How to Create Large Print Editions of Your Books With Vellum

I've been using Vellum to format my books for eBooks and print editions for several years now and am happy with the ease of use and excellent results.  In particular, it is easy to make updates to your text and produce new editions with one click.

The latest version, Vellum 2.5 includes support for production of Large Print editions, which can help you reach the wide readership who may not be able to read a typical paperback. You can use the latest version of Vellum to create a Large Print edition in just a few steps.

• Open Print Settings from Vellum’s File menu. Press More Options to find presets for large print
• Find large print presets by pressing More Options
• When you select one of the Large Print options shown, Vellum will use the indicated trim size and configure everything in your book for Large Print.
• With a Large Print option selected, your text will use a significantly increased font size, equivalent in size to 16-point Adobe Garamond Pro.

Some Large Print Considerations

A larger font size will result in fewer words per line and fewer lines per page. To counter this, Vellum uses an outside margin that is smaller than what might be used for an equivalent trade paperback. Line spacing will also be slightly tighter than what is typical for such a large font size.

Because of the increased size of text, a Large Print version of your book will require more pages, making it more expensive to print.

As a Large Print edition will be bigger than a standard paperback, you’ll also need to adapt your existing cover layout to the new size.

Large Print on Amazon

Large Print editions require a new ISBN, which means you have to set up a new edition on your Amazon Bookshelf. (Amazon will provide a free ISBN.) When setting up your large print edition, check the Large Print box and your book's Amazon detail page will be marked 'Large Print' and linked to any matching editions. Your book will also be included in, but not limited to, large-print book browse results.

Tony Riches

The 2018 Guide to Manuscript Publishers, by Emily Harstone

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

The 2018 Guide to Manuscript Publishers features book publishers that accept submissions directly from writers. No agent or previous publishing experience is required. Featured in the book this year, in addition to the publisher reviews, is a guide to the manuscript submission process, as well as a glossary of common publishing terms.

This is the book’s fourth edition. This year, like last year and the year before, I saw an increase of traditional publishers starting a vanity imprint. Although I must say that the increase was less dramatic this year. This trend seems to be cooling. Still I must emphasize that I am only reviewing the traditional publishing arm of any company and not the vanity-publishing arm. I do not recommend working with a vanity publisher.

The book is divided into the following categories: non-fiction publishers, literary fiction publishers, multi-genre publishers, science fiction and fantasy publishers, mystery publishers, children and young-adult book publishers, Christian publishers, and romance publishers. 

When reading this guide, it is important to know that every publisher that we review must meet a number of standards. 

All of the publishers must be open to any author regardless of their nationality and country of residence. Unfortunately, this eliminates a number of quality Canadian and Australian publishers. 

All of the publishers must be traditional publishers, which means that they must pay their writers for their work. It also means that they must never charge their writers anything to publish their books. This eliminates all vanity publishers including companies that claim to be traditional publishers but charge their writers extra for cover design, editing, or other services. If a publisher tries to make you pay them, they are a vanity publisher. 

All of the publishers we review must be open to submissions without an agent at some point in the year. It is not that we don’t like agents, some are great, some are not. There are definitely pros and cons to having an agent, and we leave that decision up to you.

All the publishing companies we review are open to agented submissions as well. Although a number of publishers—particularly in the science fiction genre—prefer that you do not have one. 

Emily Harstone

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About the Author

Emily Harstone is the pen name of an author who supports the popular weekly email 'Authors Publish' magazine, which features publishers, writing advice, prompts, and more. Visit www.authorspublish.com to subscribe for free and 'like' on Facebook at www.facebook.com/emilyharstone

Using Vellum as a publishing tool

I enjoy having control over all aspects of the publishing process and for the last six years used a range of tools that produced good results. Then I saw this post by Joanna Penn (who helped me start self publishing)  Why I’ve Moved From Scrivener To Vellum For Formatting Ebooks

Like Joanna, I'd been alerted by a reader to an ebook formatting problem that didn't show up on my Kindle. (Line breaks to show change of scene had closed up on her e-reader) This made me wonder how any other readers had said nothing - and if it had cost me sales.

The solution seemed too good to be true. One easy to use tool that could import my Word document, allow me to design the layout based on good practice and produce perfect print and ebook editions with a single click. The problem was Vellum isn't available in a Windows version, so I finally had to make the switch to Mac.

I now wish I'd done this ages ago, as my new MacBook Pro (with context-related touch bar) is a joy to use, after putting up with the vagaries of Windows updates for years. I bought the full version of Vellum as a download and had no problems installing it, so was up and running right away. 

There are useful tutorials on YouTube, such as this one by USA Today best selling author Sara Rosett:

I found the interface so intuitive I rarely had to resort to using the online help. I particularly liked the way you can preview the results as a print book or on any of the popular e-readers:

Vellum makes tricky tasks such as handling images and layout of poetry and quotations really easy. There are enough options to satisfy most needs and the results were validated on Amazon and CreateSpace with no errors. 

Over the past month I've converted all my books to Vellum editions and am happy to recommend this wonderful tool to anyone considering self-publishing.

Tony Riches

How to Successfully Market your eBook: A Beginner's Guide by Jo Harrison

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Want to know how to get your self-published eBook in front of people who might be interested in purchasing it? 

This extensive eBook has been created using Jo Harrison's popular, four-part eBook Marketing Mini-eCourse for Authors. The advice you’ll find within is guaranteed to be easy to follow and help bring you those all-important sales.

This short eBook will show you how to:

- Keep energising and promoting your work
- Achieve eBook marketing success
- Become a successful self-published author

Also include marketing tips from previous authors Jo Harrison has worked with, which will provide some extra food for thought

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About the Author

Jo Harrison is a British Virtual Assistant who lives in South West France with two dogs and cat. Over the past 5 years, Jo has worked with both self-published and bestselling authors alike helping them format their books for print and eBook publication. As a virtual assistant, Jo's experience covers designing websites and marketing, including social media and email campaigns, for her clients. For more information see http://joharrison.rocks/ and follow Jo on Twitter @JoHarris0n 

Tracking Amazon Ranking with AuthorRise

Have you ever wondered what triggered a book to suddenly 'leap' up (or drop down) Amazon rankings?  I often do, so it was partly through curiosity that I've been trialling an interesting new concept called AuthorRise. I asked founder and CEO Chris Weber to explain how it all came about:

It all started with a brainstorm between myself, Co-Founder/CEO, David Goldenberg, and  CTO/technical Co-founder Keith Woody. David was a long-time journalist and I was a literature major in college. Our mutual love of books led to us talking to dozens of authors - and we found the problem of growing a readership and putting books into their hands was universal and deeply felt.

Out of that need came AuthorRise. There are lots of promotion sites that offer authors a quick burst of marketing but we wanted to build something that supports sustainable, everyday actions that any author can take and go from zero readers to a successful business. If someone is serious about becoming a full-time author, it takes time, patience and perseverance.

Chris Weber

On the personal side, I attribute so much of what is good in my life to books, especially reading voraciously as a kid. My parents supported my reading habit without hesitation, even encouraging me to study literature in college despite it's lack of "real world practicality." My goal now is to support the environment that has helped me so much. I think bringing great work into the world is one of the noblest pursuits anyone can undertake, and I just hope to be a part of helping as many authors as possible find the success they're looking for.

Chris Weber

Co-Founder/CEO

www.AuthorRise.com

How to get started with Kindle Kids’ Book Creator

Kindle Kids’ Book Creator is a free tool for authors and publishers to turn illustrated children’s books into Kindle books. It's easy to import artwork, add text to pages and preview how your book will look on Kindle devices before publishing on Amazon. With the click of a button you can add Kindle Text Pop-Ups to make it easy to read your books on any device, including smart phones, tablets and PCs.

Kindle Kids’ Book Creator supports multiple layouts for children’s books, including facing page spreads and accepts the most popular graphic file types, so authors are free to create art in their preferred design tools. You can even import a book from a multi-page PDF, making it easier to take a book originally created for print and turn it into a Kindle book. When you are ready to publish your book, simply go to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to upload your book.

Here's how to get started:

1. Download the tool, and you can convert individual illustrations into interactive books for both Kindle devices and free reading apps.
2. Once your book is ready, export the file and upload it to KDP.
3. Set the book category, age range, and grade range to help customers find the right books for their kids.

Happy writing!

Guest Post ~ Hybrid publishing, by Ben Coles at Promontory Press

Hybrid publishing is a new movement in the world of books which is trying to fix some of the broken aspects of the traditional publishing world. Still very much traditional in most of its form, hybrid publishing maintains the same quality control and widespread sales and distribution the industry expects, but by adopting a more entrepreneurial model the hybrid publisher can be much more open to new authors. Ultimately, publishing is a business, and if the publisher doesn’t make money selling books, it can’t survive. What this means for a new, unknown author is that it is very hard to convince a publisher to take a financial risk on producing their book.

It’s always been tough to get picked up as a new author, but these days the publishing world has become so risk-averse that an unknown author has almost zero chance of convincing a publisher to take a big financial risk on them, no matter how good their book is. In the hybrid model, the author and publisher both make an investment in the book, sharing the financial risk and splitting the revenues much more evenly. The hybrid publisher only makes money if the book sells, and therefore the goals of author and publisher are completely aligned.

This is the critical difference between a hybrid publisher and a vanity press. A vanity press (or self-publisher) makes all its money on the fees the author pays up front – selling the book is irrelevant to their business model. The money an author pays a hybrid publisher, however, is only a portion of the costs that the hybrid publisher takes on to produce, sell and market the book. The hybrid publisher MUST sell a lot of copies of the book in order to turn a profit. The author’s investment reduces that initial risk, but doesn’t eliminate it. In the hybrid model, both publisher and author make money only by selling books.

At Promontory Press, we’re always looking for new authors who have something significant to say. We meet authors at every stage of their writing, but the earlier in the process we meet the better. If the author comes to us with an idea or an early draft, we as a team can assess both the quality of writing and the market potential of the book, giving the author a clear sense of what will be required to get the book ready both for publication and for the essential marketing support that every author has to give their book.

Our decision to offer a contract to the author is based on several key factors, all of which all discussed openly with the author:

1. The market potential of the book – do we think that the audience for this particular book is large enough and accessible enough to earn a big enough return for both Promontory and the author?
2. The quality of writing – what skill level does the author bring and how much work will be required to get the manuscript ready?
3. The mindset of the author – does the author want to maintain 100% control, is the author willing to get involved in marketing, will the author commit financial resources to supporting their book? 

At Promontory each one of our authors is part of a close-knit team, and if the author isn’t willing to be a team player then it’s probably best if they seek another avenue to publication. When we do take a manuscript on, our team of experts gets fully involved. Every book is fully edited for content, style and structure long before we address the details of proof-reading. Every book has a cover and title designed with the full input of our marketing department.

Every book is printed to the highest quality, on recycled paper wherever possible, and while we rarely used POD, we still keep our inventories lean. Every book is personally pitched by our sales team to the national buyers at all the major American and Canadian bookstores and wholesalers (Barnes & Noble, Chapters-Indigo, Baker & Taylor, etc.)  as well as to the independent bookstores. And finally, every book has a custom marketing plan that is implemented by our marketing team with the author as a trained member.

If an aspiring author is considering the hybrid model of publishing, here are some key questions to consider:

1. Am I willing to have my book changed if the professionals advise it?
2. Am I willing to get actively involved in marketing if I’m trained on how to do so?
3. Am I willing to make a financial investment in my book if I know what the potential returns and timelines are? 

If the answer to all three of these is yes, hybrid might be a good fit. If the answer is yes to the first two but no to the third, traditional publishing might be the best bet. Conversely, if the answer is no to the first question and yes to the others, self-publishing might be the ideal route. Each author needs to honestly consider his or her own strengths and weaknesses, and decide which path is the best fit. In every case, however, bringing a highly-developed writing skill and a marketable idea are the keys to success – no model of publishing will ever change that.

Bennett R. Coles

Publisher, Promontory Press

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About the Author

Bennett R. Coles lives in Victoria, Canada with his lovely wife, two boisterous sons, and one demanding cat. He served 15 years as a officer in the Royal Canadian Navy and worked in international business while he built his career as an author and, somehow, a publisher. You can learn about his first two books at www.bennettrcoles.com, although you won't be able to read a copy of either until they are re-released by Titan Books of London in 2015. Follow him on Twitter @PromontoryPress and Google+  +Promontory Press 

Guest Post ~ Two Roads, Self Publishing Or Traditional - The Choice Is Yours, by Jill Paterson

Available on Amazon US, Amazon UK and Amazon Australia 

The world of publishing has changed in recent years in the fact that authors now have a choice whether they wish to be traditionally published or self published.  Let’s look at each option in turn.

Traditional Publishing

If you choose the traditional publishing path, your first step is to:-

• Send off a query letter along with a Book Proposal, three sample chapters and synopsis to a literary agent or publisher who accepts unsolicited manuscripts.  Being accepted is easier said than done so you might have to repeat this process many times.
• If you are successful in being accepted for publication, you will sign a contract and the publication process will begin.  (In all, the process can take between 1-2 years before your book appears in bookstores.)
• Your manuscript will be scrutinised by a content editor, line editor and copy editor.
• A cover will be designed with the editorial board and marketing team’s input (the author may or may not be included in the decision making).
• At the same time, a description (blurb) of your story will be written for the cover.
• ISBNs will be assigned to each format your book is to be published in.
• For a new author there will probably be a print run of 5000 books which will be stored in a warehouse.
• Your book will remain in bookstores for up to 1 year (depending on shelf space) whereupon any unsold copies will be returned to the publisher.
• You will receive royalty cheques twice per year.
• Although your publisher will market your book, you are expected to contribute to this process.

Self Publishing

If you decide to self publish your work, you go through much the same process as described above but whereas in traditional publishing you are guided all the way, with others making many of the decisions, self publishing means just that.  You do it yourself:-

• Make sure that your manuscript is polished for publication.  Employing a freelance editor can help you achieve this.
• If you plan to publish in both eBook and paperback formats, you will need to have your manuscript formatted for each.  The eBook file will be a word.doc file and the paperback has to be a PDF file.
• Find a cover designer to create a dynamic cover.  If you plan on publishing in both eBook and paperback formats, you will need two covers.  One front cover for the eBook and a full cover - back/front/spine - for your paperback.
• Write a catchy blurb that will capture potential readers interest.
• Obtain ISBNs for both your eBook and your paperback.
• Decide who you will publish with.
• If, for example, you plan to publish using Amazon, you will need to go through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for your eBook, and CreateSpace for the paperback.  In both instances, these sites will walk you through the publishing process. (You may be given the option of a free ISBN from Amazon.).
• Once you have uploaded your files to KDP and CreateSpace, your book will appear on the Amazon site within days.
• There is no warehousing of your printed edition because paperbacks will be printed as they are sold.  This is called Printed On Demand POD.
• You are able to monitor your sales on the KDP and Createspace sites and royalties for each month of sales are paid 60 days on.

Once you have your book published it is time to think about marketing.  This is an ongoing process if you wish your book to be visible to potential readers.  One of the ways that can help you is to:-

• Build an author platform.  This can be done with social media through sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and perhaps a blog.
• If you have published on Amazon create an Author Central page.
• If you are with KDP, you can join KDP Select and take advantage of their Countdown Deals.
• Advertise through web sites such as The Kindle Book Review, eReader News Today, Bargain Booksy and Book Goodies.

Like everything, there is a lot to learn whether you are traditionally published or self published.  Whatever you choose, I’m sure that you will find it a great experience.

If you would like more detailed information on self publishing along with links to helpful sites, you will find it in my book, SelfPublishing-Pocket Guide.

Jill Paterson

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About the Author

Jill Paterson was born in Yorkshire, UK, and grew up in Adelaide, South Australia before spending 11 years in Ontario, Canada. On returning to Australia, she settled in Canberra. After doing an arts degree at the Australian National University, she worked at the Australian National University's School of Law before spending the next 10 years with the Business Council of Australia and the University of NSW, ADFA Campus, in the School of Electrical Engineering. Jill is the author of three published books, The CelticDagger, Murder At The Rocks, and Once Upon A Lie which are all part of the Fitzjohn Mystery Series.  Her non-fiction books include Writing-Painting A Picture With Words as well as her Self Publishing-Pocket Guide. Find out more at Jill's blog http://www.theperfectplot.blogspot.com and find her on Twitter @Jillpaterson2, Facebook, Goodreads and Amazon.  

Increase your readership with oAuthor

After the initial excitement of your launch comes the challenge of helping new readers ‘discover’ your book. A great review can boost sales and there is what has been called the ‘Amazon Effect’ where books can soar up the rankings - but do you wonder about all the potential readers who prefer other e-readers than Kindle? In this new series of posts, I’ll be looking at some of the new sites offering authors a page where they can promote their work and make it easier for readers to buy their books.

Based in Ireland, oAuthor (see http://www.oauthor.com/) aims to put indie authors back in control of the book selling process and already has over 380 authors and 1,100 books represented in 2014. It is free to use and only charges a small transaction fee for every book the author sells directly, to cover the cost of using the services and any credit card transaction.  

The site was created by Nuala Moran, author of 27Secrets, who told me, “Once I actively marketed my book I began to see sales and my dream of making a living from writing blossomed. Out of habit, I defaulted to directing all my readers to the Amazon store.”  This is when her OMG moment happened. By a single link to one book selling page, she could offer readers a simple choice of bookstores and downloads.

Some authors sell ebooks in different formats directly from their personal websites – but the new oAuthor site takes care of that for you. I recently created oAuthor pages for each of my novels. You can see the page for my latest novel WARWICK here: https://oauthor.com/buy/bn.  It takes about five minutes to create the page (if you have all the files and info to hand) and everything is under your complete control. You can upload as many different formats of your book as you wish, for direct download by readers. You can also add links to your where book is available on Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble etc. The oAuthor Selling Page also has ‘geo-targeting’, which directs your readers to the correct Amazon store for their country.

I find the oAuthor page universal hyperlink is a useful way to raise awareness of your books on social media. It was also good to see that the site includes helpful stats about when and where in the world potential readers are viewing your books - and 'clicking through' to your other sites. To get started, simply visit www.oauthor.com and follow the on screen instructions. You can find Nuala Moran on Twitter @NualaEMoran and Facebook. 

2014 Global eBook Market Trends and Developments

In discussion with Belgian author Bob Van Laerhoven recently, I was reminded how diverse the European eBook marketplace is, with eBooks yet to have much impact in The Netherlands and Belgium.

Trends in the global eBook market are changing rapidly, however, so the Spring 2014 update of the Global eBook Report makes interesting reading.

The new report aims to present the latest data, with comparisons and analysis of the development of eBook markets across Europe and the US. There are interesting pointers of new and emerging markets, as well as a useful analysis of the diverse eBook pricing strategies in markets across Europe, and an overview of key activities of global players, particularly Amazon, with estimated market shares in the main markets.

Among the many possibilities is that, as with mobile phones, digital eBooks will enable developing countries to ‘leap-frog’ the path taken by more established book markets, without the publishing industry, agents and booksellers acting as ‘gatekeepers’. The report considers eBbook markets have been driven very much by best-selling titles from either the largest publishing groups or from a small number highly successful self-published authors (with some controversy about respective market share).

There are several thought-provoking ideas in the report, including that the potential of eBooks has yet to be fully realised, as development is still in its early stages. The result could be the emergence of something completely different from marketing printed books through digital channels.

The report is written by Rüdiger Wischenbart, with Carlo Carrenho (Brazil), Javier Celaya (Spain), Veronika Licher (China), Miha Kovac (Central and East Europe) and Vinutha Mallya (India).

Download the full report free from http://www.global-ebook.com/

Many consumers in India are buying books online and fast moving to consumption of content on devices? How is the publishing industry in India looking at these trends? What is the role of e-books in India? Caroline Newbury, Head of Marketing and Publicity at Random House India shares her observations on consumer trends in India for the publishing industry and her outlook for online marketing in India in 2014:

Smart Formatting: How to format and upload your novel to Kindle, Smashwords and CreateSpace by @ShaunaBickley

Ever wondered how to format your manuscript for uploading to Amazon Kindle and Smashwords? This book gives practical advice on the Word settings to use (and those to avoid) and includes step-by-step guidelines to produce a clean manuscript ready for uploading. It also covers the steps required to format your manuscript for a print book using CreateSpace. This handy reference covers: The elements you need ready before uploading your manuscript. MS Word settings to use, how to create and modify styles, indented and block paragraphs, and how to build a Table of Contents using bookmarks and hyperlinks. Formatting for Kindle and Smashwords. Uploading to Kindle and Smashwords. Formatting and uploading a paperback to CreateSpace. This book has instructions for using MS Word on a Windows PC system. It does not have guidelines for using a Mac, and does not cover how to write and edit a book. Click here for your free PDF copy of the MS Word section - containing additional screenshots. Amazon | Amazon UK | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Apple Store About the author

Shauna Bickley was born and grew up in Bristol, England, then moved to Cyprus for a couple of years. Since then she has lived and worked in a number of countries before moving to Auckland, New Zealand, close to the beach. Her latest novel, Lies of the Dead, is a mystery/thriller set in Cornwall. Lives Interrupted is a contemporary novel set in London against the backdrop of a bombing, and looks at how the characters react and deal with this unthinkable atrocity. Driftwood is a romantic thriller set in New Zealand and Australia. Shauna has also published a selection of short stories, Footprints, and had short stories published in Bravado (a New Zealand literary magazine), as well as several competition anthologies, and had articles published in The New Writer. Visit her Website: www.shaunabickley.com and folklow Shauna on Twitter: @ShaunaBickley

Introduction to Ebook Publishing (Smashwords tutorial by Mark Coker)

How to convert your eBook to paperback in six simple steps

Some people will never read an ebook. People have told me they would happily read my novel Queen Sacrifice if it was ‘a proper book, not an ebook’.  I have yet to interest a conventional publisher, despite (or perhaps because of?) the relative success of the eBook on Amazon and Smashwords, so I needed an alternative. I know the advice is to use professional designers, both for the cover and the interior, but I was really interested to see what you can do for free. Here is my experience of successfully using CreateSpace:

Step 1.  Make sure your MSS is as good as it can possibly be. Your starting point needs to be the edited version of your book, ideally in Word, with all the front pages, copyright wording, dedications, foreword etc. sorted. (I looked at a range of printed books by my favourite authors and copied the layout). This is the time to make any changes.  Just as with eBooks it is easy to make any changes later - but your book will show as ‘out of stock’ while it goes through the checking and review process.

Step 2. Set up a free publishing account on CreateSpace and start a Project for your book.  This was easy, as the screens are well laid out and I simply used all the information from the eBook.  There is plenty of help and guidance if you need it, including links to articles on how to write an effective book description (recommends 150 words max – I managed to get mine down to 200) and some advice on titles.  You can also opt for CreateSpace to assign a free ISBN to your book. (This ISBN can only be used with the CreateSpace Publishing Platform, but as that includes Amazon it was OK for me).

Step 3. Upload the Interior content. Before you upload the file there are a few important decisions to make. Black and white will keep the costs down and the size is also important, as some distributors insist on stock sizes.  The default is 6 x 9 but I got the ruler out and found that most are more like 5.25 x 8 so that’s the one I chose.  (If you change your mind it means starting all over again!)  Next upload your book file and wait while they ‘process’ it into the chosen template. You can then preview it online using the special viewer. Look out for little yellow pointers that show you if any changes are needed. I saved the template and edited it in Word, adding a few page breaks and tidying the page numbering until it looked right.   If you need any help there is a detailed guide to formatting your book's interior, with full information about gutter margins and layouts.

Step 4. Use the online cover creator.  If you already have a great cover or can use Photoshop take a look at Ceri Clark’s post  on making print book cover designs for CreateSpace. If, like me, you were never really happy with your eBook cover, this is a great time to do something about it.  There at 30 templates to choose from and you can use your own photos, logos and text. The ‘cover creator’ automatically formats the cover based on your book's size and page count. The problem with templates, however, is you want control over how your book looks – and for it to stand out from the rest. Sadly, people DO judge a book by its cover. I chose the ‘Palm’ template that allows you to upload images for the front and back covers, then sorts out the rest:

You need to make sure nothing important is in the shaded area, as it may be ‘cut off’ in the publishing process. You also need to make sure your uploaded covers are at the highest resolution possible – anything less than 300 dpi will be rejected. (I decided to pay for an image from a specialist agency and used layers in Paint Shop Pro to add the title).  

Step 5. Review the Proof of your book and update.  CreateSpace recommend you buy a copy of your book to approve the proof, which I did.  The problem was that as soon as I had it in my hands I saw several things I wanted to change, such as removing the header on the chapter start pages.  My recommendation is that you download the pdf proof and study it carefully first, making any changes and going round the loop again (you can do this as many times as you like) until it is as good as you can get it, then buy a copy.

Step 6. Decide your pricing and distribution. There is plenty of advice on book pricing strategies, much of it contradictory. I decided to set my paperback price at about three times the cost of the eBook version. The way the CreateSpace distribution works is that people viewing the paperback version on Amazon are informed if an eBook version is available, so it could actually lead to more eBook sales.  As well as Amazon, you are also offered the free CreateSpace ‘estore’ and the option to pay for wider distribution. It takes a few days for CreateSpace to set up the printing and distribution after you confirm approval of the proof, then you should get an email letting you know it’s available.

Conclusions:  Good things were it was easier than I expected, it was great to actually hold my book in my hands at last - and people started buying the paperback version as soon as it was available. Not so good things were high shipping costs (I live in the UK), insistence on high resolution graphics (min 300dpi) and fiddling with the page numbering in Word using section breaks.

All things considered, this is well within the skills of anyone who has already created an eBook and doesn’t cost anything other than the cost of your one copy - which is nice to have anyway, unless you pay for graphics or design. Although it will never compete against a professionally designed book, the finished book is professionally bound, with a nice glossy cover and can easily be updated at no extra cost.

Click HERE to visit CreateSpace Publishing