Indie Publishing Experiment: - Part 2: Printed Book Though Create Space on Amazon

by Cindy R. Williams

My last blog posting on June 18, was about my experiment with Indie publishing through Amazon. I walked you through a bit of how I formatted my book WELCOME TO THE MOTHERHOOD, as an ebook and have now had some success with it, even though I have NOT done any marketing yet. If you missed it, it is still in the archives.

Here is where I'm at now with my experiment.

I decided to wait to host a book launch party, bog bash, email blast, etc until the printed version is available.

I happened across the name of Lyndzee Armstrong, on one of my writing facebook groups. She is an multi-published writer from Utah. She also formats ebooks for Amazon KDP, and for print on CreateSpace.

Since I already did the work myself to format my book as an ebook on Amazon, I didn't need her for that, but . . . I loved the idea of saving about a 30-hour learning curve for how to format my file for print with Createspace.

I sent Lyndzee my file, and she had it ready in several days and even downloaded it on CreateSpace for me. Plus, she only charged $75. Well worth every penny.

SHE WAS AMAZING! She even inserted an image of key below each chapter heading and then a small key in the place of bullet points at the end of each chapter. Like I said, she saved me least 30 hours to go through all the tutorials to get the file ready for print.

The next step is to review it all, one final time before it prints. Exciting for sure. CreateSpace has an option where you can purchase as many proofs as you want. They ship them to you. You have the opportunity to hold your book in your hand and can give it a final edit. I ordered five. One for me, my daughter with the keen eye in catching typos, my editor, and another writer friend that is genius at catching repeats and other issues. The fifth one? Just because. It only cost me about $18 and this included shipping.

My books arrived this week. I know they're just proofs, but what  rush to hold them in my hand.
So . . . now what. I passed out the proofs, and will collect them by this Tuesday. I plan to add these final edits to the file by next weekend and do another drum roll as I push "GO".

Oh, one fun side-bar. The picture on the front cover I used is of my three-year-old, grand-daughter. She is peeking around the tree she is climbing and has a huge, absolutely delighted grin with happiness exploding from her lovely little face, the look and image that only little children can do. When I dropped the proof off to her mother, I showed her the book. She screamed and jumped up and down. Again, this writing journey is such a blast. (By the way, I gave her parents some money for her college fund for allowing me to use this picture on my cover.)

The next few blogs will keep you up to date on where the book is, when the print version is available, the total cost on my end so far, and how to create your own cover.

Stay tuned. This is a SUPER FUN EXPERIMENT!