Affiliate disclosure: This guide links to Meridian, a web app that generates location-based data books for KDP. If you buy through those links, BookPublisherTools earns a commission at no extra cost to you. Puzzle Maker Pro is our own product. I haven’t bought or tested Meridian. Everything I say about it comes from its sales page, its affiliate page, its terms and its checkout page, so nothing below is a tested result.
Last checked: 4 October 2026.
A fishing log book is a simple product: some planning pages, a lot of pages for writing down what you caught, and a cover an angler wants to carry around. That’s also why Amazon has so many of them. Most look the same inside, and buyers can tell.
This guide is about making one that doesn’t. It covers four things: picking a reader and a place, adding a moon and solunar calendar you’ve actually checked, designing log pages that are pleasant to fill in, and adding something extra (a puzzle section, local notes) that makes the book worth keeping.
Why fewer, better books matter now
Amazon KDP now limits how many new titles you can create. Its help page says it limits title creation “to 2 per book format each week” (KDP: Create a Book, checked 4 October 2026). Publishers Lunch reported that the change took effect on 21 September 2026, down from 10, and that the allowance resets on Sunday at 12:00 AM UTC (Publishers Lunch).
Two paperbacks a week is plenty for a careful publisher. It’s not enough for “publish fifty lakes and see what sticks”, and that plan was risky anyway. KDP’s content guidelines rule out content that’s typically disappointing to customers and point to the Guide to Kindle Content Quality, which lists content “excessively reused, recycled, or repeated within or across books”. That guide is written for eBooks, but fifty fishing logs with the same pages and a new lake name on the cover look a lot like that example in any format.
One puzzle publisher put the lesson well on r/KDP: “Fewer, better-proofed books outperformed pumping out volume. Reviews improved, refunds dropped.” So treat every upload slot as valuable, and spend it on a book you’d buy yourself.
Is there demand for fishing log books?
Yes. Amazon’s search box suggests fishing log book, fishing log book for kids, fishing log book journal, fishing log book for men and fishing log book for women. Google suggests fishing log book template. Amazon also suggests fishing calendar 2027 and, for puzzle lovers, fishing word search large print and fishing word search books for adults. Hunters search too: hunting log book and hunting word search books for adults large print both show up.
Suggestions show people are shopping, not how crowded it is. Study the first page of Amazon results before you commit.
Step 1: Pick one water and one angler
“Fishing log book” is a shelf. “A two-year log for anglers on Table Rock Lake” is a book. Narrowing down makes your book easier to find, tells you what to put inside, and gives a buyer a reason to pick yours.
Some slants that make a log book different:
- One named water. A lake, a river stretch, a stretch of coast. You can add the moon times for that place and a page of notes about it.
- One kind of angler. Kids, fly fishers, ice fishers, kayak anglers. Each needs different fields.
- One use. A family cabin log passed down each summer, a guide’s client log, a gift for a retirement.
- One year. A dated 2027 log can carry a moon calendar. An undated log can’t, but it never goes out of date.
Pick one combination, and write a single sentence about who the book is for. If you can’t write that sentence, the book isn’t narrow enough yet.
Step 2: Add a moon and solunar calendar you’ve checked
Many anglers plan around the moon. Solunar tables mark “major” periods around the times the moon is overhead or underfoot and “minor” periods around moonrise and moonset. Anglers argue about how much it helps. Sell it as a planning tradition plus a place to record what happened, not as a promise of fish.
The moon times themselves are plain astronomy, and they have to be right for your town. Here’s one week for Branson, Missouri, near Table Rock Lake:
I made that table with my own script using the open-source PyEphem library. Then I checked it against timeanddate.com’s moon page for Branson for the same month. Rise, set and overhead times matched to the minute. It isn’t output from Meridian.
Two things the table teaches:
- Times are local. The same moon gives different clock times in every town, and the daylight-saving switch moves them by an hour. A table built for “the USA” is wrong almost everywhere.
- Some days have gaps. On 18 May 2027 the moon never crosses the meridian over Branson, so there is no overhead time. Your calendar needs a dash on those days, not a made-up number.
You can build this layer two ways.
Option A: Compute it yourself
With a little code, an astronomy library and a spreadsheet will do it. It’s slow the first time, and the layout is all yours.
Option B: Use Meridian’s Solunar Fishing template
Meridian is a web app that turns a town name into a 140-page, 6 x 9 KDP interior with a matching full-wrap cover and listing copy. One of the five templates in its front end is a Solunar Fishing Calendar: major and minor feeding periods, day ratings and a fishing log, for towns in 14 countries and in five languages, according to the sales page. That’s the calendar layer from Option A, done for you.
What to know before you buy, all from the vendor’s own pages:
- Price and refunds. The front end was $17 at checkout when I checked on 4 October 2026. The sales page says the price goes up after launch week but gives no date. All sales are final. There are no refunds.
- Upsells. The Tide Log & Fishing Journal (US coast only, NOAA tide data) and the Hunting Solunar Almanac are in the Template Vault upsell ($37), not the front end.
- What “claimed” means. When you generate a book, that template, town, year and language is locked to your account, so other Meridian users can’t generate it. Meridian’s terms say a claim gives no exclusivity outside Meridian. Anyone can still make a log book for the same lake another way.
- What’s included. The front end includes 25 claims and the 2027 edition year. New years are another upsell (the Annual Editions Club).
- Not for navigation. The disclaimer says the data are predictions and not for navigation. Tide data in particular shouldn’t be used for boating safety.
My honest view: a generated calendar is the data layer, not the whole book. Moon tables for the same lake look much the same whoever computes them. What makes yours worth buying is everything you add next. My Meridian review goes through the funnel and the claims in more detail.
Step 3: Design log pages people actually fill in
The log pages are what the buyer uses all year. A good catch log has:
- Trip fields: date, water and spot, start and end time, weather, air and water temperature, wind, water clarity.
- A moon line: phase and the best window from your calendar, so the angler can compare plan with result.
- A catch table: time, species, length or weight, bait or lure, depth, released or kept.
- Room for notes. A few ruled lines, and one blank box per trip for a sketch of the spot.
Some practical choices:
- One trip per page for most anglers. Kids and beginners do better with bigger boxes and fewer fields.
- Plan the page count. With one trip per page, 52 log pages covers a year of weekly trips, and 30 is plenty for a single summer. Say in the description how many trips the book holds.
- Test it with a pen. If the boxes are too small at the kitchen table, they’re too small on a cold boat.
Step 4: Add value on top of the data
This is the step that turns a log book into a book someone keeps, gives as a gift and buys again next year.
Local notes
A page or two about the water itself: launch ramps, the species people target, the seasons, the water’s history. Write it yourself from what you know or have checked. Don’t copy fishing regulations into the book. They change every year. Point the reader to the state wildlife agency’s current rules instead.
A puzzle section for the slow hours
Anglers wait a lot: for the bite, for the weather, for the drive home. A short puzzle section at the back gives them something to do, and it’s original content that sets your book apart from the next log on the page. A fishing word search is the natural choice:
That sample came from our own script, using a checked word list, to show the format. It isn’t output from Puzzle Maker Pro or Meridian.
In Puzzle Maker Pro, Standard Word Search builds this kind of puzzle from a plain text list, one word per line. Optional #TITLE: and #DESCRIPTION: lines give each puzzle its own title and description:
#TITLE: Bass Water
#DESCRIPTION: Gear and species you'll meet on a summer lake
BASS
CRAPPIE
BLUEGILL
BOBBER
SINKER
TACKLE
LANDING NET
A few touches that suit a fishing book:
- Theme each puzzle. Gear, species, knots, famous lakes, fish of your region. A word list with 10 to 15 words per puzzle is plenty. Word lists for puzzle books covers how to build lists you can reuse.
- Use the hidden message. Standard Word Search can spell a word or phrase through the leftover letters instead of random filler. “TIGHT LINES” makes a nice reward for finishing.
- Keep it friendly. Turn off backwards words for kids and casual solvers. Words longer than the grid’s longest side are dropped, so keep the list to words that fit.
- For a different look, Hexagon Word Search puts the letters on a hexagon grid, with words running along three axes.
New to the module? Start with getting started with Standard Word Search.
A large-print companion book
Many fishing word search buyers are older readers, or people buying for one. Amazon’s suggestions for fishing word search large print show that. If your log book does well, a large-print fishing word search book is a natural second title for the same reader. One puzzle per page, big letters, and the word list and answer key in the same size as the grid. Buyers complain when only the grid is big. Large-print puzzle books for KDP covers the sizing. The same idea works for hunters: a hunting log with a hunting word search section, then a large-print hunting word search book.
Putting the book together
Puzzle Book Studio builds a puzzle interior with titles, page numbers and a solutions section. Use it for the standalone companion book, or as the puzzle pages you combine with your log pages in your own layout tool. On editions: a book built from one puzzle collection works in Puzzle Book Studio Creative. Combining several collections in one book (a fishing set and a hunting set, say) is a Productivity job. The editions page has the details. Every paid edition lets you sell the books you make; see commercial rights explained.
Step 5: Proof it, then publish
KDP counts a title against the weekly limit when you create it, not when you publish it, and you can only order a printed proof once the book exists as a draft with its files approved in the previewer (KDP: order proof copies). So do as much checking as you can before you create the title:
- Check the calendar against a published source for at least three dates, including the daylight-saving change.
- Print a few pages at home and fill them in with a pen. Check that the log boxes are big enough.
- Solve one puzzle per section yourself and check it against the answer key.
- Write a description that matches the inside. Say what the calendar covers, how many log pages there are, and what the puzzle section is.
- Answer KDP’s AI question honestly. If an AI tool wrote any text you use, including listing copy, KDP asks you to say so (content guidelines).
Then create the title, order a printed proof and read every page of it before you click Publish. Updating the files of a draft you’ve already created isn’t a new title.
After that, think about the next book before you make it. A second edition for a different lake should be different inside: its own notes, its own species, its own puzzle themes. If the only change is the name on the cover, skip it and use the slot for something new.
A four-week plan with two slots a week
| Week | What you do | New titles created |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pick the water and the reader. Build and check the calendar. Draft the log page and test it with a pen. | 0 |
| 2 | Write the local notes. Make the puzzle section. Create the paperback title as a draft and order a printed proof. | 1 paperback |
| 3 | Fix what the proof shows in the same draft. Publish the log book. | 0 |
| 4 | Read early feedback. Start the large-print word search companion for the same reader. | 0–1 |
That’s a pace, not a promise. No one can promise sales, and the second slot each week is better saved than spent on a rushed book.
Related guides
- The moon side. How to make a 2027 moon phase calendar book goes deeper into moon data, time zones and checking.
- The tool. My research-based Meridian review audits its claims, including the volume pitch against the weekly upload cap.
- Large print. Which puzzle families survive large print helps you pick the puzzle types for older readers.
- Answer keys. Puzzle book answer keys covers how to lay them out.
FAQ
What should a fishing log book include?
Trip details, a catch table, space for notes and, for a dated edition, a moon or solunar calendar for the reader’s area. Local notes or a puzzle section make it stand out.
Do solunar tables really work?
Anglers disagree. The moon times are real astronomy, but how much they affect fishing is debated. Present the calendar as a planning tradition and a way to record results, not as a guarantee.
Do I need Meridian to make a fishing log book?
No. You can compute moon times yourself and design the pages in any layout tool. Meridian saves the data and layout work for the calendar part. It costs $17 at the time of writing, with no refunds, and you still need to add what makes the book yours.
How many fishing log books should I publish?
Fewer than you think. KDP allows two new titles per format each week, and near-identical books look like the repeated content its guidance warns about. Make one good book, learn from it, then make a different one.
See Meridian’s current price and what’s included (affiliate link)