How to Create and Sell Personalized Planners, Journals, and Notebooks
Historically, self-publishing meant authors printing and selling their own books, rather than relying on a traditional publishing house. These days, with print-on-demand technology, you can create, customize, and print just about anything.
With the ability to design and customize planners, journals, and notebooks, self-publishing offers an opportunity to establish products for a vast audience. Custom planners combine creativity with functionality, making them a versatile product.
Whether that means building a business around selling custom notebooks, supplementing your other products or services by selling planners, or simply making yourself a journal for your own use, this guide will help you understand how to self-publish a planner, journal, or notebook using Lulu.
Why Create a Custom Planner, Journal, or Notebook?
You can easily go online and order a planner. Or go to your local Target and buy a lined notebook. So, why would you design your own planner pages when someone else has already done the work?
There are a few reasons, but most of these come back to customization and control.
Unlike store-bought planners, a self-designed planner or notebook can be tailored precisely to your needs or the preferences of your audience. This approach is perfect for individuals with niche content and businesses looking for unique, branded products.
Just like any self-published, print-on-demand project, you’re in control. You build your book to meet your needs exactly.
With this control comes the opportunity for monetization. For example, if you’re between book releases you could create a custom planner or notebook. The cover might feature a rendering of your most popular character from past books, and you could include references to your past stories (or previews of an upcoming book) in the planning pages.
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Additionally, you can use Lulu’s print-on-demand to create a variety of custom notebook or planner designs:
- Include themed designs or references tied to your existing work, such as artwork or quotes from your books.
- Offer planners as exclusive merchandise to build your brand and your audience’s loyalty.
- Include personalized or custom elements your customers select while shopping.
- Offer seasonal or guided content based on your expertise or interests.
You’ve just created an additional means of earning money, marketing to your audience, and keeping your readers happy!
Create Your Own Planner, Journal, or Notebook
All three of these low-content projects will have similar features, like lined pages for notes or blank pages for brainstorming. But from there, you can customize in a variety of ways.
If you want a planner, it might be daily, weekly, or monthly. And it might have columns for the days or use a full page for each day. You might have specific events (like dinner, going to the gym, birthdays, and holidays) pre-set. Or it might be a blank slate, ready for your fans to fill in.
Likewise, you might create a journal specifically for sleep tracking or meal planning. Notebooks can be blank, lined, dot grid, or some combination of the three!
Here’s a quick guide to building your first custom planner, journal, or notebook using Lulu.
1. Use Templates for Design
The best way to build your project is to start with a template. You can find lots of free planners, journals, and notebook pages on Lulu’s Resources page. We start with simple designs that you can download for free. These versatile starter designs can be easily tailored to your specific needs.
Simple designs are best because you can customize them to fit your needs. This means you’ll need a platform for editing and customizing your pages.
2. Choose a Design Platform
You can find an array of tools that will help you customize your planner, journal, or notebook pages (and design your cover when the time comes!). Here are my top four picks for easy-to-use design software:
- Adobe InDesign - This is the top-tier, most versatile, and complex option. InDesign is widely considered the most powerful page layout tool. If you’re good with graphic design or have a complicated notebook design in mind, InDesign is the way to go.
- Affinity Publisher - Affinity’s suite of design software is a lower-cost alternative to Adobe’s options. Publisher isn’t quite as robust as InDesign, but for most notebook designs, you’ll be able to achieve everything you need. I’m a big fan of Affinity and use it for my personal projects.
- Canva - When it comes to free design tools, Canva is the choice. They have been offering easy-to-use, free design tools for years and continue to innovate their platform. Canva does keep some of their features behind a paid plan, but you can still create basic customizations for your notebook pages.
- Adobe Express - Adobe’s free alternative to Canva, Adobe Express is a comparable tool that is similarly limited by being free to use. You’ll have just about the same options as Canva, so choosing Express is more about personal preference than functionality.
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3. Customize Your Pages
Once you’re set up with a template and you’ve learned the basics of your chosen design platform, you’re ready to create custom pages! For notebooks, planners, and journals, there are a few common designs that consumers tend to be interested in.
- Page Layouts - Plan for daily, weekly, or monthly views depending on the planner's focus. If your planner has a theme, you might look for similar planners and see if they use a daily, weekly, or monthly format.
- Special Sections - Add notes, trackers, or quotes. Think about your audience and what they might find useful or interesting. If you’re an author, you might include references to your books. A fitness journal might have goal tracking or exercise notes sections.
- Graphics - While notebooks and planners are meant to be used, an eye-catching cover is a big selling point.
4. Export a Print-Ready PDF
Export your final custom design as a PDF. Always look for ‘print-ready’ or other high-quality print settings. This will ensure your file meets Lulu’s print requirements and looks amazing once printed.
Customizable Planner, Journal, and Notebook Ideas
I love notebooks. I’ve written about this before, but taking notes by hand is one of my favorite things to do. And I love planners, even if I’m terrible at committing to one and using it every day (like I should).
With so many free templates and the ease with which you can customize your project, you basically have endless options. And if you can’t find one that suits your needs, you can always create your own!
To help you create, here are a few of my favorite print-on-demand planner, notebook, and journal ideas.
Daily Writing Journal
Create a daily planner where you can include your page count goals, notes about the scene you’ll be working on, and motivational quotes. Writing journals takes a lot of forms, but a planner or task manager is not one you see often.
Exercise Planner
One of the more common planner designs, you can create a journal and planner with exercises built in. If you’re a fitness instructor or just passionate about physical health, an exercise planner might be the perfect way to share your routine!
Curriculum Calendar
Not that I want to suggest teachers do any more work than they already do, but the opportunity to facilitate learning with a custom planner is huge. Each student could have a planner in hand with lesson details and assignments already included. Particularly with digital and distance learning becoming more common, having a clear view of the semester and the assignments is vital. If you want extra credit, you could even personalize each planner with the student's name.
Diet & Meal Planner
Every week, I sit down with my wife, and we put together a meal plan for the week, then a shopping list for groceries. And every week, I think to myself, ‘this would make a great little notebook.’
If you’re dieting or on a restricted diet, a planner might even be a necessity. So, why not craft one that is to your needs?
Hobby & Skills Tracker
Maybe you just took up a new hobby. Or you’ve decided to learn German. Or the trombone.
Whatever skill or hobby you’ve taken up, you can create a custom tracker, planner, and practice calendar. It’s a great way to stay on top of learning that new skill and to document your growing abilities.
Benefits of Selling Custom Planners, Journals, and Notebooks
Creating custom projects isn’t just a creative outlet—it’s a business opportunity. Custom planners, journals, and notebooks are a popular trend right now. If you’ve got an audience who might use a planner, journal, or notebook, offering your own is a great way to supplement your income. And it gets your brand out there, potentially leading to new customers.
Lulu even has the option to use our free Print API to offer individualized planners, journals, or notebooks. With a bit of coding, you can integrate Lulu’s printing with your own website. Then, you can build a variety of options for your customers—like adding their name to the journal or choosing between daily, weekly, or monthly for their planner.
Books are more than memoirs, textbooks, and novels. Journals and planners are popular and unique ways to take advantage of print-on-demand. Along with the relative ease in creating a custom planner, printable planners offer a terrific opportunity to establish additional revenue streams for your publishing (or other) business.
