KDP research?

• Personal update

Video Tutorials

I am still behind on filming new content for my Youtube channel, but did make this video recently in response to a viewer question.

Here’s how to hyperlink objects and images in Affinity Publisher.

This is perfect if you are making digital planners, but I also think it would be a fun way to create a table of contents in PDF book, or a create your own adventure PDF storybook.

In other video tutorial news, Katharyne Shelton released a new free (or pay what you want) course on creating books for Gen Alpha (born 2010 or later). Katharyne is one person who has even more ideas than this Catherine, lol. I just signed up today but haven’t had a chance to dig in yet. I do own her complete suite of courses and products with the exception of Imagine (AI coloring books).

You make also like

If you are on this list, there’s a decent chance you already use Affinity as your design software. If you don’t, Affinity just announced a 6-month free trial, no strings attached. I read one article that speculated the recent bad press Adobe received about making it hard to cancel subscriptions may be related to this new offer—it gives people wanting to ditch Adobe a good long chance to try it out before switching.

From Ingram Spark, some tips for choosing BISAC codes (categories) for your books.

Does anyone use BookBeam? Let me know what you think. I have been contemplating giving it a go. I don’t need ideas, but am curious about using it for validation and maybe niching down.

Haven’t heard of it? I’ve seen a few people on Youtube talking about it, but this person gives a nice overview of the features and how it impacted their KDP sales.

Random Musings:

I’ve had multiple topic ideas for this section in my head recently, and now that I sit down to write I can’t think of a single one!

Instead, I’ll just share a bit about what I’ve been up to:

1. Vacation

I went on vacation and it was wonderful. I did not bring a laptop or my iPad this time, and that was a great decision. I cleaned out my inbox morning and night on my phone, but other than that tried to stay mostly offline.

I read Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, which is the book that corresponds to Bridgerton Season 3. I started reading a book on travel journaling but only got a few chapters in.

We did a loop through B.C., Canada as well as a couple of days in Banff, AB. The scenery is stunning. Many of these places I hadn’t been to since I was a kid, and you just don’t appreciate it at that age.

One of my favourite spots was Johnston Canyon in Banff. The trail runs through the canyon near the bottom, and at times you are walking on these metal walkways canti-levered into the side of the canyon.

I started a regional travel blog last year and so I have been working on:

• creating blog posts and social content from this trip while it’s still fresh in my mind

• creating a PDF itinerary product to sell

• creating a set of road trip planning printables

2. Reviving my publishing business

Well, actually this is on my to-do list for this summer. Since I work full-time, the past few years that I have been creating courses and Youtube content have meant my actual publishing has been minimal. I want to change that starting now, while there is still time to take advantage of Q4.

3. Building socials for my blogs

I have one other niche site besides the travel site that is about 8-9 years old. I never did much in terms of marketing on social and I have been trying to revive its Pinterest account, build a new Facebook page, and start a Youtube channel. I have taken lots of raw video for it over the years but never really sat down to edit much of it.

4. Temping

If you’ve been with me a while, you know at the beginning of 2024 I closed down all sales on my own website with the idea of giving being ad-supported a go. That’s been a slow build, so in the meantime, I have been working an extra day a week at my previous employer. It’s the easiest way to replace the income I lost, even though it is a catch-22 since now I have even less time to work on passive income streams.

I need to remember that it’s a marathon, not a race and it is consistent small actions that add up over time that make the difference.

5. Relaxing with The Bear

It took me until the last moments of season 1 to finally get hooked by this show. It had me looking up how to become a pastry chef, lol. Actually pastry chef is something I have wanted to do off and on for ages but it never was the right time for one reason or another. Have you done one thing your entire career? I pretty much have and the temptation to do something different for the last 10 years or so before retirement is strong.

What have you been up to?

Until next time,

Catherine