A companion journal is also available. Please click the link below for more information.
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Self-Publishing My Books with CreateSpace
Updated: April 13, 2010
These are some notes about my experience with using Amazon.com's CreateSpace to self-publish the books of my Math Made a Bit Easier series, as well as my book America's (Math) Education Crisis: Why We Have It and Why We Can('t) Fix It, and my latest books The Complete Music Practice Record Book: A Six-Month Log and Journal for Dedicated Students and The Regiftable Gift Book: The Gift That Keeps On Regiving. I hope that they are useful to others who are considering using the service. Please contact me if you have any questions about anything that I've written.
The Benefits of Self-Publishing
It's worth mentioning that the technology has evolved to the point where anyone can be a self-published author. While this certainly can and does result in a fair amount of subpar writing being published, it also provides a wonderful opportunity for those who would not have previously had it.
Self-publishing really brings new meaning to the concept of freedom of speech and of the press. It is no longer the case that a person can only get their ideas and opinions into print if they are rich and/or well-connected. It is also no longer the case that a person's writing may be heavily edited based on the agenda of the publisher. I strongly encourage writers to take advantage of this technology, and publish whatever it is that they have to say. No one is forced to read it or buy it, but at least it is "out there" for those who are interested.
So What Is CreateSpace?
CreateSpace is a subsidiary of Amazon.com. Using Print-On-Demand (POD) technology, they make it very easy for someone to self-publish their book, and have it included in Amazon's listings just like any other book. They provide extensive help with the whole process. It is also possible to publish CDs and DVDs, although I have no experience with that. The information below is all based on book publishing.
Does CreateSpace Assist with Things Like Marketing, Proofreading, and Design Work?
CreateSpace offers all sorts of paid services which are described on their website, but I did not get involved with them, so I cannot comment on them. As expected, many of those services are somewhat pricey, and one should be realistic about how many copies of their product will actually be sold. Before getting involved with any expensive paid service, it is worth giving yourself some time to cool down from the initial excitement of the prospect of seeing your book in print.
How Much Investment is Required to Get Started?
Since CreateSpace uses POD technology, it is not necessary to order hundreds or thousands of copies of your book in advance order to sell them at an effective price. Copies of your book are only printed as they are ordered. CreateSpace offers two options for self-publishers. One is called the Standard Plan, and the other is called the Pro Plan. The difference may be a bit confusing at first, so I'll make it simple. If you're only planning on buying and/or selling a handful of copies of your book (perhaps just to family and friends), then go with the Standard Plan which requires no fees whatsoever. If you're planning on selling even a relatively small number of copies of your book, you really need to go with the Pro Plan. The Pro Plan costs $39 for the first year, and $5 for each additional year, and you can cancel it at any time. These fees are per title. The Pro Plan significantly lowers the cost of your proof copy and any copies of the book that you order for yourself. It also significantly lowers Amazon's cut on copies that are sold, which means you can price your book realistically.
Who Fulfills Orders, the Self-Publisher or Amazon?
Amazon fulfills all orders of your self-published material, and handles all returns. You as the author are not involved at all. As expected, they provide you with a sales report. The report appears to update in real time or close to it, but it doesn't give you any information about the buyers of your book. This might make it hard for you to figure out if your book is being ordered by strangers, or by compassionate family members and friends. CreateSpace pays you your cut via PayPal, or for an extra fee you can opt for paper checks.
How Much Will Shipping Cost for Your Book?
Your book will be part of Amazon's Prime program. This means that customers who are Amazon Prime members can order your book with free two-day shipping. Non-Prime members can order your book for free economy shipping if they order it with $25 worth of qualifying merchandise. All others just pay Amazon's normal shipping costs. Your book is handled no differently than any other book that is in Amazon's listings and sold through Amazon.
Will My Book Appear Any Differently In Amazon's Listings Than Other Books?
CreateSpace will be listed as the publisher, but other than that, the book appears just like any other book. You can enter in your own description and tags, etc. Amazon automatically handles adding the "Look Inside" and "Search Inside" functionality and everything else, but such may take as long as six weeks. Your book is not segregated in any way, nor marked as a self-published work. It will also be eligible for any of Amazon's typical promotions, such as the current "4-for-3" promotion.
Do I Need to Buy an ISBN?
CreateSpace will provide you with a free ISBN, but that ISBN is effectively owned by Amazon. You certainly maintain all copyrights to your book, but it is not "your ISBN," meaning that you would need to buy one independently if you wanted to try to get your book into bookstores. From what I understand, you can buy your own ISBN and barcode from Bowker for about $150, but I did not get involved with that yet. You may want to think carefully about whether your book will really be able to find its way into bookstores considering that bookstores have limited shelf space and tend to favor what they are certain will sell. Of course bookstores also prefer to work with large publishing companies who will accept unconditional returns of unsold products which may not be something that you as an independent publisher will be able to offer.
Note that Amazon now offers two paid ISBN options, in addition to the free option described above. For $10, you can choose your book's "imprint of record," but Amazon still owns the ISBN. It will be registered with BooksInPrint.com, but the ISBN cannot be used with another publisher. I don't fully understand the significance of this option, and it is not something that I got involved in. For $99, you can get a custom universal ISBN which can be used with any publisher. Again, I don't fully understand the details of this. The most common question that people have is about matters of copyright. It's important to understand that you as the author have copyright of your work the moment it is written. Amazon doesn't "own it," nor can they "steal it." Remember, if a major publisher takes an interest in your book, and you choose to work with them, they will handle all of the logistical matters regarding ISBNs and everything else.
How Can I Get Help with Designing a Cover?
You can use CreateSpace's free cover designer which offers some very basic options with limited means for customization. You can also hire someone to design one for you, and give them CreateSpace's template to work with. You could also use CreateSpace's paid cover design service which is pricey. I designed the covers of my math books using the free cover designer which is fine for my purpose, but it's not at all catchy.
Note that your book must be at least 132 pages for the title and author to appear on the spine if you use the free cover creator. If you handle the cover on your own, the minimum appears to drop to 100 pages, but Amazon still strongly recommends 132.
Hiring a Professional Artist or Graphic Designer to Create a Custom Cover
For my education crisis book, my music practice journal, and my regiftable gift book, I chose to hire an artist that I worked with in the past on other projects. He will also be working on my upcoming books, and is a good guy to work with. His name is VShane, and can be reached via his website. If you contact him, please tell him that I referred you. His price was about 50%-75% cheaper than what CreateSpace would have charged for an equivalent cover.
If you are going to hire an artist, ensure that you will retain all rights to the artwork once it is done. You should just pay a one-time fee. Ensure that you and the artist are "on the same page" (no pun intended) with the entire project, as far as deadlines and expectations. Note that CreateSpace provides a custom Photoshop template that the artist can use. It includes the appropriate spine width based on your page count, and of course the appropriate dimensions including markings for the bleed area.
What if Amazon or Someone Steals the Rights to the Book?
You maintain all copyrights to your book. You are not signing over any rights to Amazon by using CreateSpace. By law, any piece of writing becomes automatically copyrighted the moment it is printed. For those who are overly concerned, the US Government has a department to which you can pay a small fee and register any copyrighted materials. Once you get passed the initial excitement of self-publishing your book, you will quickly realize two things. The first is that no one is going to "steal" your book. The second is that even if you do see some or all of your book in some form of publication somewhere, are you really going to spend thousands of dollars on attorney fees to fight the matter, assuming that sending a simple business letter to the infringer is insufficient? Keep in mind that for the most part, any publicity is good publicity. No one is going to copy your book and republish it under their own name.
Formatting Your Book and Converting It to PDF Format
This section is based on my first math book, but applies to most of my other books as well. I edited my book using Microsoft Word 2007. Note that if you don't have Word, you can download and use the free OpenOffice emulator which has very similar functionality. In Word, I set the page size to match the selected size of my book (5.25" x 8" for my math books). CreateSpace offers a wide variety of sizes to choose from. For the margins, I used 1" Top, 0.8" Bottom, 0.75" for the inside margin, and 0.62" for the outside margin. Be sure to choose the setting for "mirror margins" which is required for a setup that involves an inner and outer margin. Be sure to check CreateSpace's specs for the inside margin size that is required based on the number of pages in your book. Longer books require wider inner margins.
For a font I used Palatino Linotype which is virtually identical to Book Antiqua. For the main text you should choose a serif font, that is to say one that has the little "tails" sticking out from most of the letters. Most people find that easier to read. Times New Roman is a popular choice, but many people are sick of it. For the section headers I used the sans-serif font Arial. In both cases I used an 11 point font, but you should experiment with sizes between 10 and 12.
I set the line spacing throughout to 1.15 (under the Paragraph options). Experiment with settings between 1 and 1.5. You can also experiment with how much space you want to leave in between paragraphs, if any. I choose to leave a blank line in between paragraphs since I didn't intent them as you might see in a novel.
One important tip I can share is to make extensive use of Word's Style feature. Once you format text in a particular way, such as for a section header, select that text, right click, click the Styles option, and then save the selection as a new style with a meaningful name. This way, you won't have to "reinvent the wheel" every time you want to format text in the same way.
Another tip is to make use of the toolbar button that lets you show and hide hidden formatting symbols. The button looks like the paragraph symbol (¶). By toggling that option, you'll be able to see where your paragraph and section breaks are, and other invisible markings such as spaces and tabs.
It is very important to make good use of section breaks. If you don't, it will be a tremendous amount of work to make sure that your headers and footers are appearing appropriately. You can access the different types of breaks via the Breaks button on the Page Layout menu. The only type of break I used is the Next Page break. By using that break at the end of each chapter, you'll be able to set your headers to accurately show the names of each chapter. If the pagination of your document goes haywire after inserting a page break, turn on the hidden characters as described above to see if any extraneous paragraph symbols are pushing text around.
When you're ready to upload your book to CreateSpace, you'll need to convert it to PDF format. I had no trouble at all with using the free PDF converter add-on which is available for Word 2007. In the past I've also used the free Primo PDF with success. Many people on the CreateSpace forums report problems with converting their books into PDF format, but I'm not sure what they are running into. Again, however, my book is relatively simple in format. I don't know if full color illustrated books require any special care.
Feel free to copy the format that I used for my books if you feel it will be helpful. You can see excerpts of them on Amazon and on Google Books. Of course you could also consider modeling your formatting after other books that you are familiar with. Contact me if you have questions about formatting, or if you'd like me to take a look at any formatting that you have done.
Converting and Publishing Your Book in Kindle Format
I will complete this section soon with detailed information based on how I converted my education crisis book to Kindle format on my own. Please contact me if you would like me to expedite this section. In the mean time, CreateSpace now offers a service which will convert your book to Kindle format for $69, or slightly more if your book includes lots of photos or special formatting. It may be worth taking advantage of this service, and saving yourself time and stress. You will also likely end up with a nicer version than what I did on my own. If nothing else, poke around on the Kindle Direct Publishing website which includes lots of information.
Issues with Photos and Illustrations in Your Book
CreateSpace suggests that all photos and illustrations in your book be saved at 300 DPI for optimal printing, although this requirement does not appear to be mandatory. I designed the diagrams for my math books using Microsoft Visio, and then I clipped them using the Vista Snipping Tool. If you do anything like this, be sure to use a lossless format such as GIF as opposed to JPG. The latter will result in some distinct blurriness since it drops pixels to compress the image size.
When I submitted the book for approval, I received an e-mail saying that my images were in the range of 150 DPI. I went ahead with publishing anyway, and they all seem fine to me. If you look very closely you can see that they are not absolutely ideal, but I really don't think that anyone would notice or care. The truth is that when it comes to graphics-related matters, I have little to no idea of what I am doing. If you're going to publish a book that involves important graphics or diagrams, I'd suggest seeking help elsewhere if you need it.
How Long Does the Self-Publication Process Take?
It is worth noting that for each of my books, every step of the process took far less time than was promised by CreateSpace. I don't know if everyone will have the same experience. After submitting the PDF of my book for approval, I received a reply in about 24 hours. The reply made reference to the DPI issue described above, and also noted that my PDF file contained some transparency layers which could be a point of concern. I ignored the latter, having no idea what it meant, and the books look just fine. I believe that the approval process mainly just verifies that your book looks like a book. I doubt that they would approve the publication of a book comprised of nothing but scribbles, but certainly CreateSpace is not doing any sort of free proofreading for you.
The next step was to order a proof copy of the book which I elaborate on below. There are four different shipping speeds (and rates) that you can choose from, and the book arrived on schedule. Some people on the forums are not happy about the shipping rates, but I had no such complaint. Of course the shipping rate per copy drops drastically if you order more copies of your book in the same shipment.
The proof copy looked great, which I elaborate on below. The next step was just to approve the proof copy which just takes one click. In about 3 days my book was for sale as part of Amazon's listings. About two weeks later the "Look Inside" feature was functional, and about two days after that the "Search Inside" functionality was working. Again, your experience may differ. The stated turnaround times from CreateSpace are much longer than what I experienced.
How Much Should I Charge for My Book?
CreateSpace provides very clear charts that explain how the pricing works. The author is free to set the selling price as s/he desires. When a book is sold, Amazon takes a flat cut based on the number of pages, and whether the book is color or black and white. They then also take 40% of the selling price. All the rest goes to the author. As mentioned, you really want to be part of the Pro Plan so that Amazon's flat cut is much lower, and so that your proof and personal copies are much cheaper.
CreateSpace also provides you with a template for an eStore from which people can order your book. If people order your book via your eStore instead of via Amazon, then Amazon only takes 20% instead of 40%. The problem is that most potential customers may not understand what site they are really looking at. When the time comes to place the order, they are asked to create a CreateSpace account. This doesn't strike me as something that most people will do. In my case I'm only selling my book on Amazon which almost everyone already trusts and feels comfortable with.
I priced my first math book at $7.95, which gives me a 56-cent profit per copy. I doubt that I would earn more if I went the route of using an agent and a publishing company, and I wouldn't have the same control that I do now. I suggest being very humble about choosing the price of your book. If you price it too high, you simply will not sell any copies. I think it is far better to work on volume and building a reputation for yourself as a writer. It is also worth researching your competition. In my case I'm competing with books like Danica McKellar's Math Doesn't Suck, and of course books from Cliff Notes and Barrons and so forth. Also remember that if you are a brand new author, people know nothing about you, nor will they probably recognize CreateSpace as the listed publisher. Don't follow the pattern of self-publishers who assume that everyone will pay an arm and a leg for their book.
Quality of the Finished Product
I'm very impressed with the quality of the books that CreateSpace produces. Everyone to whom I showed my books indicated that there is absolutely no difference between them and any other books. Again, though, if you look at a copy of my books, recall that my images were not saved at 300 DPI. That was my issue, and not CreateSpace's. I'm sure that if you submit 300 DPI images they will print perfectly. Also note that the cover quality of my math books looked excellent, but I did them using CreateSpace's cover creator tool. The professionally designed cover of my education crisis book and music practice journal also looked great. If you create your own cover or have someone do it for you, be sure to follow CreateSpace's strict guidelines and template, and be sure that it is saved at 300 DPI. Note that my book is black and white. I cannot comment on the quality of full color books, nor on the quality of books that involve images that extend to the edges of the pages (i.e., bleed).
CreateSpace Customer Service
I have had several experiences e-mailing and/or calling CreateSpace's Customer Support, and I was extremely pleased with the level of service. They also offer a forum in which experienced members and staff participate. I believe that they are very dedicated to this service, and that it will grow tremendously over the years.
Marketing and Publicity for Your Book
I did not utilize any of CreateSpace's paid marketing services, and again, I suggest not rushing into anything with the expectation that you will sell a million copies of your book. In my case I already have somewhat of a following as a result of this free math website, so that helps. I also added my books in their entirety to Google Books. I don't believe that doing so will hurt my sales, and if anything will increase publicity.
I'm planning on sending some review copies to some websites that focus on math and/or homeschooling. I'm also going to do some minimal advertising via Google AdWords, and I might publish some press releases on Craigslist in major cities. I suggest creating an interactive website such as this for your book, and offer to answer people's questions. It is important to make yourself come across as a real human being. I'll update this section as I come up with other marketing ideas or if anyone contacts me with suggestions.
It's worth noting that some publications may balk at a product that is available exclusively on Amazon.com, but you also shouldn't in any way try to conceal that fact. In my case I make that fact clear in several places throughout my book so that people don't waste time searching for it in a bookstore.
How Do I Get My Book Into Bookstores or Other Distribution Channels Such As Libraries, Etc?
CreateSpace now offers something known as Expanded Distribution Channels which you can read about on their site. This seems to include options such as libraries, online booksellers, and certain distributors. The problem with opting in for this is that you will be forced to price your book higher than is probably realistic. This is because Amazon will take an even higher cut of sales which were generated by an expanded distribution channel. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way of pricing your book such that it has one price (namely a reasonable one) on Amazon, and a higher price for the other sales channels.
There is also an issue with not owning your own ISBN. Bookstores typically only want to get involved with publishers which own their own ISBN numbers (see above), and that are willing to take returns unconditionally. While Amazon will handle returns from an individual customer in accordance with their return policy, they are not about to have a bookstore order hundreds of copies of a book and then return them for a full refund when they see that they aren't selling (and are perhaps damaged by careless customers).
If you want to get your book into bookstores, I suggest just starting with CreateSpace, and hoping that your book gets picked up by a major publisher. Keep in mind that competition is extremely tight.
Avoid Using Amazon's or CreateSpace's Name in Your Book
There seems to be a new policy which states that authors may not use Amazon's or CreateSpace's name or logo anywhere in their books, even in the context of something like, "Available on Amazon.com."
Questions That Are Not Addressed Here
If you have any questions about anything that wasn't addressed here, please contact me and I'll try to answer them and update this page accordingly. Good luck with your self-publishing goals!