Get Two Complimentary Copies of Each Book You Publish This July

Celebrate your personal independence by sharing your story and letting your voice be heard through do-it-yourself publishing. Whether you publish your memoir, collection of poems or favorite recipes in a cookbook, each book you publish in July gets you two complimentary copies.

Designing and publishing your book is a rewarding experience, but one that takes commitment as well. At Wordclay, we understand the financial hurdles and time constraints emerging writers like you must endure.

However, with our no-cost DIY publishing wizard combined with this summer offer, we’ve taken the financial burden off your shoulders, so you can spend less while printing and promoting your book.

Now is the perfect time to finish publishing your work. In only a few short weeks, you can hold copies of your book in your own two hands and experience the satisfaction that comes from seeing your words print.

*”Publish” refers to the completion of the publishing process through Wordclay’s online publishing wizard. Shipping and handling not included in offer.

The first time I submitted my work, I did receive a reply within 24 hours which advised me to remove the title and my name from the spine.  My project was only around 120 pages and they suggested the words on the spine might bleed over onto the front or back cover at printing.  They also told me the cover art might appear blurry because of its pixel count.  While I didn’t change the cover art, I did take their advice and removed the words from the spine.

After making these changes to my book and redoing Step 2 of the publication process, I was allowed to order a PROOF copy which is Step 3.  Here you enter you billing and shipping information and your credit card number.  The cost of my book was $4.02 and $6.00 shipping.  Yes, the shipping was more than the book, but a price check at Lulu for a 6 x 9, 123 page paperback book was $6.96 for the book and $5.85 for media mail shipping.  For the first copy of my book plus shipping, CreateSpace had already beat Lulu by almost $3.00.

After ordering my proof copy, I received an automated email that states the following: “Thank you for ordering a proof copy. This is to notify you your order has been received and is currently being processed. Your proof copy will ship to you within five days. If you are completely satisfied with your proof copy when you receive it and are ready to make your book available for sale, log in to your CreateSpace member account and click the edit icon corresponding to your book. Review your books information for accuracy and click Approve Proof to make your book available for sale. If you are not completely satisfied with your proof copy when you receive it, you may make any necessary changes to your files, upload them again and order another proof after those files have been reviewed.”

Notice the email says it will ship within 5 days.  Online at CreateSpace it also gave a very broad estimate for delivery which was about three weeks away. I ordered the proof at about 7am in the morning.  When I got home that afternoon from work, there was an email in my box saying my proof copy had already shipped.  That’s right!  My proof copy was printed, bound, packed and shipped the exact same day I ordered it.  The book arrived at my house four days later.

I was immediately impressed with the overall quality of the book and the way it was packaged for shipping. I’d also like to point out that CreateSpace adds a blank page to the back of the book with the word PROOF printed across it. There’s also a tiny bar code and number on this page in the bottom left corner.  I’ve learned from other authors that this bar code helps CreateSpace identify which system and printer your book came from in case you report problems with it later.

While “proofing my own proof,” I received a review copy of another CS book which was also around 123 pages but the size of the book was 5 x 8.  I was so impressed with the smaller size, I decided to change my own CS project to this smaller size.  This required a full revamp of both the cover and the body of the work, and a few minor changes to the format information online at CreateSpace.

I had a bit of trouble “unlocking” the ability to change the size of my book.  I emailed CS for assistance and got a reply back from them about two days later.  While waiting for the reply, I almost thought about deleting the project and just starting over, but I discovered in their community forums that this is not possible without their assistance.  So, authors who enjoy the immediacy of Lulu’s systems will require a bit more patience when it comes to creating with CreateSpace.

After making the necessary adjustments and uploading new files, I received the email again saying they’d check my files and alert me within48 hours if everything was okay.  I received the email the following day telling me my files were good and that I could now order a new proof of my work. At this time, I started reading information about something CS calls Pro Plan. I had noticed it when I ordered my first proof, but I did not look into it at that time.

Here’s how Pro Plan works. For a $39.00 fee per project (and $5 renewal fee each year after), CreateSpace will lower the cost of your author copies and also increase the royalty you earn per sale.  So, basically this is kind of  like buying  a warranty.  If you look at it in comparison to Lulu’s sales figures, it’s a pretty good deal for them.  A few years ago, Lulu reported the average sale run of a book was 1.5.  That meant that outside of one or two copies sold to the author, no more copies ever sold.  If at least 2 out of every 10 of these Lulu authors signed up for Pro Plan if Lulu offered such a thing, Lulu stands to be quite profitable if those authors’ books don’t ever sell. But that’s Lulu.  For CreateSpace authors who do take advantage of Pro Plan, it means big savings.  Here’s how…

After signing up for Pro Plan, my second proof cost me just $2.41 and $3.58 shipping.  That’s a total of $5.99,  a savings of $6.82 over the cost at Lulu.  The second proof copy was ordered on June 1st, and also shipped that same day.  It arrived today, June 5th.  I love the pocket book size and think it is definitely perfect for work under 200 pages.  It arrived in a thick bubblewrap envelope with no damage.  The glue used in the spine looked a little thick at the top and bottom, but it may have swelled due to the heat while in transit.

In Part 3, I’ll wrap up my discussion about creating with CreateSpace by exploring the final step 4 (Print Ready) step which is basically finalizing my project.  I’ll also take a look at the CreateSpace Community Forums, the Showcase, and the Preview Gallery.  We’ll also hear from some other Createspace authors and learn about their creations.

The first major disadvantage I discovered is that CreateSpace books are only available through the CreateSpace website and through Amazon.com, but the more I thought about this, the more I thought about it not being so bad.  After all, self-published books are often frowned upon in chain bookstores because of their big price, small discount, and non-returnable stipulation.  For an author who doesn’t mind eliminating the capability for bookstores to be able to order your books through wholesale, it’s not such a bad thing.  I’ve noticed this limitation also keeps pricing low, but we’ll talk more about pricing later.  For now, just know that it allows your books to be affordable enough to invest in enough of your own stock to sell to indie bookshops, at conventions, book fairs, signings, etc. on your own.

CreateSpace allows creative individuals to make their own DVDs, CDs, videos, audio downloads, and of course, paperback books.  For the sake of the blog and being an author, I’ll be discussing the book option. After creating a free account, an author follows four simple steps to publication. The first step is Title Setup.

Title Setup is where you enter all the basic information about your book: title, subtitle, volume number, description, and imprint name.  Here, you can also enter your own ISBN number if you already have one or you can choose to have CreateSpace assign one to you.  There is no additional fee for their ISBN. You also choose what category you want your book listed under; you are only allowed to choose one so pick carefully. Next, you choose a reading level which starts with preschool and goes up to college graduate student.  I would have liked to have seen at least a few more levels beyond the graduate student range such as adult male, adult female, parent, single parent, senior citizen, etc.  Otherwise, college graduate student becomes quite broad.

There’s also a section where you choose where your book might have been previously published.  Although this is probably there just to help CreateSpace capture where their customers are coming from, it’s interesting to note that there are only four choices to pick from: Not Previously Published, LSI, Lulu, and Other. Publication date, country, language, keywords, authors and contributors, and an author biography are the final steps in Title Setup.

Step 2 is File Review where you will upload your book’s cover and your manuscript, both of which have to be in PDF format.  You’ll also choose what size your book will be.   There are 13 sizes to choose from ranging from basic 6 x 9 to magazine size 8 x 10. Learn more about Trim Sizes on the Get Started page.   I’d also like to point out the information on the Trim Sizes & Artwork tab which thoroughly explains how to create your own cover file.  From minimum cover width and height, safe zones, cover bleeds, spine width and variance, and ISBN barcodes there is a lot of information on this one page which can be applied to any DIY Publishing model where you would be responsible for your own book’s cover (including Lulu).

So, authors needing a good reference on this should definitely bookmark this page even if you aren’t using CreateSpace.  It contains very valuable information! For those authors who might want some easy and free assistance with creating a book cover, CreateSpace offers that too. Just click on Create a Cover when you are on the Upload File page. Now, be warned there is a lot of free artwork available here, so someone else’s book having a similar cover to yours is bound to happen.

In Part 2 of this article, I’ll be discussing Step 3 of the publication process, pricing, CreateSpace’s Pro Plan, shipping, and more.

With that said, it’s important to realize that E-publishing has a whole different set of rules when it comes to formatting your manuscript.  Rather than list them here for you, I’m going to point you in the direction of a formatting guide written by Mark Coker, Smashwords CEO.  It’s called, quite simply, The Smashwords Style Guide and it can be downloaded for free!  That’s right.  It’s free!  Thank you, Mr. Coker!

This style guide is not just a guide to follow when choosing to publish on Smashwords, but also rules to consider for the Kindle and other E-reading sites.  As Mark points out, e-publishing follows a whole different set of guidelines.  Guidelines that I myself have broken because of the lack of formatting options available when making your Lulu book available on Lulu as a download.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t polish that manuscript when you DIY for the Kindle, Smashwords, or whereever else you make your book available for downloading.  Afterall, that’s why they call it SELF-publishing!  So, just when you thought you’d conquered all there is to know about putting your best trade book forward… now you’ve got a whole new set of rules to learn and follow for the next generation in reading.  The E-Generation!