Amazon as a company continues to surprise me.\u00a0 Not only do they have an amazing ecommerce platform, powerful ebook publishing system, and well designed audio-book development studio, but their print-on-demand book publishing wing has proven to be equally as intuitive, powerful, and effective!<\/p>\n
When I first ventured into self-publishing I wanted to establish credibility as both a legitimate author and producer of a professional product. To do this I contracted with editors, visual designers, and a smaller traditional printer. I certainly made my mistakes and learned a great deal.\u00a0 In the end, the euphoric feeling of holding my first book rocked me to my core and cemented my dedication to being an author and publisher.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s much to be weary of in the print industry and when conducting your own business. While not insurmountable, there are many mines in the path for those venturing down publisher lane.\u00a0 Read some of my older blog entries about those issues.<\/p>\n
After publishing my third book, I wanted to bring a segment removed from the third manuscript to market as a novelette (between 10-17k words).\u00a0 Unlike my main books, I didn’t want to carry inventory (translation, keep boxes of books at home waiting to be sold) for the novelette. In truth, I thought it would have a limited appeal given it builds off the third book of my first trilogy versus standing alone as a short story. But, I have some amazing fans that may be interested in it, and the story is interesting!<\/p>\n
Enter Amazon’s CreateSpace!<\/p>\n
A friend and fellow author Tim Clausen recently released his own book, Love Together, using CreateSpace. He briefly talked about his positive experience using the platform. It made me reconsider leveraging the offering.<\/p>\n
Originally I stayed away from the platform because it didn’t offer the book size I wanted. After all, I had done a great deal of research about popular and contemporary science fiction book sizes and wanted to do what the market wanted and expected.<\/p>\n
However, since this was expected to be a low-distribution product, if there was ever a good time to test CreateSpace, this was it!<\/p>\n
To be blunt, CreateSpace is amazingly intuitive to use. Keep in mind, I’m used to working directly with the printer. This includes specifying every last detail from paper, bleeds, trims, cover gloss type, placement of the UPC, creating detailed cover files, desktop publishing and formatting of the internal content–everything.<\/p>\n
Upon entering CreateSpace, I checked the book sizes offered. As before, my preferred size was not there. However, one size was pretty close.\u00a0 Once I knew the size, I could work on my cover and back cover images. Luckily I had three books of templates to work with now. Sure, I had to adjust the size in Photoshop, but I feel like an old pro making covers now.<\/p>\n
The tricky part is always the spine. Based on the number of pages, the spine size changes, which means there’s ALWAYS an adjustment needed for your book cover templates (unless they’re always the same page count).\u00a0 Turns out, for the Mindwalk novelette, it was under 100 pages so they couldn’t even provide a size estimate<\/em> for the spine!\u00a0 Translation: they couldn’t tell me how big to make the spine.<\/p>\n Okay, that was clear a snag.\u00a0 But they gave me an approximate overall size I needed for the full front, spine, back cover file.\u00a0 I adjusted to those dimensions.\u00a0 I saved out the required JPEG format.\u00a0 Done.<\/p>\n Next, I used Microsoft Word–I know it’s not a desktop publisher–to do the simple text formatting for the inside of the book.\u00a0 It honestly can held the type of design I need for a book, including inserting of images as needed. So, I don’t really need more power than that for the inside contents. After a final review, the Word document was all squared away.\u00a0 Done.<\/p>\n Back into CreateSpace I went.<\/p>\n It allows you to create an ISBN number through Amazon. That just means you don’t have to pay for a seperate ISBN book sales and distrubion number (you need a unique one for each book and delivery format–including ebooks). You could use your own if you have them. However, if you use Amazon’s free ISBN number, it becomes exclusive to their system.\u00a0 Again, this was for Mindwalk, not one of the core novels, so this was fine.\u00a0 I selected the radio button specifying to use theirs.\u00a0 Done<\/em>.<\/p>\n I selected the book size.\u00a0 Done<\/em><\/p>\n I uploaded the cover JPEG image.\u00a0 Done<\/em><\/p>\n I uploaded the Word document. Done<\/em><\/p>\n I was able to instantly do an on-line preview. Great! Saw a warning the dots per inch (DPI) resolution on my bio picture was too low. It’s just there for reference and I don’t mind if my picture is not higer quality in a novelette. Clicked OK. Done<\/em>.<\/p>\n It asked about cover details like do you want it to be glossy (shiny) or matte (dull, more paper-like).\u00a0 Done<\/em>.<\/p>\n The next step was a final online review or have them send a printed proof at the cost of production plus shipping. For Mindwalk the cost was a little over $2.15 to print, plus shipping.\u00a0 Perfect.<\/p>\n *ALWAYS get a printed proof so you can review it.<\/span><\/span>*<\/strong>\u00a0 I learned this from going the traditional route. Avoid rushing a product to market because you want it out there faster.\u00a0 Quality is more important than speed with traditional novels and novelettes.\u00a0 Remember one mad person turns into a review that stunts any future sales potential. And that review lives forever, especially on Amazon.<\/p>\n I set the final price ($.50 above what Amazon said I had to sell it for based on using their platform and their expected profit). I also flagged for them to go ahead and do distribution and promotion of the book across their international sites, etc.<\/p>\n A week later I received the printed proof and found tweaks I wanted to make. I popped back into the system, clicked on the Mindwalk book, and easily re-uploaded the cover and inner content Word document. I ordered a second printed proof.\u00a0 You can get expedited shipping if you want. I didn’t need that, so I was not willing to pay the additional cost for it. I found a few tweaks again, but did not order a third proof.\u00a0 I felt confident enough to approve it from a final online review.<\/p>\n One button click and it went into the system for people to order.\u00a0 It says it could take up to a few hours to show up publicly.\u00a0 Regardless, it was painless the entire time.<\/p>\n WAIT!<\/em><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 That’s not totally true!\u00a0 Use Chrome not Internet Explorer.\u00a0 Their online preview tool works better with Chrome, and glitches a bit with Internet Explorer.<\/p>\n Okay, other than that, it was great.\u00a0 The cost to print is so low.\u00a0 You don’t have to carry any inventory! Honestly, it’s difficult to consider going back to the traditional printers.\u00a0 However, I do want to maintain the style and format I’ve established from the first three novels.<\/p>\n We’ll see what I chose for the fourth novel in the D’mok Revival series, which has already entered my “rewrite” process.\u00a0 I can confirm there’s another novelette coming, and it will use CreateSpace.<\/p>\n I highly recommend it!\u00a0 Email me with questions about the experience!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amazon as a company continues to surprise me.\u00a0 Not only do they have an amazing ecommerce platform, powerful ebook publishing system, and well designed audio-book development studio, but their print-on-demand book publishing wing has proven to be equally as intuitive, … Continue reading