Tuesday Tidbit: More info about CreateSpace

Sharon Lippincott left this helpful comment

after Thursday’s guest post by Dwight Clough.

(If you missed his post, click on Two self publishing options for memoir authors.)

…CreateSpace is a good option for those who want nothing more than copies for friends and family. You can order ‘real books’ from CreateSpace for less than the cost of printing at home and about the same as a copy shop.

You do not have to list your project on Amazon. Order as many copies as you wish from CreateSpace, then either unlist it or remove it.

Leaving it listed on CreateSpace is a good option though so you can let people who want to read it order their own copies. (You do not have to add a royalty for CreateSpace, leaving the public price the same as wholesale.) If you leave it there and don’t promote it, few will ever order.

You will need to provide tax ID information to set up an account. This is required by their accounting system, but if you receive no royalties, none will be reported to the IRS and you’ll have no extra lines to fill out on your tax return.

Many thanks, Sharon, for that good info.

Sharon Lippincott authored The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing: How to Transform Memories into Meaningful Stories and several memoirs and books. She teaches classes and workshops on Lifestory and Memoir Writing, and Writing with All Your Senses. Click here to check out her blog, The Heart and Craft of Life Writing.

Two self publishing options for memoir authors

Today we welcome back Dwight Clough as our guest blogger. 

(If you missed his post last week, 

click on Seven questions to answer as you write your memoir.) 

He’s a Christian editor, publishing consultant, ghostwriter, 

and author of How to write and publish your first book. 

Dwight custom designs services to meet 

his clients’ needs, budget, and schedule.

Two self publishing options for memoir authors

Unless you have a platform of more than 10,000 people, the likelihood that your memoir will be picked up by a traditional publishing company—Christian or otherwise—is close to zero. At one time, that was a problem. No longer. A multitude of self publishing or indie publishing options provide the perfect alternative for memoir authors.

First a caution. Many of these self publishing options are traps. They are extraordinarily expensive. They take away important rights that you should retain as an author. They promise much, deliver little. Tread carefully, and go into indie publishing with your eyes wide open.

Having said that, here are two options I’ve worked with that I absolutely love.

(1) For paperback publishing, I recommend CreateSpace.com. It’s free. (Yes, they do have paid services, but you don’t need to use them—and I never do.) The only thing you pay for is author’s copies that you order, and you are under no obligation to order any number of copies or any copies at all. You can send your readers to CreateSpace’s e-store to purchase your book and/or you can make your book available on Amazon. (They take care of fulfillment, you collect a royalty.) You can also set up your book so readers can order a copy from their favorite bookstore. And, of course, you can purchase author’s copies at a discount which you can sell or give away. You determine the retail price of your book. CreateSpace provides ISBN and bar code for free, so you don’t need to worry about that.

You will need to provide CreateSpace with your financial information so they can pay you a royalty. I’ve never had any trouble with this. CreateSpace works great for authors in the USA and Canada. It may or may not be a good choice in other countries. CreateSpace uses print-on-demand technology. Books are created when they are ordered, so you don’t need to store an expensive inventory (translation: boxes and boxes in your basement or garage).

You will need to provide CreateSpace with print-ready files for both your interior and your cover. This is where most new authors come across as rank amateurs. Take the time to study interior design, or get someone to prepare this file for you. Most self published books are almost unreadable because they are so poorly designed (not to mention poorly edited). And don’t underestimate the importance of your book cover. All of this can be created for free with free software if you know what you’re doing. If you don’t, get help.

(2) For e-book publishing, I recommend Amazon’s Kindle publishing service. Again, it’s free. Kindle is wonderful because your memoir becomes instantly available to readers throughout the world. Your readers can download free software to read your Kindle e-book on almost any device. At https://kdp.amazon.com/ you’ll need to set up a free account, and again, they will ask for financial information so they can pay you. At certain price points you can be eligible for 70% royalty; otherwise you’ll receive 35%. 

CreateSpace does offer a link in their title set up process to convert your book to Kindle. However, that process is not smooth and seamless. Or you can convert your word processing file to HTML and upload that to Kindle. In either case, you’ll need to edit the files to make your book Kindle ready. Here a basic knowledge of HTML is very helpful, because at minimum, you’ll want to include a Kindle-ready, clickable Table of Contents. Again help is available, if you need it.

I hope these suggestions help you bring your memoir to life. I would love to look at what you’re writing.

Dwight co-authored and published a memoir 

by my friend and former coworker, Forrest Zander, 

entitled His Faithfulness Reaches to the Skies.

For more information on the many services 

Dwight offers memoir authors, 

visit http://dwightclough.com/services.

Your publishing options

When you have edited and rewritten and polished your manuscript until it’s the very best you can make it, you’ll want to publish your memoir.

I’m not going to recommend a publisher because in recent years the industry has changed significantly and continues to do so. But you have several options:  (a) traditional publishing, or (b) indie publishing (independent publishing, sometimes called self-publishing, including POD—print on demand), or (c) something else—like photocopied and bound at an office supply store. (One of my friends wrote her stories by hand and that’s okay too. What a treasure that will be for generations to come!)

Some people, especially older ones, turn their noses up at indie publishing—they believe the only respectable publishing choice is traditional publishing. Indie publishing used to have a bad reputation because authors didn’t write well, edit well, or format well.

But indie publishing has improved greatly in recent years. Most companies offer packages that include editing, formatting, and other helps. Some companies are so professional nowadays that a number of established writers are choosing the indie option, including authors who have had previous success with traditional publishing.

If you choose indie publishing, I strongly recommend that you have critique partners and beta readers go over your manuscript. If they do their job well, you can consider both as your best friends and allies—they’ll help you work hard to make your manuscript as professional as possible. (Be sure to read Belinda Pollard’s informative post, What is a beta reader and why do I need one? Don’t miss the additional links she put at the bottom of her post.)

In addition, consider hiring a professional editor before you publish your memoir. This is pricey, but if you’re striving for professional quality, hiring an editor is, in most cases, a must. And, like critique partners and beta readers, you can consider an editor another of your best friends and allies in helping you craft a professional manuscript. (If you are already skilled in editing, critique partners and beta readers might be all you need. Watch for more on editing in a future blog post.)

Explore the internet for indie publishing companies and you’ll find a variety of options, packages, qualities, and prices. It’s mind-boggling. Get recommendations from other published writers.

If possible, get an in-person look at a book published by each company you’re interested in. You might be surprised at how different the finished books are when it comes to (1) paper quality, (b) font choice and size, (c) spacing of lines and margins, and (d) photos.

For example, take a look inside a few indie books:

In the photo below, notice that the paper is so thin you can see writing on the back side of the page. In fact, you can even see the print on the page before it! This might be #20 or #24 pound paper like you use in your printer at home.  In my opinion, 70# paper is the best. Don’t settle for anything less than #50.

In this next picture, the author typed his manuscript on a manual typewriter—the letter t in the word “often” gives it away.  Bless his heart! (In my youth and young adulthood I typed thousands of pages on manual typewriters so I know what a task that was for him.)

Notice that sometimes he left one space between words, other times two spaces. When you format your manuscript, be sure you’ve put only one space between words and only one space between sentences.

Compare the above picture with the one below which was not typed with a manual typewriter; this looks like Times New Roman  font, which is  popular. Once in a while you’ll run across a book using one of the sans-serif fonts like Helvetica.

Also notice this page has more space between the lines than the one above. Such spaces make reading easier.

In this next picture, notice the smaller spacing between lines as well as the margin, which is only 3/8". That narrow margin is something to avoid.

  

In the picture below, you'll see a good space between lines and a good margin at 9/16". 

In the photo below, notice how close the lines are together as well as the very narrow margin, only 3/8". It doesn't look user-friendly to most people. 

Include plenty of white space on your book's pages. Compare the photo above with the photo below.

Strive for quality photos. Below is an example of a poor quality photo and it's from my first memoir. I made the mistake of not checking with the publisher as to the quality I could expect. I won't do that again!

Compare that with the good photo below. Night and day difference!

It’s not easy to choose a way to publish your memoir. If you choose indie publishing, you’ll have to decide how much money you want to spend. Click on links below to compare the following companies. (If you want less pricey options, soon I’ll write about a couple of more affordable POD options, that is, Print On Demand.)

HIS Publishing Group

Gold Publishing Package 

Silver Publishing Package  

Basic Publishing Package    

Westbow Press packages  

iUniverse black and white packages 

In making your decision, note such things as whether the indie publisher does cover design, provides editing services, an ISBN number, a US copyright, and book distribution.

Also check to see if color photos are an option; if not, ask yourself if you’re okay with black and white. Either way, check out the quality you can expect from each company by asking to see, with your own eyes, one or more of their books. Strive for quality photos. Make it your business to learn how to use a photo editing program to make your photos the best quality they can be. Poor photo quality is the most irksome problem I’ve seen in indie books.

Once you choose your publisher, you’ll still have a lot of work to do, but if you’ve done your homework well and strive for a professional product, if you write well, edit well, and format well, you could be very happy when you hold your published memoir in your hands and when you give copies to your family and friends.

Samantha’s memoir: “among the toughest, most draining, most rewarding things I have ever done”

Today we welcome Samantha White, psychotherapist, Positive Aging Coach, and memoirist. If her name sounds familiar, it’s because she shared a story with us last December. Today she tells us about writing and publishing her memoir, Someone to Talk To. Be sure to check out her blog, too, Peace, Purpose, and Joy.

Welcome, Samantha!

I’m honored to be a guest here. Linda invited me to write about my memoir, Someone to Talk To: Finding Peace, Purpose and Joy After Tragedy and Loss; A Recipe for Healing from Trauma and Grief, and about the inspiration I received from the Book of Job. Obviously, I don’t keep my sentences or my book titles short, but I’ll do my best to say a lot in a small space.

One of the ingredients in my book’s Recipe for Healing is a spiritual belief system, a sense of some kind of meaning in life. When tragedy and loss—my  husband’s mental illness, the end of our marriage, betrayal by the next man I loved, the violent death of my daughter—piled up and left me flattened, unable to function and wanting to die, I had no spirituality to support me. How to move from a complete lack of faith to finding something I could believe in?

Ironically, Spirit—or God, the Great Invisible, the Force—found me instead, and planted Itself right in front of me. I heard someone say, “God works through people,” and a light went on somewhere in my head. I realized that even if I didn’t believe in a Heavenly Creator, I could believe in the loving acts of people. A gift from a friend, a subscription to a gentle, non-dogmatic magazine of daily spiritual devotions, offered me an entrance to a spiritual belief I could accept. I became more aware of the acts of love bestowed upon me every day by caring people.

Then there was the Book of Job. All I knew about it was that it was a long, tedious read about suffering. But when I was looking for something to listen to in the car, I came across a recording of the play J.B., a modern retelling of the story read by the author, Archibald MacLeish. I started listening to it in snatches. It gripped me, pulled me in, held me to its great surprise finish. I had never known that Job’s suffering ended, that his life became filled with joy and riches, his pleasure in life restored, all because he persisted in his faith!

So I opted to believe that there was a Divine force that would manifest through the people in my life and carry me to a state of healing. The climb was hard and long, and throughout it all the story of my journey was forming. The words and sentences gathered in me for many years, until I felt driven to express and share them with others who might find hope and courage in my eventual healing and joy, as I had found in Job’s.

I wrote feverishly, driven from within, compelled not to waste all the pain from which there was so much to learn. I was overtaken by an urgency to get it published, dogged by the fear that I might die before completing the project, and repeatedly told my husband how to treat the manuscript if I didn’t live to finish it. To avoid losing time writing book proposals and seeking an agent or a publisher, I opted to self-publish.

When it was finally completed, a great weight lifted from me. I had learned and grown from tragedy and loss, captured my experience in words, and offered them up to share with others. To my utter surprise, the book received a 2012 Nautilus Book Award in the category of Grieving/Death & Dying.

To me it is not as much about Grief and Death as it is about Healing—mine, and that of its readers. People tell me that they find it hard to put down, satisfying to read, and inspirational. I like to think it has wings taking it wherever it needs to go, recommended and given as gifts by those who find something in the story that speaks to them, that feels worth passing along.

Writing it was among the toughest, most draining, most rewarding things I have ever done. The only thing greater in all those aspects was the actual experience it relates. Taken in totality, it justifies and honors the pain that motivated all of it.

Do you have questions for Samantha? If so, leave them in the comments section below, or send an e-mail to grandmaletters [at] aol [dot] com (replace [at] with @ and replace [dot] with a period) and please write “Question for Samantha” in the subject line (so I’ll know it’s not spam). Thanks.