This meant if we wanted to, we could accept the changes we made after the first proof, and go right to having the book being published and available.  We still chose to order a second proof just in case.

Afterwards, CS sent an email about this and asked me to take a small survey on whether or not I liked this option.  I can see it having its advantages and disadvantages, but I gave it two thumbs up overall.

The main advantage is if you are 100% sure you are done with your changes, you can save the time and money by not having to order and wait on another proof copy…only to approve it immediately and then wait some more for the book to go live.

Disadvantages are authors rushing the publication process when more editing or changes may need to be made and a second proof might have helped.  Time and patience are the biggest factors when self-publishing, but also our biggest downfalls, right?

So, tell us what you think?  Do you think this option is good?  Bad? Why or why not?

How many proof copies have you gone through before you got it right?

And would you still consider opting out and ordering a proof copy anyway, even if you didn’t have to?

CreateSpace will convert your trade paperback book* into an eBook format that maintains the formatting and design elements used in your trade paperback book. You will also receive a JPEG thumbnail of your book’s cover.

Both files are ready for you to upload to Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (DTP) for distribution in the Kindle store. DTP also accepts html, Word .doc, .pdf, ePub, plain text, and MobiPocket files for free.

How It Works

1. Set up your book with CreateSpace, or use one of your existing CreateSpace titles.
2. We take your print-ready CreateSpace interior file and convert it to a Kindle-ready PRC file.
3. We provide you with the converted file and a JPEG of your cover.
4. You upload and distribute your book to the Kindle store at dtp.amazon.com

Typical turnaround time for this service is 2-3 weeks.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

I don’t see this as too much of an over priced service if authors don’t have time to do this themselves, or are afraid to approach it.  My only concern is would you be able to use the files they provide to also upload your ebook to PubIt! or even Smashwords, or would CreateSpace watermark them or make you sign some sort of contract to prevent use outside the Amazon DTP?

Their turnaround time is also a bit much if you take into account that you can download a free help guide from Smashwords to help you, and practically convert your own file within a few hours.

If CreateSpace really wanted to make an effort, they’d connect the DTP to your CS account allowing your book to become available on Kindle all on the same screen if you wanted it, rather than you having to sign up for DTP and upload the file yourself.

Here’s an interesting email that landed in some Lulu’ers box last night.  If you were having trouble finding your book in Lulu’s Search Option, apparently they were under attack by Gremlins but have now got it all sorted out.  I have no idea what the 25% off at the top means, when they later say they’ll be sending you a 15% off special in a few days.  Oh, and is it just me or does Lulu suggest you forward the special email to a bunch of people who drink.  Why not nurse maids, dog groomers, and trash collectors? Just saying.

(Your Book’s Title)

Take 25% off

You recently published (title of book) and made it available to the world in the Lulu Marketplace. Thank you. We’re thrilled to have such a remarkable work in our catalog!

Unfortunately, the world didn’t get to see it as quickly as they should have. A hiccup in our system kept your book from showing up in search results immediately after you published.

The short of it is the gremlins got us. Fortunately, we found them – big, hairy devils with beady red eyes and the complexion of toad – and dispensed with them. (We’ll spare you the details). Our systems are back to the Lulu standard and all books in our catalog now appear in our search results.

We want to give you a new start on your sales. In the next few days, you’ll receive a custom e-mail from us that will display your book’s cover and a 15% discount on the list price. We’ll design the e-mail so that you can easily forward it to friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, coffee shop baristas, waiters, bartenders and anyone else you meet. It’ll be a handy way to encourage them to buy your book. And don’t worry – that 15% discount will come out of our profit, not yours. We just want to make things right.

Thank you again for choosing Lulu.

Sincerely,

Your Friends at Lulu

The 2010 winners of the ABNA (Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award) have been announced.

Congrats go out to Patrica McArdle whose novel, Farishta, takes home the General Fiction award.

And Amy Ackley’s book, Sign Language, snagged the Young Adult Fiction win.

Here’s what  Molly Stern (editorial director at Viking Books) had to say about McArdle’s book:

“For all its problems, Farishta has an undeniably fabulous setup. Far too long and burdened by overwhelming detail and an underwhelming plot, Patricia McArdle’s novel does magnificently portray the experience of a soon-to-be-washed-up foreign service diplomat working at a military outpost in Afghanistan just after the 9/11 attacks. As the novel opens, Angela Morgan is, at 47 years old, considered past her prime. When her supervisor calls her with a last assignment–she is instructed to use her considerable language skills to learn Dari in a matter of weeks and work at a remote outpost on a one-year assignment with the British army–she knows she must accept or be forced to retire for good. After the devastating loss of her husband during a bombing in Beirut and the subsequent miscarriage of their child twenty years earlier, Angela has never quite recovered from her post-traumatic stress disorder. Panic attacks are always one unexpected loud noise away. And jumping into a war zone is almost more than she can imagine. But with the promise of a future post in London, and not much to keep her stateside, she packs her bags and begins a fascinating personal and professional odyssey. Instructed to keep her knowledge of Dari secret, Angela is charged with determining whether the army’s interpreters are passing along accurate and truthful information to the soldiers as they navigate the dire lawlessness of this embattled country. What follows is the fine-grained, deeply knowledgeable portrait of the life of a lone woman among soldiers in a military camp in rural Afghanistan.

Farishta’s principal accomplishment is its fascinating window into military life at the center of a complex conflict that will be relevant for years to come. McArdle is a confident, unaffected writer, and Angela is believable and compelling, even heroic, as a woman finding purpose at a later stage in life. Unnerved and sad at first, Angela finds an energizing bonhomie in her relationships with the soldiers who surround her; the Mr. Darcy–like figure in the form of the younger Major Davies, who inflames her; the interpreter she befriends but must deceive; and the native people she becomes determined to help.

However, a fine sense of place does not a great novel make. In fact, the novel’s most potent asset is also its undoing. The narrative is seriously lacking in discipline, with no detail spared, no regional ritual excised, no minute element of military-camp protocol truncated. At 550 pages, Farishta is 150 pages too long. The Jane Austen–esque love affair is preposterously drawn out, and crucial events are anticlimactically telegraphed rather than dramatized. And yet I am intrigued by the potential here. Though missed opportunities abound, buried as they are beneath the author’s good intentions and her rather astonishing ability to evoke the culture, I do firmly believe that with a strong editorial hand Farishta could be a hugely successful, even revelatory, novel.”

And Ben Schranks’s (President and Publisher of Razorbill) thoughts on Ackley’s title:

“This is a melancholic coming-of-age tale about standing by and watching a loved one die. Abby is 13 years old when her father is rushed to the hospital, where it’s discovered that he is battling kidney cancer. The North family–Abby, her brother, her older sister and their mother–nurse him to no avail. This novel moves at a slow burn, with plenty of loving attention given to even the smallest details. Abby watches her father move from the early stages of illness to a time when he’s on morphine and living in a hospital bed that the Norths have moved into their living room. The author’s focus on the haze of misunderstanding and illogic that surrounds death in the family is wonderful, and Abby’s struggle with faith gilds her character. Unable to find succor in God, she turns to a Magic 8 Ball that answers her big questions. ‘Abby wondered how many little girls were out there fooling themselves into believing they had guardian angels that watched over them, and if any of them had asked for a sign of life before and actually received one. Abby wondered if any of their dead mothers or fathers had given them something to hold on to, whether they were loved more than Abby was.’

The book moves at a steady pace and chronicles Abby’s journey from a bewildered and frightened girl to a strong young woman. Her grasp on reality tightens and, eventually, she processes the loss of her father and is ready to emerge on the other side of grief. What this book lacks in narrative tension, it makes up for in finely drawn details and sincerity. This one’s the winner in my book.”

As technology sponsor of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, CreateSpace would like to congratulate the 2010 Finalists! Out of an initial field of thousands, Amazon has narrowed the pool down to three entries each in the Young Adult Fiction and General Fiction categories. To find out more about the contest visit the CreateSpace ABNA contest page at www.createspace.com/abna. For more about the finalists, including an extended excerpt from each of their manuscripts, and reviews from the expert panel, visit the Amazon contest page at www.amazon.com/abna.

Voting is open until Tuesday, June 2nd at 11:59 PM EDT. Make sure to cast your vote for the Grand Prize winner in each of the two categories.

General Fiction:

Fortune Cookies by Jennifer Handford

Farishta by Patricia McArdle

Dove Season by Johnny Shaw

Young Adult Fiction:

Sign Language by Amy Ackley

Service of the Crown by Alex Airdale

Days Like this by Alison Stewart

Voting ends June 2nd.  Winners will be announced June 14th.

It took several months for the book to become available on Amazon. Six months in fact.  Having emailed Lulu support several times during that wait period and after getting no help, I decided to give up on the project and I retired the book immediately.  It loaded to Amazon anyway though and while I have never promoted it, I did go ahead and load it to the Kindle where it has been downloaded enough to gain a sales rank in genres such as Writing Skills and Authorship.

Since the project was retired, but live on Amazon, I also expected never to collect any royalties from the sale of hard copies.  My fault for letting my anger get the best of me. But that’s where good ole Lulu didn’t fail me…at least I hope they didn’t fail.  To date, I’ve collected royalties for a total of just 5 copies: 3 in the US and 2 in the UK!

After much inner debate, I’ve decided to “unretire” the book.  With that decision, I’ve lowered the list price of the paperback to just $9.50 on Lulu and the E-Book to just $4.50, cutting most of my royalties. This may or may not affect the current list price at Amazon where the book is $12.50, but can be purchased starting at $9.50 from third party marketplace sellers. I don’t care.  More than anything, I want the book to be available to those who need it most…indie authors who may not have a lot of money to invest in their work, but have a lot of heart already invested in it. And may just need some help in the right direction.

The information presented in this book has not been changed.  In fact, I have reviewed it against Amazon and the information is still as current today as it was a year ago when I compiled it.  While I’m sure I could build upon the material, the purpose of the book was always to be a “quick” reference for indie authors.  I do not feel the need to broaden it, and I believe it can be a very important “go to” book for authors who are out of money and looking for quick ways to market their own book on Amazon.com, the world’s largest online book seller.

So, to kick off the “rebirth” of my POD Pocket Guide, I’m offering ten free copies!  That’s right!  Ten free copies!  To be eligible, just leave a comment with your email address on this post. On June 30th, I’ll pick ten winners at random. Yes, there’s a catch.  First, you must live in the United States.  Second, you must commit to leaving a review of the POD Pocket Guide on Amazon.com once you’ve read or used it.  If you can meet these two requirements, then leave a comment on this post to enter the raffle.

Can’t wait till June 30th for a free copy?  Buy or download it right now at Lulu.com!

Under the new agreement, CreateSpace’s Books on-Demand platform will allow members to print and then distribute their titles to thousands of bookstores, libraries and online retailers. CreateSpace members will have access to this enhanced print and distribution option as part of the CreateSpace Pro Plan, a program which gives members access to lower print pricing for their own book orders and better royalties for sales on Amazon.com.

“With this expansion, CreateSpace members will not only be able to reach Amazon.com customers, but they can also reach the thousands of bookstores, libraries and online retailers that work with the Ingram Content Group, ” said Dana LoPiccolo-Giles, managing director, CreateSpace. “With Lightning Source and Ingram, our members can make their titles available to the larger book marketplace while remaining inventory-free with print on-demand.”

“At Ingram, we are passionate about books and the book industry,” said Philip Ollila, chief content officer, Ingram Content Group. “Our new relationship with CreateSpace is a continuation of Ingram’s long-term strategy to offer the broadest selection of books to our customers worldwide.”

For more information about CreateSpace, please visit www.createspace.com.

About CreateSpace
CreateSpace is a leader in manufacture on-demand services for independent content creators, publishers, film studios and music labels. CreateSpace provides inventory-free, physical distribution of Books, CDs and DVDs On-Demand, music downloads via Amazon MP3 and video downloads via Amazon Video On Demand. CreateSpace is a brand of On-Demand Publishing LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).

About Lightning Source
Lightning Source is the leading print-on-demand company in the world, offering the unique combination of quality one-off book manufacturing and access to the most comprehensive distribution solutions in the publishing industry. Lightning Source is an Ingram Content Group company. The Ingram Content Group of companies provide a broad range of physical and digital services to the book industry, and immediate access to the largest selection of books and book-related products in the industry. For more information visit www.lightningsource.com

About Ingram
Ingram Content Group Inc. provides a broad range of physical and digital services to the book industry. Ingram’s operating units are Ingram Book Company, Lightning Source Inc., Ingram Digital, Ingram Periodicals Inc., Ingram International Inc., Ingram Library Services Inc., Spring Arbor Distributors Inc., Ingram Publisher Services Inc., Tennessee Book Company LLC, Coutts Information Services, and Ingram Marketing Group Inc. For more information, visit www.ingramcontent.com

About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as books, movies, music & games, digital downloads, electronics & computers, home & garden, toys, kids & baby, grocery, apparel, shoes & jewelry, health & beauty, sports & outdoors, and tools, auto & industrial.

Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), Amazon Mechanical Turk and Amazon CloudFront.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca and www.amazon.cn.

As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

For Amazon.com
Amazon Media Hotline
206-266-7180

By the time our one year anniversary rolled around, we had added three outstanding reviewers to the team and branched out to include reviews of Wordclay and CreateSpace authors.

Shortly after that, we added Outskirts Press to the mix.

After a bit of debate about possibly adding another publisher to our short list this month, we all decided to just throw the short list out the window and open the LL Book Review to ALL self-published authors.

That’s right!  The LL Book Review now accepts queries from ALL POD companies, no matter who you published with.

Check out our Pick Me! tab for information on how to submit your book for review today!

CreateSpace

Total Design Freedom Standard:

Includes:

• Unique Book Cover
• Custom Interior
• ISBN Assignment
• Price: $758.00

Total Design Freedom Essentials:

Includes:

• 1 Round of Basic Copy Editing
• Unique Book Cover
• Custom Interior
• ISBN Assignment
• Price: $1658.00

Total Design Freedom Advanced:

Includes:

• 1 Round of Basic Copy Editing
• Unique Book Cover
• Custom Interior
• Kirkus Discoveries Standard Review
• Press Release with Distribution
• ISBN Assignment
• Price: $2586.00

CreateSpace already offered all of these services individually, but authors stand to save a bit of money now that CS has packaged them together.  Here’s a price comparison chart:

However, please note the following:

• The Unique Book Cover is a single image front cover; text, author photo, and barcode on the back.
• If your book uses images on the inside, the Custom Interior only allows up to 10 images.
• The Basic Copyediting price is based on a 60,000 word book.  Additional fees may apply for larger books.
• The Kirkus Review takes 8 to 9 weeks.  For $150 more, you can get the Express Service which takes 4 to 5 weeks.
• The press release is supposedly distributed to a minimum of 1,000 regional and national media outlets, including Google and other search engines.

In a few weeks, all books will have the option to assign either a Lulu owned ISBN or your own ISBN to your Lulu books in the publishing wizard. This means you won’t have to create your book, wait for approval, and then create a new revision to add the ISBN information. Like the Published By Lulu (PBL) package we used to offer, if you assign a free Lulu owned ISBN, Lulu will act as the publisher on your behalf to retailers and wholesalers. If you assign your own ISBN, then the publisher listed with your ISBN will be used.

I personally think this is a step backwards for Lulu because having used their PBY option for my own book, I felt it was the best fit for me and the most economical and time efficient.  It made getting an ISBN registered through Lulu, paying for the ISBN through Lulu, and creating my book all through Lulu much easier.

So far, comments on the announcement are few, but mixed. Read the full announcement at the Lulu Blog.