Self-publishing guide to POD with Createspace: 'Smell of Poo' Children's Book out in paperback!

The 'Smell of Poo' Children's Book Collection is now available in print!

FYI EDIT 2020: Createspace has now been merged with Amazon Kindle pages. It is now easier to format and publish a print book using 'Kindle Create':

Use Kindle Create to help publish your paperback book

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After completing the rather arduous task of formatting the text and cover design to suit a high quality paperback edition (see the guide below so you may benefit from this experience), the 'Smell of Poo' collection is now available in print - for those of you who prefer to hold the actual book in your hands (I still prefer the feel of paper to holding my kindle, but maybe I'm just old fashioned?).

You can find it with all the information you need here:

The 'Smell of Poo' is now out in glossy paperback!

How to prepare, format and process your book on Createspace - an easy 'Print on Demand' self-publishing guide:

Even though I don't expect to sell too many print versions as they are more expensive than the ebook version, it'll be nice to give out a few copies to friends and family (my parents are afraid of anything with buttons anyway), so the whole POD process has already been worth it in my view...

With regard to the formatting process, people can charge a lot of money to help you but I recommend being patient and trying to manage it for yourself (as much as I appreciate Createspace and their enabling self-publishing authors to print on demand, I did raise my eyebrows at their fees - hence this advice).

If it's just a regular paperback you're going for, i.e. no colour or pictures inside, then it's not too tricky. Just remember to set your margins for the text, have someone redo your cover design with a blurb on the back, and tick all the necessary boxes in createspace in their step by step self-publishing process.

Firstly, for text formatting, you can see the margin requirements here (6x9 is the recommended book size for most regular fiction):

createspace printing options

For further advice on this, The Creative Penn is as helpful as ever:

Print on demand self-publishing advice

Then, go to Fiverr to find someone who can 'redesign' your ebook cover into a paperback cover with all the right dimensions, etc (it needs to be 300dpi, by the way). Personally I used 'Fluxydesign' who I hope you agree did a nice job:

createspace POD cover design

Here's the full glossy paperback cover with spine - not bad eh?

Createspace give you a choice of 'matte' or 'glossy' covers. They say that matte is better for fiction / glossy for non-fiction, however for children's books I was advised by an experienced self-published author (see the next link) to still go with glossy - aren't we all usually still drawn to shinier things after all..?

Matte or Glossy book cover?

For the book description section, make sure you have your 'metadata' ready with lots of keywords to help your readers find your book, while also making sure it matches what is in the book itself! Here's a few hints and tips from 'The Book Designer':

Guide to Metadata / Keywords for ebooks

Incidentally, Createspace also give you the option of choosing a FREE ISBN for your book, which will save you a fair bit of change if you're on a budget.

Everything else in the createspace process was so simple that I'm sure most people will be ok, i.e. selecting distribution channels, pricing and so on - it's a bit of a 'no brainer' really and basically depends on your own intentions.

However, it isn't too obvious that you can 'create' your own createspace estore! It is already set up for your but you can change the colours and background and even add your own banner. Here is a guide to help you along with this:

Guide to creating your own Createspace 'estore'!

For resizing an image for your banner (good luck with this!) I found the best way was to simply do a 'print screen', paste it into Microsoft Paint, then resize it there. This link might help you if you're as 'techno challenged' as me..:

Guide to 'resizing' with Microsoft Paint

Phew, having just written this post it actually seems like quite a lot - but compared to going through the process of finding an agent, then finding a publisher, then getting published and making any kind of profit or reaching a potentially large audience, Createspace and their kind are heaven sent!

Good luck with the self-publishing process! If you have any other useful hints or tips, please leave a comment...

The 'Smell of Poo' is now out in glossy paperback!

Doing the cover design for your ebook

Doing the cover design for your ebook

Keeping it simple (or at least I will try to from now on!)

In hindsight I seem to have spent way too much time messing about with my cover designs, so I thought I may as well do a post about it here.

Basically, for each story I tried to create an image that would capture at least a part of the main theme, while also including something that would catch the eye or help a potential reader notice my books.

After a long and occasionally awkward  process (I had to ask the graphic designer to amend a few things due to the fact that I can be pretty indecisive at times), I finally narrowed the process down to this:

1. Brainstorm / doodle a few images.

2. Sketch the final choice.

3. Send it to someone who can do ‘vector graphics’ on adobe illustrator (I don’t have the patience to learn it myself!).

4. Ask for any revisions.

5. Send the .ai file to a graphic designer.

6. Make sure it is a jpeg with 1600x2400 and 72dpi, and again ask for revisions if necessary (or in my case whenever I realise I’ve made a mistake – for instance initially using Pooh instead of Poo!)

7. Upload it with your book to be published (for instance on Kindle Direct Publishing or Smashwords).

8. Add the image on Pinterest, Flickr, Goodreads, your facebook page and twitter feed, or wherever else you so choose.

One obvious piece of advice which some people still fail to follow is to never start the design process until the story has finished being written – as stories can evolve and the cover can become a bit of a distraction too.

To find a good, affordable designer I suggest shopping around on Fiverr to see who suits what you're looking for. You could even send the same gig to a few different sellers and whoever seems to be the most skilled and cooperative, you can then go to more exclusively in the future.

Fiverr - best for cover illustrators and designers

Fiverr is a great resource that can offer real value for money - from what I could find, anywhere else appeared rather expensive for pretty much the same service.

Here are some good ones that I've used...

Artists for the image / illustration:

Rissa88 (who turned my rubbish sketch into a cool and funny cartoon):

Cool vector graphic designs on Fiverr

Billbig (see an example of his work below):

Great Adobe Illustrator on Fiverr

Cover designer:

Fluxydesign (great style and service):

Excellent book cover designer

As an example of how I did one of my covers (in a rather around about sort of way), this is the process I followed for ‘The Poo Princess’:

My first idea for the cover

But after a designer followed my instructions, I didn't like what I'd created!

With a little help from a friend, I changed it to something a reader might recognise!

I sent it to another illustrator and this is what he did with it - much better!

The cover designer then did her thing and I was very happy with the final product!

Too bad I had to alter it yet again due to a 'Pooh versus Poo' controversy! Ah well, at least the change will be just in time for my 'Smell of Poo' children's book collection in paperback  ;-)

And here is the final version:

The final version!

If you have any design advice or recommendations of your own, feel free to share them here!