Lorna Faith

Clean Fiction Author

9 Steps to Self-Publish Your Print Book Using CreateSpace

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In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on getting another book formatted and available as a print book.

I’ve been re-learning how to self-publish a print book using CreateSpace. So I thought I’d share whatever tips I can. I hope you find it helps you as you self-publish your print book.

9 steps to self-publish your print book

*Photo created with Canva

Steps to Set Up Your Print Book using CreateSpace

Setting up the print book takes a little time to figure out, but once you understand the process, you’ll be able to self-publish more and more of your books…. which is really exciting!

There are other online sites which you can use to self-publish your book. IngramSpark is one of those websites, but you do have a initial cost($49). And if you are wanting a one stop shop – where they help you with your ebook and print book – try BookBaby.

I’ve found CreateSpace’s process of setting up your book for print-on-demand, to be simple and easy to follow – and besides that your book is available very quickly on Amazon.

So I thought I’d share the steps I’ve taken to set up a print book using CreateSpace:

1.Set Up Your Account with CreateSpace. This means planning your book. Here’s where you think about things like: a)what size do you want your book to be? b)do you have the images you need – or  did you get a professional designer to do your book cover? c)do you have your own ISBN – or will you use CreateSpace’s free ISBN? d)double check – is your book almost ready to go – do you have it edited and proofread and formatted?

2.Important details to double check. There’s some details that are important to ask yourself so that you’re ready to add them to CreateSpace:

  • Title
  • Author
  • Is your book part of a series?
  • Publication date… this is the date you actually publish your book.
  • ISBN (Most Indie authors don’t have – or really need ISBN’s, but if you want your book in a physical store, you’ll need your own ISBN).
  • Back Cover Blurb – this is the description on the back of your book cover that compels people to read it
  • Author Biography – a few sentences about you and what makes you interesting as an author
  • Category –  is super important to help readers find your book
  • Keywords – words that people will type into the search bar to find books like yours
  • Price of Your Book – this isn’t always easy to figure out. For print books, something that I’ve done is look at the average price of other print books that are similar to mine. I’ve learned that CreateSpace helps with pricing your book, because after you choose your print size and have most of your other information added, it will tell you what the minimum price is for your book so that you will cover the costs of printing your book. When I added my information, it told me that the minimum price was $13.10(USD). Then I checked what the average price was for other historical romance print books and discovered the average was between $12.99 – $16.99. So I chose to set my print book price at $14.99(USD), which is right in the middle.

3.Choose Your Book Category. When you choose a category for you book, it makes it easier for people to find it. Book Industry Standards and Communications category(BISAC), is what booksellers use to group books by subject. So when you pick the right category, it helps readers find your book.

For example, with my recent book, it’s more like a Historical Romantic Suspense… but there’s no category like that. So instead of putting it with an oversaturated category like thriller or suspense, I chose to use sub-categories like: Romance –> Historical –>20th Century. Another category I used was: Romance –> Mystery & Suspense –> Mystery. With my ebooks I used another category: kindle ebooks –> Mystery, Thriller & Suspense –> Mystery –> Historical.

Most of the time as self-published authors, we just need to try to find the best category and then double check if readers are able to find our books with the categories we’ve chosen. The beautiful thing is – as an indie author – you can always go back and change it later.

4.Choose Your Keywords. Readers also find your book by the keywords you choose. These are words that people will most likely put in the search bar in digital retailers – like Amazon – to find a book that interests them. You can only add 5 words or word phrases here, so you need to be intentional about the words you choose.

A very useful tool that’s helped me to learn more about keywords and metadata for books, is Kindlespy. This tools shows you the keywords that bestselling authors use to get their books on the bestselling list on Amazon. And it shows you a bunch of stats for the books in your chosen category – so it saves you a lot of time.

5.Choose a standard size for your print book. Only standard sizes that can be set for ‘expanded distribution’ on CreateSpace. Most likely this will help you decide the size you want for your print book.

This is also called our ‘trim size’ because that’s the size of the book once it’s been cut out of the paper stock. Normal paperback size is 5.06″ x 7.81″, but many trade paperback books are 6″ x 9″. It’s good if you can choose the trim size that is most common in your genre. For myself I chose 5.5″ x 8.5″ which is the usual size in the historical romance genre. There’s more details on the trim size chart on CreateSpace.

What I do is I download a Word template once I’ve picked a trim size and then once the print book is formatted, I upload the Word document into it. This time, we’re trying Adobe InDesign to format the print book.

6.Get your book cover professionally designed. It’s so important to have a really great book cover. It’s the first thing that readers see. A great book cover also says a lot about your book before readers even read your back cover blurb.

CreateSpace has the option to use one of their designers or you can find a designer for a reasonable price somewhere else. For the book cover below, I asked Domi from inspiredcoverdesigns.com to create a cover. She did a great job and this cover makes it easier for readers to tell that Anchoring Annaveta was in the same series as Book 1 Answering Annaveta.

 

7.Double check that you have print resolution images. Your images need to be ‘high resolution’ in order to get the best results from your print book you will hold in your hands.

Any cover images need to be at least 300 dpi so that they’ll look good when the book is printed. And if you’re printing those images in color, this is even more important.

8.Upload your PDF file. Once your book is formatted correctly, and all your images are print resolution… it’s time to upload your file to CreateSpace for approval and printing. You can submit the interior file you formatted as a word document… or as a PDF.

9.Now you can order a proof of your book. This is the fun part – you get to order a proof of your print book. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of holding your book in your hands!  Because things never look the same on the screen as they do in print, you should order a proof. When you get the proof, double check each page to make sure everything is as it should be. Then get someone else to look through it too, as an added measure.

Once you’re happy with how the book looks in print, then approve it on CreateSpace and you’re done. Now you can throw a party, and start writing the next book… 😉

What is your process to self-publish your print book? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments.

 

 

*Photo created with Canva

*Some of the above links are affiliate links and help to support this blog

 

 

5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Editing Your First Fiction Book

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Writing a novel, takes a ton of focus.

As storytellers and even more so as readers, we think we have soaked up what we need to know about how a story works. But to our surprise, there is so much to learn.

5 questions to ask yourself

Writing and Editing Your First Story…

After you’ve finished writing your first draft(if you need help finishing your book this post might help), you feel like dancing and throwing a party. You’ve written the end, and now you’re ready to publish your book.

But it’s not quite ready yet. After you’ve written your first draft, it’s time to get to the critical second step: editing.

After just finishing up the edits for my second novel in my Historical Romance series – Anchoring Annaveta – I dealt with some common problem areas that I remembered fixing in my first novel.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when you’re editing your first fiction book, to help you make your book the best it can be.

1. Do you have intriguing characters?

It’s frustrating to read about a character in a novel, who doesn’t have any depth. As readers, we are drawn to characters that have an interesting inner life – we want to feel and empathize with their life. As readers we want that deeper understanding whether the character is good or bad.

A great way to dig deeper into who your character really is – and what drives them to act this way – is to write their backstory.

You can do this in a separate blank document, or you can add it to your story and then take out the extra sections of backstory as needed.

Write down where they come from, what they’ve gone through in their life, what is their deep passion or what they’re most afraid of, along with their quirks and any other details of their life.

You can even think of it as writing their history – write the backstory as if you were writing about the history of your family. Write about details about their relatives, along with defining moments in their life and what they like and dislike.

Even though much of your backstory might not get written down in your story, the intimate understanding you have of your characters will find it’s way into the story – even in subtle ways – possibly without you noticing it. The readers of your books will notice and will be drawn even more into your stories.

2. Do you have enough tension and conflict?

All stories must have some sort of tension or conflict. It’s what keeps readers turning the pages.

It’s important as an author to really understand the central conflict of your story and the main character arc. Each of these subtle changes in your story – the tension – should keep building gradually through every scene you write.

My big mistake with my first novel, was that after the first draft, each chapter was little more than a catalogue of events. I needed to go back and rewrite so that there was more tension, conflict and character arc to keep the reader turning the pages.

As I learned from story structure guru, Larry Brooks, conflict is what drives your story.

3. Is your language too showy?

As writers of fiction we want to get rid of unnecessary words. If our words or phrases are too full of beautiful prose, sometimes that one sentence or paragraph can stand out and disrupts the flow of your story.

Sometimes using extra words or overusing descriptions can put a choke hold on the narrative and make it more difficult for readers to understand what a certain sentence means. And if the flow of your story is interrupted, then the reader is taken out of the fictive dream – story flow – and they might not read your novel all the way to the end.

4. Do you have someone else read your story?

Each fiction writer should self-edit their stories. Read through your manuscript until you feel like you’ve done all you can to make it your best.

Then, it’s time to give your story to a professional editor and ask some beta readers to give you tips on how you can make your story better.

What often happens, is that our stories are so familiar to us, that we miss some mistakes or flaws that someone else will catch. This just happened to me as I was in the editing stage. I thought I had the characters and the research all figured out, but my editor did such a good job that she caught many errors in either names of people or even a few sentences that were unfinished(ack!).

Needless to say, having a beta reader or professional editor look through your story can really help. It’s their first time reading through your story and many times they’ll catch a bunch of details you missed.

5. Ask Yourself  ‘How is My Story Unique?’

In each genre, there are specific expectations that readers have for that genre. For example, in a romance novel it is expected that the hero and heroine fall in love and that there’s a happy ending.

Make your story unique from other novels in your chosen genre.

Ask yourself how the story you’re writing is different from other fiction. Even though certain tropes are expected in your genre, you still need to surprise and delight your reader.

… and readers are excited to read a novel that has fresh ideas from a genre they know well.

Take the time you need to write your story with your one-of-a-kind perspective.

Don’t worry about making mistakes or stress about the learning curve. Just keep writing and editing your stories. You can do this 😉

Are there other tips you have on editing your first novel? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments.

 

 

*Some of the above links are affiliate links that help to support this blog

012 Plot Your Fiction Novel With Drama, Depth and Heart with Roz Morris

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Subscribe: iTunes

I had fun – and learned so much – in this interview with bestselling author Roz Morris. Roz has ghostwritten over a dozen novels which have sold over 4 million copies. She’s also written her own fiction books as well as written nonfiction writing books to help novelists craft amazing stories. She is the cohost of a radio show on writing, as well as a speaker and writing coach. You can find more details about Roz on her website, www.nailyournovel.com and sign-up to her newsletter for new and exciting books and courses coming up soon! If you like, you can chat with Roz on Twitter or Facebook.

Watch the Video Interview

Here’s some resources I share on the podcast 🙂

I began by answering a question that came from a first-time writer. She asks what do I do if I haven’t been able to write for months because I’ve had writer’s block? I shared how Julia Cameron’s book,  The Artist’s Way showed me how writing morning pages helps me to get writing again when I’m stuck. By handwriting 3 pages each morning, it helps to get all your fears, doubts or your ‘to-do’ list out of your head and onto the blank page. I wrote about this on this blog post. I hope this helps to get your creative juices flowing again.

Other books and blogs I’ve found helpful…

  • Nail Your Novel series of writing books by Roz Morris. These books are useful as you learn how to deconstruct your novel and figure out what’s working and what’s not.
  • The Positive Trait Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. I’ve been referring back to this book as I’ve wanted to better express traits – like confidence, adventure – in my characters.
  • www.professionalcontentcreation.com by Rebecca Livermore is a website that gives helpful tips on creating a more compelling author blog for your readers.

Now lets get on with today’s interview with Roz Morris.

Summary of Interview

*Roz says she was always messing around with stories but didn’t take it seriously until she met her husband who is a writer. She started ghostwriting, when somehow schedules got messed up with the publisher and her husband asked her to write one of the books he was scheduled to write. She wrote it and the publisher loved it ~ so she got more ghostwriting projects.

*Through ghostwriting she learned how to write bestselling novels(selling over 4 million copies), but she also wanted to write her own fiction books.

Roz has since written two of her own fiction books.

My Memories Of A Future Life and Lifeform Three.  

 

 

*As Roz started to help writer bring their manuscripts up to a publishable level, she seen people writing in many different genres, but not quite getting how to tweak their novel to make it great. So she wrote her Nail Your Novel series to help writers to deconstruct and finish their books.

Even though there is a broad variety of story types, there are common features that all plots have. Check if your story has these 4 C’s:

  • Curiosity – Your story should make the reader curious. Early on in the story there should be something that hooks the reader – like a problem or quest that has many twists and turns.
  • Crescendo – Stories have moments where bad goes to worse. There are turning points and triumphs.
  • Coherence – Have a theme or idea that glues the story together. The reader should feel like everything in your story has a flows together.
  • Change – Plots that satisfy readers, have a feeling of change and a sense of journey. As the character changes and grows in their understanding, so does the reader.

“Every event you invent, ask if you can make more use of it. Then you are on the way to an elegantly crafted story with focus and coherence.” from Writing Plots with Drama, Depth and Heart: Nail Your Novel by Roz Morris.

*Roz talks more about the 3 and 4 act story structure and that novels need a minimum of three turning points. These turning points are usually at the quarter points of the book – the beginning, middle and the three-quarter point.

*Be willing to take your book apart to see what you’ve got. Double check that the events leading up to the ending, work. Find ways of looking at your book like an x-ray.

*Roz wrote a post about the steps she takes to write her novels.

You can learn more about new projects Roz is working on here and get her FREE Nail Your Novel Instant Fix: 100 Tips for Fascinating Characters  here. Find and connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.

Does your novel include the 4 C’s? Please share how you plot your novel in the comments, I’d love to hear about your story process.

 

*Some of the above links are affiliate links that help to support this blog

011 How to Stand Tall and Step Big as a Creative Giant with Charlie Gilkey

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Subscribe: iTunes

I had the honour of interviewing author, blogger, podcaster and business coach Charlie Gilkey. He is the bestselling author of awesome book The Small Business Life Cycle: The No-Fluff Guide to Navigating the Five Stages of Small Business Growth. Charlie also helps creatives win in all they do everyday. He started the community and website – productiveflourishing.com, to work with creative people to help them roll up their sleeves and start doing something with their ideas and vision, rather than just to sit and dream. Charlie also hosts the uber popular podcast The Creative Giant Show which is super helpful for creatives who want to grow and thrive in their businesses. You can also connect and chat with Charlie on Facebook or Twitter.

Watch the Video Interview

Here’s some resources I share in the update:

1. The Small Business Life Cycle: The No-Fluff Guide to Navigating the Five Stages of Small Business Growth by Charlie Gilkey. This book helped me understand where I was as I’ve been beginning my writing… and product creation business. Super helpful especially if you’ve chosen to Go Pro as a writer and treat your writing like a business.

2.Write to Market: Deliver a Book that Sells (Write Faster, Write Smarter 3) by Chis Fox. I first heard of Chris and this book as well as others on the Sell More Books Show. Super helpful if you want to write books you love AND understand what hungry readers are looking for in your genre.

3.Writing Deep Scenes: Plotting Your Story Through Action, Emotion, and Theme by Martha Alderson and Jordan Rosenfeld. This is really helpful to learn how to dig deeper into the theme of your story.

4. Lastly a shout out to Domi at inspiredcoverdesigns.com. She is working on the book cover for Book #2 in the historical romance series. I’m just working on finishing up the editing and shooting for a April 1st release date:) I’m a little behind my previous schedule – but I’m excited to get it out there.

I had many Aha Moments in this chat with Charlie. And you’ll hear toward the end of this podcast, where he nails me on something that I must have said subconsciously…. love it when people are willing to be honest with you so that you can learn and grow 😉

So, lets get on with the summary of the interview.

Interview Summary:

*People tell themselves different stories of what it means to be a creative person. We ask where we fit – sort of like asking are you my mother? we ask are you my label… do I belong here? Charlie suggests that being a creative person is like living with a series of connections and disconnections and random thoughts and ideas all at once. Seeing the dots connect and sharing those dots is really what it takes.

*Charlie tells his story of being a military logistics coordinator and working on his Ph.D in Philosophy at the same time. He began to wonder how he could move battalions and still struggle to get a 6000 word paper done. As he started researching how other people did creative work – their deep work – he came across Cal Newport’s super helpful book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. This book helped him take his business to the next level.

“Many of us creatives have to see where we’re going before we get started. We forget that we create ourselves by creating.” @charliegilkey [Tweet this]

*There are myths we tell ourselves that structure and creativity is on opposite ends. Charlie says writers can create the types of habits; social environment; conceptual environment, between what you consume and how you organize your ideas that will help you to do something with your ideas.

*As writers, when you’re in the flow state of writing, if you over-structure you’ll shut it down. The 2 different styles of writing – drafting and editing – also relates to this. If you let the editor in when you’re drafting you’ll also shut down the flow state of writing.

*On productivity: Try working in creative blocks. There’s been studies done to show that your body recycles after 90 to 120 minutes. So you have energetic cycles throughout the day. If you work in 3 creative blocks, it’s easier because most of us know about how much writing we can get done in a creative block.

*Sometimes we overestimate what we can get done in a day, so we try to push more creative blocks in the day, when you’re really tired. In turn, this causes a fit and start cycle – writing 2000 words one day and then waiting a week until you get another creative burst.

*Charlie mentions a Psychologist friend of his who has done studies on happiness and productivity. He says people who have a consistent output were consistently happier and productive then those who tried the fit and start cycle. Imagine that you could use 2 creative blocks for the rest of your life. You could get more done and you’d feel better about it – then if for only one day a week you were on fire.

2 Ways creatives get out of flow:

1.Distractions: Like social media; email; choosing to do the laundry, dishes, during writing time. Solve this dilemma by figuring out what works for you – Example: use anti-social or freedom, etc., so you can’t go online during writing time. Choose to keep writing even when it’s tough – stick to your creative time block.

2.Interruptions: cat walks into the room and throws up on your foot; your children run into the room while you’re writing. Solve this dilemma by having conversations with your family, and agreeing on a certain time block for you to write – and offer to watch the children, or the cat or whatever while they do something they love:)

Going Pro with Your Writing

(Charlie talked about seeing your writing as your business and taking it seriously… this is something that I really needed to hear. I’ve been too scared to take it seriously, but it’s like the penny dropped for me – it’s time to jump in…:)

*It’s time to choose: Either you’re in commercial writing or you’re not. Get out of the middle! If you want to write as a hobby that’s great. Do that.

Charlie explains more about how to get started as an entrepreneur in his book.

If you want to write words that people buy you are automatically in commercial writing. People want to stick to that middle – that safe zone – they don’t want to treat it like a job, but you won’t get the benefits of going Pro if you don’t jump in.

“Going Pro doesn’t mean you do a bunch of stuff you don’t want to do or you let go of creativity and joy…” @charliegilkey [Tweet this]

*There’s a lot of head trash going on with creatives around marketing and selling their books. You spend all this time pulling something out of yourself and then when it’s time to put it out into the world you feel like a used car salesman. Marketing your book is just part of taking something that you care about and putting a price tag on it. That doesn’t make it dirty.

“People buying stuff from you, is just one way of them transferring their love and appreciation. That’s all it is.”  Charlie Gilkey

If you’re writing fiction, you’re delivering delight. If you’re writing nonfiction, you’re delivering education, entertainment or inspiration.

*It turns out that your bank won’t directly transfer or convert education, entertainment or inspiration into paying your mortgage. But once you work through the fear of selling, there is huge joy because every sale, that’s people deciding to spend their hard earned money on something you created for them. And in a time where people are watching their money, that’s a sacred gift to give to somebody.

When you take the step to be a commercial writer, you’re in the business of positioning – and marketing and all those different things come with that. You’re joining a bunch of others who don’t necessarily have it all figured out better than you; who aren’t smarter than you… so join the party 😉

*The authors who win, are relentlessly focussed on delighting their readers. Ask yourself, what are you doing to build your audience and your platform?  Have the courage to reach out to your readers and ask them is this something you would like? Choose to make a “conversation plan” instead of a “marketing plan.” Remember everyone starts with only 1 reader and then it grows.

Stand Tall Creative Giants

*Charlie talks about how to Stand Tall and Step Big as a Creative Giant. Creatives often downplay what they can do. You need to understand that you can be this powerful, creative and compassionate force in the world. And you don’t have to give up something that really matters to you. So many stories we tell ourselves about creative success is that we have to give up something that matters to us. In Charlie’s blog post, he talks about how to stand tall and do something with your creative ideas.

*Understand that you’re not alone. The doubts, fears and challenges you face are just what it means to be human. To create and serve other people is when we thrive. If you find yourself playing smaller so you’re not hurting other people’s feelings, join more creatives who understand you at the community at productiveflourishing.com.

Have you embraced who you are as a creative giant? I’d love to hear what you create that delights and adds value to people. Please add your thoughts in the comments.

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