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| My Createspace bible and the copious notes I made |
So, it’s been a month since I’ve written anything on this
blog. This has been deliberate so that I could report back on sales, if any. I’m
delighted to report that ‘A Suitable Young Man’ has been selling steadily on
Amazon Kindle, much better than I expected. If I’m honest, my whole ethos had
been to work toward getting print copies available. Any sales I made on Kindle
would be incidental. Now I see that Kindle sales will form the biggest part of
my income. Not that I’m complaining; it’s been a wonderful surprise.
As I’ve mentioned before, I formatted my Createspace book
using Tim C Taylor’s ‘Format Your Print Book with Createspace.’ The book proved
invaluable but even though this was a second edition, certain things had
changed which I needed to work my way through. The main thing to remember is to
use section breaks instead of page breaks and first line indentation instead of
tabs. Fortunately, there is a previewer so that you can check your work at all
times. (Tip here: when formatting make use of the ‘print preview’ facility in
Word so that you can see how it’s going to look as a book.) Berni Stevens, who
had designed my cover for the ebook, had had experience of formatting a full
cover (including spine and back cover) and was a big help, eventually providing
me with a print-ready PDF copy to upload.
Once everything is uploaded to your satisfaction, it has to be
submitted for review (to ensure that it doesn’t contravene any of their
regulations). This usually takes 24 hours after which you are emailed to say
you can go ahead and order a proof copy. There’s a drawback here in that the
proof copy has to come from the US. While waiting for that, I completed all the
pricing and distribution details on my ‘dashboard.’ When working out a sale
price, I took into consideration the cost price of author copies plus shipping
from the States and added a profit margin onto that. Incidentally, cost of
author copies and shipping costs are clearly given and simple to follow.
I’m looking forward to having my print copy in my hand,
hopefully some time in the New Year. On receipt of that, I will need to check
carefully through, make sure there are no typos or glaring formatting errors.
Then, I will be ordering author copies which will take another few weeks to
arrive. Because of this, it will be impossible to arrange a book launch in
advance, which is a drawback. In the meantime, it will be available as POD for
single copies for anyone who wants to purchase it through Amazon UK, no waiting
time involved.
Now I’m a fully-fledged self-published author – or ‘indie author’
which I prefer – and proud that I’ve done it. And if I've done it, anyone can.
