As the market and competition starts to catch up with Amazon.com’s Kindle, it’s no surprise to see that they expanded their E-book availability beyond the Kindle device and also lowered the cost of the devices themselves .

I downloaded the FREE Whispersync technology to my own PC just to get a taste, and I must say it’s really no different than reading a PDF that an author might have sent to me for reviewing.  Obviously, I feel that way because I’m tied to the computer monitor and I don’t have the mobility that the Kindle offers.  (PDFs can be downloaded to your Kindle).

The main differences are the notes and remarks feature.  I can make notes on the text for my review later.  I can also adjust the font and size of the page. The Kindle PC option also displays the cover in color, along with any embedded text or images that may be in color as well.  I’m sure there are other features I have yet to discover.

It feels like a step back for Amazon, since sites like Smashwords have already been offering such technology for a while now, catering to the home computer and e-devices simultaneously since day one. So, it’s a sure sign that Amazon knows there is competition eating up their once dominant market share and they are reacting to the situation.

What does this mean to indie authors?  If you haven’t published to the Kindle already using Amazon’s DTP service, then you are missing out on a huge audience that now extends far beyond those of us who don’t own a Kindle reading device.  I personally have seen an increase in sales of my own titles just this month since the Whispersync technology was expanded beyond Kindle.

Advice for Newbies:  Don’t get royalty hungry!  A Kindle forum demanding boycotts of titles priced over $9.99 started in April and has already surpassed over 10,000 posts, causing the forum to literally start over.

The actual cover of my 1st Amazon short created by Amazon Shorts.

Back right around the time when Amazon.com first bought CreateSpace, and Kindles were still on the drawing board, Amazon came up with a brilliant idea called Amazon Shorts. This program gave authors a chance to upload short stories and sell them for .49 cents each, and gave authors like me the chance to rake in those .28 cent royalty checks like nobody’s business. I fell for it, and submitted two of my hillbilly short stories, but haven’t seen a paycheck in probably 4 years.

The program failed miserably.  Unlike Kindle, with its author-take-charge DTP upload system (which is still in Beta), you had to email your story to the Amazon Shorts Keeper and you got a reply about three months later if you were accepted or not.  (I doubt they turned down anyone!)  And then another three months later your story was live on Amazon with a sassy little graphic they created for you right out of cut and paste or Microsoft Paint!

Well, needless to say the Shorts program was killed about a year later, or the two men in charge died from boredom.  But the short stories have stayed alive and well there on Amazon, along with its message boards filled with banter from authors who supported the program without tongue in cheek.  Then, Amazon sent the following email out to Shorts authors just last week…

Dear Amazon Shorts Author:
We appreciate your participation in Amazon Shorts. As you know, Amazon Shorts launched prior to the release of the Amazon Kindle and our Digital Text Platform (DTP). Due to these technology changes, we are discontinuing the Shorts program effective June 1, 2010.  (I thought the program was already discontinued.  They haven’t accepted submissions in years!) At that time, all Amazon Shorts will be removed from sale and distribution rights will revert back to the authors. We very much want to continue to offer your Shorts to Amazon Kindle customers. Below you will find the steps for transitioning your Shorts to our Kindle platform so that customers can continue to buy and read your work.

To upload your Shorts to the Kindle store, do the following:

1. Go to Amazon.com’s DTP pages and sign in using your Amazon account.
2. Walk through the steps in the tool to upload your book.
3. Click the Publish button. Once you click the Publish button, your Short will be live in the Kindle store within 48 hours.

We’ve created a video that shows you the steps for uploading your book in just a few minutes which you can view here (click to go to YouTube). Using DTP, you have access to multi-launguage support, international author support, and an upcoming 70% royalty model. You’ll also have full access to your sales data at any time.

If you have Word or HTML versions of your Shorts, you can upload those files directly to the Kindle store. If you don’t have those files, we are happy to send you an HTML file of your content that you can use. Just send a request with your name and the title of your book to amazon-shorts@amazon.com, and we’ll return an HTML file to you via email. The cover files used for Shorts do not meet the resolution requirements for the Kindle store, so you’ll need to supply your own cover image when you upload your Shorts.

For more information on DTP and getting started with the platform, please visit the DTP pages. You will find guides to walk you through setting up your account and submitting content, FAQs, community forums, and much more information to help ensure a long and successful future as a publisher on Amazon.com.

We strongly encourage you to join Amazon’s Author Central. This is a free service provided by Amazon to allow authors to reach more readers and promote their books. In Author Central, you can create and manage an Author Page to share the most up-to-date information about yourself and your work. You can view and edit your bibliography, add a photo , biography, and video, upload missing cover images, connect with readers via a blog and an events schedule, and update the Editorial Reviews content for your books.

Please note: The Shorts program officially ends on June 1, 2010. Soon thereafter, the Shorts discussion board and forum will be removed. All outstanding royalties will be paid to you on or before September 1, 2010.

We thank you for your support of Amazon Shorts and we look forward to continuing to offer your work to Amazon.com customers.

Really, Amazon?  Really??

It’s no shock to me they’ve decided to kill the stories like dead bargain books on the back shelf even Goodwill can’t give away, but what I find amusing is that it’s 2010 and they’ve just now decided to do this.  Like I said earlier, they shut the program down and stopped taking submissions about a year after the program started.  It’s like they forgot about us short authors…..and indeed they did.

Will I be publishing my two sad shorts on Kindle?  No!  Someday I’d love to develop them into an anthology, but for now I’ll let them fade into the murky abyss while waiting for my royalty check to finally come!

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

Here’s a bit from the article at Today at MSNBC:

And the price war is not the only challenge the publishing industry faces nowadays. E-books sold for the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader have eaten into profits of publishers and booksellers — and Grisham says the future looks bleak.

Regarding reading books electronically, he told Lauer: “If half of us are going to be doing it, then you’re going to wipe out tons of bookstores and publishers and we’re going to buy it all online.

“I’m probably going to be all right — but the aspiring writers are going to have a very hard time getting published,” he added.

I couldn’t agree more with Grisham.  While working in the wholesale book industry, I’ve heard personal testimony time and time again (and again just yesterday even) that Amazon.com is killing the brick and mortar bookstore. But guilty of it myself, I’m quick to avoid a trip to my local book chain – saving time, gas, and money, and not having to deal with unhelpful retail workers – by buying online at home instead.

Grisham’s most recent book lists for $24.00.  It’s 50% off at Amazon, making it just $11.99 to the consumer for the hardcover edition!  It should be noted that most indie bookstores buy their stock from Ingram Book Distributing and expect at least a 40 to 50% discount off the cover price, currently the same price their customers can get it for themselves online. Most chains and some indies discount new releases by at least 10 to 20%, if not more, making their profit margins even smaller, but by doing so they hope to pull in a larger customer base and rely on those customers hopefully buying at least one regular priced item from a large latte to a book light. The non-book items are where their real profit lies!

How does Amazon get away with it, you ask?  Well, it is possible that they probably receive a larger bulk discount thanks to lucrative contracts Jeff Bezos has probably worked out with distributors.  Even a 60% discount from the vendor would give Amazon a 10% margin at the current price for Grisham’s new release.  But that’s just hearsay.  Instead, it’s safer to assume that Amazon is just like the regular brick and mortar.  They can afford a loss on books as long as their customers are buying other non-book items.  And face it, you know they are!  With online shopping at its all time highest in popularity, Amazon is probably making a killing on CDs, DVDs, clothes, electronics, and more.  Although books were first to fill up Bezo’s pocketbook with millions when he got started, they are probably last on his priority list today.

And we haven’t even scratched the service of the great E-Book debate.  Currently, none of Grisham’s books are available on Kindle.  But if they list for $9.00 to $10.00 on Kindle, after his agent and publishing company and whoever else get their share of the commission, Grisham stands to make only pennies from each Ebook sale which is probably what’s got him in a tizzy.

In the quote above, Grisham mentions aspiring writers having trouble getting published in the future.  I think this is just another reason why self-publishing will continue to grow, even in E-publishing.  Recently, LLBR opened it’s review gates to include all POD companies.  We immediately got queries from authors who are only published on Smashwords and Kindle.  That’s right!  No physical print book is even available of their work!  My most recent book, Stealing Wishes, sells for just $2.99 on the Kindle.  I earn $1.05 in commission from each sale, and have no agent or editor that I have to share that with, unlike Grisham.

So, while I agree with Grisham’s argument,  unlike him, I didn’t start my writing career before E-publishing was probably even heard of.  I don’t have millions in the bank thanks to mass market paperback sales and 23 bestselling novels. Grisham published his first book in 1989, almost a decade before Amazon.com or Jeff Bezos was even heard of. Technology (for readers and writers) has changed, and I believe that as a society we have to change with it – like it or not.  If Grisham self-published just one book all by himself on the Kindle, he’d still stand to make gobs of money, although the people depending on him for a paycheck might not like it.  So, I applaud him for embracing the demise of the bookstore, but like rotary dial telephones and wholesome comedic sitcoms, I’m afraid it’s still going to become a thing of the past and disappear whether authors like Grisham bow out or not.

Yesterday, Barnes and Noble introduced its Nook Ereader which can be pre-ordered for $259.  Oddly enough, Amazon also lowered the price of its original Kindle to $259 with the release of the new global edition.

In checking out the information about Nook over at the B&N site, at first glance I noticed Nook has no buttons.  It’s completely touch screen because it does say you are able to “mark up the pages.” A product comparison page with Kindle confirmed this. And Googling for pictures of the Nook led me to a pic showing what the touchscreen keyboard looks like.

In going over the list, one will notice that Kindle and Nook have a lot in common.  The differences between the two follow:

• Nook has touch screen, touch control and navigation
• Color Touch Screen – 3.5″ TFT Color LCD
• Nook has quick library view by book cover
• Nook is powered by AT&T, Kindle is Verizon
• Nook is the first 3G and Wi-Fi-enabled eReader
• Free Wi-Fi in all Barnes & Noble Stores (Not sure why this is listed though, most stores had this before the Nook even came out.)
• Nook claims to have more memory – “virtually unlimited using Micro SD expansion slot; a 16GB card holds up to 17,500 eBooks”
• Nook says more than a million titles are available
• Nook offers more than 500,000 free eBooks
• Nook is offering “exclusive in-store content” (whatever that means)
• With Nook, you can directly load and read PDFs (not sure how Kindle differs here)
• Nook does not offer Word Document support (the only X on Nook’s side, I might add)
• Nook can synchronize notes/annotations between devices
• Nook has LendMe technology, first eReader with digital lending; between nook™, iPhone™, iPod touch®,BlackBerry®, PC, Mac OS® (This is a biggie because Kindle does not offer this!)
• Nook is the first Android™-based eReader (whatever that means)
• Nook can be tried in-store before buying
• Nook offers different colored back covers that are replaceable
  
• Nook has an ergonomic back cover design for optimal hand fit
• Nook has a customizable screen saver (upload your own pics)
• Nook uses a replaceable battery

View the comparison chart for yourself here!

I do not know yet if indie authors will be able to publish their work for availability on the Nook and earn a commission from sales – one plus the Kindle has for now!  My honest educated guess says “No!”  Having worked for B&N and having a fair knowledge of their “nose in the air” opinion of print on demand books and tight grasp on what their stores carry when it comes to buying decisions, I don’t see any reason why they’d treat the Nook any differently. I could be wrong though, and will be researching this further.

However, kudos to B&N for one thing…getting customers back into the physical bookstores.  The in-store capabilities will bring a whole new E-Market into their stores and while B&N has put the indie stores out of business, maybe we’ll at least still have brick and mortar stores for a while as long as those customers are buying.

So, Jeff Bezos, now what?

With that, the Kindle with just U.S. capabilities has dropped in price to $259.

What does this mean for authors?  Hopefully, we can look forward to an increase in our e-sales and an increase in readership across the big pond!

However, the only way to access the Author Central page was by searching for the author’s name, or the author could access and update it directly from a special link.  The new Author Central page highlighted all of you books, a bibliography, a picture of the author, and blog posts.

Amazon has now given the Author Central feature its own highlighted space directly below the Product details.  Here’s an example from my own book…

The email also announced more changes are to come!  Let’s cross our fingers they are as good as this recent change.

For more information about the Amazon Central program, click here.

I’m sorry for the delay in getting back to you about this.

Thank you for contacting us. Author blogs that previously showed up on book detail pages have been moved to Author Pages, which we believe are the best place for customers to read author posts.

The blogging feature is now available exclusively through Author Central (https://authorcentral.amazon.com), a new destination that offers one central location for you to claim and verify your titles, update RSS feeds, and revise your bibliography, in addition to managing your blog.

All of your blog content will now post directly to the Author Page, and we’ve automatically transferred all of your account information so you can log into Author Central with the same user name and password you set up for Amazon Connect.

Customers can find Author Pages by searching on an author’s name. In our search results, if more than one author has the same name, we display the author with the most sales first.

Author Pages are a brand new part of our store, and we appreciate your feedback as we continue to invent new ways to help customers discover authors and their work.

If you have any additional questions or comments, please send us an e-mail at ac-general@amazon.com

Thank you for contacting Author Central.

So the blog has been moved to the Author Central page.  And it seems the only way readers will now find your Author page and your blog is if they search for your name. Once again, Amazon has a great idea but they bury it in the shopping trenches rather than giving it proper exposure and easier access for everyone to find.  How disappointing!

Still haven’t signed up for Author Central and updated your own page?  Click here.

Hi all, when comparing apples to oranges to limes, one must make color and texture adjustments for the differences in fruit. I have more experience with Createspace than with either Lulu or Lightning Source but have reviewed price specifications for print-on-demand contracts from Lightning Source, so I can tell you a bit about those costs. For the purpose of this discussion I will reference only print-on-demand services because I assume most people considering Lulu or Createspace are not planning on having thousands of books printed for warehousing purposes.

1. POD PER-BOOK COST. Createspace does small print runs via print-on-demand. They do not do offset printing for mass-market volume discounts. Lulu may offer discounts on volume, but I don’t know for sure. Lightning Source offers both POD and offset printing. For POD, the cost per book is virtually the same as the cost for producing the same book on CreateSpace under the PRO plan. Lightning Source does offer graduated discounts on bulk POD print runs, starting at 5% for 50 books. Last time I checked on Lulu three months ago, the per-book production price was consistently higher for the same product under any plan than the cost would be from either Createspace or Lightning Source.

2. TITLE SETUP. Createspace charges nothing for you to set up your title and provides an ISBN for free, but that ISBN marks them as the publisher, not you. With their PRO plan you can cut your per-book cost by about 1/3 by paying $39 upfront and annually thereafter to keep the book in print. Without the pro plan the book remains in print for free. You can provide your own ISBN under either plan with no extra charge and no discount. Lulu has a similar program and a distribution program that costs $99 or more the last time I checked. Lightning Source charges $37.50 for cover file setup and $37.50 for text (book interior) file setup, for a total setup fee of $75 for a book digitally uploaded for production. You provide your own ISBN. Also LS charges $12 annually to keep your book available. By far Createspace is the cheapest route to produce a book when considering startup cost.

3. PROOF & REVISION COST. Createspace charges the per-book production cost plus S&H to send a proof. Additional proofs after changes are the same cost. There are no revision or file replacement charges. Generally speaking a proof for a 300-page book would be around $12 or $13 including S&H. I don’t know what it would be on Lulu. On Lightning Source a proof copy is $30 including Express mailing cost. LS charges a whopping $40 per file upload, meaning if you make changes to your cover and upload a revised file, they’ll charge you $40. If you also make changes to the text and upload, that’s an additional $40.

4. SHIPPING CHARGES. Createspace since January has appeared to offer more options for shipping. The first proof I ordered was via UPS and cost over $6.00. By the time I had my second title ready for proof, USPS media rate was available at $3.85. I don’t know if those choices are now consistently available, but they were the last time I ordered a proof. I don’t know what Lulu charges for shipping. Via Lightning Source, they say they charge the ‘going rate’ for mailings of the book itself to you as the publisher or to distributors, plus you will be charged $1.50 handling fee per book. For a box of 50 books, that would include $75 handling fee above the shipping rate.

5. DISTRIBUTION. The one HUGE drawback to Createspace is that distribution is only on Amazon. Lulu and Lightning Source offer distribution on Amazon plus other channels. The biggy for LS is the Ingram catalog. Note Lulu charges a fee for distribution but then has some exclusions so that maybe foreign rights are not included. LS distribution for UK is included only if you choose that POD contract in addition to the US POD contract (you have several options you can mix and match).

So, let’s look at comparative costs to get ONE book done without any revisions. For comparative book cost between Lightning Source and Createspace, I will use Createspace PRO plan and no pro plan. Because I am not dealing with Lulu right now I will leave it out of the comparison. Their prices are available online, so you can check them out yourself. Just be sure you use the same page count for your book when making comparisons.

LS
$75 file uploads
$30 proof
$12 Ingram catalog annually
$40 cost of your ISBN if purchased in block of 10
TOTAL $157 for a small paperback
Cost per 360-page book ($0.90 + $0.013/pg) $5.58 direct to distributor (slightly higher if direct to you the publisher)

CS
$13 proof
TOTAL $12 for a 360 page book
Cost per 360-page book ($1.50 + $0.02/pg) $8.70

CS-Pro
$39 Pro fee
$9.57 proof
TOTAL $48.57
Cost per 360-page book ($0.85 + $0.012/pg) $5.72

Comparing the three pricing structures you can see that distribution via Ingram’s catalog you will pay about $110-135 showing you as the publisher. Add your ISBN to CS and that lowers the difference to $70-95. NOTE that just because you have the opportunity to reach additional distribution sources through Lightning Source, there is no guarantee that anyone will buy your book if they don’t know about it. So MARKETING is your number-one priority at this juncture. Note also that generally POD books are non-returnable, and if you opt with LS to have them returned to you, they will charge you a fee per book as someone else already pointed out.

Clear as mud?

-Penumbra Publishing

I shared this with fellow reviewer LK and she pointed out the issue some might also have as far as your ISBN is concerned: “CS has that one huge downside being linked ONLY to Amazon, which is why I went with Lulu for Misfit McCabe.  Plus, they also have the other downside of owning the ISBN instead of you.”

So when you are choosing a direction for your book, ask yourself these questions?

1. Do you want to own your ISBN?
2. Do you care about getting your book into bookstores?
3. Do you want your book available through other channels than Amazon?
4. How much money are you willing to invest in the project up front?

Notice the additional information for books in the square to the right. Even though in Step One of the creation process you were asked to enter a publisher or imprint name, if you are taking advantage of the free ISBN through CreateSpace, then CS will be listed as the publisher.

After finalizing, it appears to take 5 to 15 days for the book to become available at Amazon.  In speaking to a few authors, I’ve learned that can actually happen much quicker.  The page will load over time after about 5 business days with the Search Inside feature being the last function to load, taking the full 15 days to happen.

One of the unique tools CreateSpace offers is called Preview Gallery.  This is where you can upload a preview of your work for other CreateSpace members to read, rate, and review by answering a few questions about it.  The only thing that turned me off about looking at other previews in the Preview Gallery is that each preview contains a warning that says “For personal use only. Please use caution when downloading; files have not been scanned for malicious software.”

CreateSpace has a “Showcase” option where you can submit your own success story.  You can also read about other CreateSpace users whose products have been featured. I took a look at several of these, particularly those who have used CreateSpace to make DVDs, and found most of the write ups to be too hard of a sell.  Some even reminded me of those infomercials you see online for fad diets and exercise equipment.  They even read like a Billy Mays script for OxyClean or some other “act now and get a second one totally free” product.  Each shows a picture of the creator along with the product.

In searching through the Community Forums, I found several helpful topics.  I found the forums to be much more organized with Discussion Boards at the top for the different types of products you can create (Books have the most discussions), and the most recent posts can be found at the bottom.

The only thing I don’t like about CS so far has to be the lack of a bookstore.  Each of your projects comes with an “E-Store” link you can direct customers to, but there is no complete “bookstore” to shop at CreateSpace to view all of the products available.  There’s not even a search feature to help you locate other products while you are on the CS site. So it seems the only true selling outlet for your CS project is through Amazon, or at least it will lean toward being the more popular.

To close out my focus on Createspace, I promised we’d hear from a few other authors who have used CreateSpace for their own publishing ventures.  First, I checked in with Cheryl Anne Gardner, author of The Thin Wall.

Why did you choose CreateSpace?

I have my own imprint; I list my titles directly with Bowkers, and so I wanted a flexible low-cost printing and distribution solution. Amazon functions as my printer and my distributor, so the business model is efficient while still allowing for expansion.

What do you like best about CreateSpace?

•Free distribution with the number one online bookstore.
•Streamlined system designed for the advanced DIY Indie Publisher.
•Advanced Adobe distiller specs, allowing for cover files up to 40MB at 300dpi.
•Can use own ISBNs, but must list directly with Bowkers.
•The cost of proof copies is low, and the turn-around time from proof to listing is quite fast. The Createspace guidelines state 15 business days, but I found the product pages load in about 5, and while they may not be fully activated with the search inside feature, customers can purchase the product as soon as it goes online.
•Can offer promotional discount codes on purchases through the Createspace e-store.

What do you like least?

That distribution is limited to Amazon in the US. I would like to see Amazon UK and Canada added on as well.

What troubles (if any) did you experience during the publishing process?

I had one instance where the discounted author copies I ordered had a noticeable print defect. The odd page toner saturation was much darker than the even pages. I emailed the customer service center, and within 24 hours, I was asked to provide them with the barcode tracking number from each of the books so that they could identify the run. Subsequently, they sent me 6 new copies, which I received within 5 days. I didn’t have to return the damaged ones, either. This was the first incident I have had with defective books. I find Createspace’s print quality to be above par, with covers of higher quality than Lulu and even Lightning Source. Manufacturing errors occur and my situation was dealt with promptly and respectfully.

Would you recommend CreateSpace to someone who is considering self-publishing? If so, why?

I would only recommend them if the author has advanced knowledge in desktop publishing and has the software capability to distill their own PDF files. Your book is only as good as the writing and the files you upload. There are no help wizards.

I asked the same questions to RJ Keller, author of Waiting for Spring.