Helping New Authors Publish

I just had an e-mail from someone who has written a book and is looking for a publisher. It's an exciting moment in an author's life when they realize they are ready to share their work with the world. I wrote back to her, and I'll share here with you what I shared with her:

I use the self-publishing that is offered by CreateSpace.com, which is a subsidiary company of Amazon. There is no cost to create your book with them, and you'll have a choice of paperback, Kindle or both. They have a cover creator which is also free and offers many designs to choose from. They offer word templates that are all ready for you to add your text, and will number the pages and put headers at the top for you (left and right pages are different from each other ... maybe the title of your book on the left, and the author/editor name on the right. They also offer free telephone consultants who are here in the US and speak English. I've found them very easy to work with.

What they don't offer is proofreading and editing for free. They offer it as a paid service, but I haven't checked into that.

I would suggest that you start by proofreading your content for grammatical and spelling/punctuation accuracy. Have a friend or co-author do the same. Next, hire an editor to go over the book and look for consistency, tone, sequence (if that applies) etc.

Then take a look at CreateSpace to see  how comfortable you are with their site. Don't hesitate to use their free telephone help line if you don't see how and where to get started. I have a lot of fun beginning with the cover creator. Once I have that done, my books begin to feel real, and I add the content into their word templates. Their step-by-step guide is easy to follow. When they receive all of your content, they will offer you an online "Proof" and also offer a hard copy (paperback) at a very reasonable price (mine are usually between 2 and 4 dollars, plus shipping. Having that proof copy in your hands is an exciting moment. Finding more errors as you read through the hard copy is inevitable - but that's why a paper proof is so important. To fix the errors, you simply open your online proof copy and edit, and ask them to run it again for another proof copy. I've done that with some of my books three or four times until I finally get it right. And then when I am satisfied with my work, I tell them to publish. I order any number of copies to sell (or give) locally to friends and family, each at the same low price of the proof copy.

 You'll set the price for you book using the guide that is on the site. CreateSpace will also invite you to send the copy through another format to produce the e-book copy for Kindle. Amazon will have both your paperback and kindle edition posted on their site within a day or two's time.

Lots to do - get started, and know that I'm here to answer any questions that come up - or just be a cheerleader for you. I also do proofreading and editing, but I have to charge for that, as I'm retired and that is my new job. You can check out my prices at my website. Here's the link to my services page:Terry's Thoughts and Threads Services

Wishing you confidence and good outcomes! Happy Thanksgiving.

Related articles

• Proofing Your CreateSpace Paperback (aseiwn.com)
• Copyediting - Proofreading Comments Summary (Part Four) (kristinastanley.net)