Warning: CreateSpace expand use of third-party printers with dire results

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Previously I blogged about print on demand’s dirty little secret: the use of third-party printers whose quality cannot be assured, and included this in the 2nd edition of The Global Indie Author. In particular I looked at the use of Lightning Source (“LSI”) to fulfill CreateSpace’s Expanded Distribution orders and the problems that can result. Unfortunately, CreateSpace have now expanded their use of third-party printers to fulfill “overflow” orders, and if my recent experience is anything to go by, authors need to be very concerned. With the recent release of Read More …

CreateSpace add European distribution, decrease payment thresholds

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Over the past few weeks CreateSpace have made two important changes: they have decreased their payment threshold from $20/£20/€20 to $10/£10/€10; and they have now added direct distribution to Amazon.co.uk (UK), Amazon.de (Germany), Amazon.fr (France), Amazon.es (Spain), and Amazon.it (Italy). I hesitated to write about this immediately as I wanted to check first what the Amazon catalogue would list as the estimated delivery time for each site. Would it be as with Amazon.com where all CreateSpace titles would be listed as “In Stock” or would it be the same as Read More …

CreateSpace accept Word docs for auto-formatting

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In a follow-up to my post on creating PDFs for upload to CreateSpace, you can entirely avoid the process of conversion to PDF by using the company’s Interior Template for Books. You can upload your Word document or Rich Text Format file, pick a trim size, and CreateSpace’s software will spit out the interior file for your book in a downloadable PDF. You can then use their Interior Reviewer to see any issues the software has picked up as in need of amendment, and you can print out the PDF Read More …

CreateSpace announce end to Pro Plan

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For authors considering publishing with Amazon’s CreateSpace there is good news to report: the company has cancelled their Pro Plan. Previously, authors had to sign up for the Pro Plan ($39, with annual fee of $5) in order to receive a discount on book manufacturing fees. The difference in fees was significant, which meant most authors elected to sign on; consequently, the Pro Plan was really just a backdoor way of charging a title setup fee while advertising that it was free to publish with CreateSpace. The cancellation of the Read More …

Using Word’s Save as PDF option for CreateSpace and Lightning Source

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In The Global Indie Author I counsel against using Word’s Save as PDF option for creating PDFs for submission to CreateSpace or Lightning Source International because the files do not meet the specifications outlined by the manufacturers; instead, you must use Adobe Acrobat Pro. Yet some indie authors are reporting using Word to create PDFs and their files have been accepted. So what is the definitive position of these companies’ submission requirements? Users of Word 2007 or higher have the option to save as PDF; however, the utility only allows Read More …

CreateSpace clarify payment terms

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When I first signed on with CreateSpace, their payment terms were a bit vague: they pay when royalties reach a minimum of $20.00; payment is by electronic funds transfer (EFT) if you have a U.S. bank account; if not, CreateSpace will pay by U.S. dollar cheque but they “may charge a per check fee and accrue and withhold payments until the total amount due meets a minimum dollar threshold.” What that cheque fee and minimum threshold might be was not stated anywhere. This has now been clarified: the minimum payment Read More …

Print-on-demand’s dirty little secret

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[UPDATE: While the following deals with the problems created by CreateSpace’s Expanded Distribution, CreateSpace themselves have increasingly been using third-party printers to fulfill publisher orders. I have had numerous problems with my print orders, losing usually on average about 10% of my order to everything from crooked pages to machine roller smears. Further to CreateSpace, for their E.U. (and likely soon for their Canadian operations), it is not CreateSpace who are printing the books but Amazon themselves at their fulfillment warehouses. With so many potential printers of your product, the Read More …