Createspace Reviews
In today’s review, we are going to look into one of the biggest online publishing companies in the World. The name of the company is CreateSpace from Amazon. Yes, the Amazon we all know and love – the one where we buy most of our stuff.
In this review, we are going to determine if this company is worth your time, or if you are better off using other online publishing companies out there. I will also give you my recommendations along with the pros and cons of this company. Here’s the full review.
What Exactly Is CreateSpace?
As I’ve said above, CreateSpace is an online publishing company for Amazon. It was created in 2007 because there’s a sense in the industry that more and more people are looking for on-demand service, and this is exactly that, but for books and other media content.
Amazon created this company for the purpose of owning their very own publishing company to grow its publishing division and to not only be limited to their merchandising. They also bought CustomFlix Labs and Booksurge once CreateSpace was created to give it a solid foundation. Booksurge, just like CreateSpace is an online publishing company, which has a primary goal of helping people self-publish their work. CustomFlix Labs, on the other hand, is more inclined towards independent filmmakers as they give users a means to distribute their videos easily.
How Does CreateSpace Work?
CreateSpace is basically an on-demand self-publishing company that allows you to publish your book easily, without going through the usual process of screening, editing, and other book-related processes. It’s perfect for authors that are just starting out, and are looking for new opportunities to expand their reach. There have been many authors who started out as self-publishers.
This company is basically spearheading the transition towards print on demand (POD) books to avoid the hassle of stocking up bookstores of your books which can end up not getting bought in the end. It avoids all that by only printing the book once it’s ordered. It’s a pretty efficient process if you think about it. What’s more, is you save a lot of papers by only printing out already-bought books.
CreateSpace does not conduct any kind of editing or corrections in your book. All of that must be done by you or your proofreader. Basically, all of the book processes that an independent book publishing company must do, you must do yourself. Once you have done those, you can now submit your book for approval.
How To Publish Your Book Using This Platform?
There is a simple step-by-step guide on how you can publish your book/s. Before you can print your book, you need to view it using their preview software to make sure it looks right on paper. You have to fix any errors you see before you publish your book. You don’t want your words pouring out of the margins of the book, now, would you?
CreateSpace will give you access to their proofing tool as another way to ensure your book is correct. As I’ve said above, you can opt to do the proofreading for yourself but if you don’t have the time, you can have CreateSpace do that for you. It is essential that you correct all errors in your book as correcting errors in an already published book is going to cost you a lot of money.
Honest Thoughts About Using CreateSpace
Using CreateSpace is a bit tricky especially if you are new to the business. If you have already published a book, you probably are already familiar with the way things work. CreateSpace puts a twist on all of that, making it a more efficient process than the traditional way. If you read about their ways, their claims make sense.
In this review, we’re going to dive a little bit deeper. I am going to share my honest thoughts about this company, and share some of the issues you may face when you opt for their service.
- The print will always look a bit different than what you had imagined
Printing on paper, while it looks easy, is actually a bit tricky. Before you can something, you need to make sure that all your colors are calibrated using the same color space. If the image you uploaded is vibrant on your computer screen, there isn’t a guarantee that it would look the same on paper. As I’ve said, they use different color spaces and it’s up to you to adjust to the color scheme that CreateSpace is using.
- Currently, they don’t offer hardcovers
If you wish for your book to have a hardcover, you need to find another company because as of the time of this writing, they only print in traditional paperbacks.
- Quality control isn’t up to par
Their quality control is hit or miss. There are times wherein people would receive their book torn up on the sides. Perhaps this has something to do with the delivery, or perhaps the process. Nobody knows.
- There is a file size limit on your book
Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem especially if you are only using Word. You would actually find it hard to get to 300 MB using Word files. However, if you have a lot of illustrations in your book, you can easily fill up that 400 Mb limit. Bear this in mind when using CreateSpace.
- You need to promote your book hard
If you want to have a chance of success using CreateSpace, you need to market your book hard. You need to spend a lot of time self-promoting your book on different sites if you really want to earn money on that.
How Much Does Book Printing Costs?
What’s good about CreateSpace is you don’t have to pay anything until you get your first book sale. Only then will you pay them. The company charges $0.012/page in black and white. That goes up to $0.07/page in color. $85 per printed cover.
If your book has around 400 pages total, in black and white. That would come out to $5, which is a fair enough payment considering that you are not required to front any of the publishing costs.
But here’s the thing…
You also need to pay a fee for every book that you sold on their platform. Apart from that, you would also need to pay a royalty charge on top of that. Their royalty fee is a whopping 40% of your actual revenue. You need to keep this in mind.
How Are You Paid?
You are paid monthly. The payment is directly deposited into your bank account.
Conclusion
If you use CreateSpace to publish your book, you won’t need a lot of money to invest upfront. This is great if you don’t have the capital to start your writing career. All you need to have is a good book and you’re almost there. The brunt of the publishing side of things will be taken care of my CreateSpace.
However, you also need to remember that while you will save a lot of money by self-publishing, if your book gains enough success, you are very likely to miss a huge chunk of your royalties because of the high fees of CreateSpace. When it’s all said and done, you would take roughly 50-60% of all the book sales but that could actually be higher if you go to an independent publishing house, but then again, self-publishing through CreateSpace requires little money and is less hard work.
Overall, there are a lot of pros when you use CreateSpace for publishing your book. If you have experience publishing your book, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below and tell me all about it.