If you happen to be somebody who’s always wanted to publish a book, you can do it! I just did it! (Click here to see it.)
I’m not talking about the writing part – that’s something else — but the publishing part. Before the advent of Amazon Kindle (aka KDP/Kindle Direct Publishing) and its paperback publishing arm, CreateSpace, there were only two ways to get published.
One, was traditional publishing. This required you to undergo the daunting process of somehow finding an agent to sign you. That person then tried to sell your manuscript to a publisher.
The other way was self-publishing. This involved paying a company to produce your book. You pay to have it typeset and for the cover to be made and then for them to produce a batch of the books, which they ship to your house. Most people end up with cartons of books in their basement.
These places are known as vanity presses.
Then, less than 10 years ago, a technology known as print on demand came into being. Instead of having to print large numbers of books to cover initial set up costs, print on demand places could print one book at a time. Print on demand relies on digital technology – rather than off set printers. Kind of like making a copy of a document you’ve emailed to someone.
This changed everything. Now, people who want to self publish, can do it with little or no cost at all.
There are many print on demand companies.
I used CreateSpace — the paper book publishing arm of Amazon Kindle. I used it because I’d already published my short book on Kindle. So, using CreateSpace was the easiest option for me. I’d heard of it –to begin with — and I trusted Amazon publishing, having used it. And, I liked that both versions of the book — Kindle (virtual) and the paperback — would be for sale on the same Amazon page.
You can do the whole thing by yourself. Write the words; learn to format the content so it looks good; and make a cover. The CreateSpace website guides you through the process. It begins with you registering with the site, entering your tax I.D. and bank info (so they can pay you when a book sells). From there, you can learn how to make or have a cover made, how to format the text, and everything else you need to know. You choose what size you want the book to be and set the price.
You can also hire people to help you. CreateSpace itself offers professionals to do these tasks for you. I didn’t use CreateSpace tech people, because I’d already had the cover made by a freelancer when I published the book on Kindle. I found the guy by posting a job description and the price I was willing to pay on an online job site called Upwork. (It’s a great site: it escrows your money until the freelancer has successfully delivered your job.) I got a lot of responses, and ended up choosing one guy. I love my cover. I was able to use it both for the Kindle version, and the CreateSpace paperback version.
I used to be 100 percent against self-publishing. I thought something published by a vanity press was schlock. As a journalist, it was hard for me to believe that anything that wasn’t published by a publishing house, newspaper, or magazine was legit. But the industry has suffered so in recent years that Kindle and print on demand have become the way to go for everybody, I think, except superstar best-selling authors like Michael Connelly.
Although, now, I have to say, even famous writers like Connelly publish on Kindle and CreateSpace. Why? Because they can control the price of the book, and get it up and out there very, very quickly. Also, today’s mainstream publishers (Random House, etc.) no longer do big promotional campaigns for books – unless you’re somebody like Connelly or Stephen King (who, btw, has also published some original stuff on Kindle!)
No: today big publishers expect the author to do a massive amount of work to promote their book. So, why not control the whole thing and publish via Kindle and CreateSpace?
Anyway, there’s much more to say about this and I will in another post. For now, I’ll just say I’m a total fan of CreateSpace and Kindle publishing. The book, as small as it is, looks great! We’ll see how it does.