Create Space from Amazon: Yea/Nay?

[deilaitha]

First of all, it's been a long while since I've posted on Mythic Scribes--life has been busy and I have been without internet. I have been super busy writing and working on my novel, and I finished my first draft! I am now revising, editing, and planning ahead for what I will do once I have it whipped into shape.

I recently bought a copy of Writer's Digest and I noticed their advertisement for Create Space. So I checked out their website and looked at all their offerings. It looks pretty neat, and I must admit I am enticed by their sales pitch. I did a search here on MS and only found a couple of mentions of them, and they were generally along the lines that Create Space is better than LuLu.

Has anyone here used Create Space? Know anyone who has? I am curious to see if the grass is as green as it looks.

As a character from one of my favorite shows said, "If it looks too good to be true, it's best to shoot it just in case."

Thanks,
deilaitha

 

[Chilari]

When I won NaNoWriMo in 2009 I got a code for a free proof from Createspace and I used it. It arrived quickly, as far as I recall, and the printing quality was great. The covers I wasn't so fond of - the way the corners between cover and spine were done were weird to me, not like real paperbacks. The cover was really shiny too, way shinier than normal covers. Super reflective. The size of the book was also slightly larger than what appears to be standard, if the books on my shelf were indeed standard (mostly Pratchett and Gemmell at that time), though that might have been because of the size of pages in my submitted PDF (I had no idea what I was doing).

Get a proof. Examine it. Analyse it. Compare it to traditionally produced books. See what you feel about it.

 

[Weaver]

I have, right here next to me, a novel that was printed through CreateSpace. (It is not my novel, by the way, but I am friends with the author and have also read a lot about CreateSpace and how it works.) The printing quality is good, as is the binding. I like the cover (by a professional artist), and it is no more glossy/shiny than any other softcover book I've seen. (It doesn't have that 'cheaply laminated' look that older print-on-demand books sometimes did.) The book IS somewhat larger than many trade paperbacks, but there's no 'one size fits all' for those anyway, and the size is one of the sizes normally used. (It's also a frakkin' huge novel and would have been too thick at only 6 inches by 9; making the pages larger allows for more words per page and thus fewer pages without making the print too small.) CreateSpace does offer options on book size, one of which is the most common seen in bookstores.

That said... The physical appearance of the books produced through CreateSpace (or something like it) is not the only thing to consider. Read the details on how much of a cut the author gets, and read carefully. The advertised 'author gets 70 percent' is... misleading, IMO. Calculate the size of your hypothetical book based on page size and word count, and find out how much you'd have to charge per copy to make a profit. (It is possible for the author to end up owing Amazon for each copy 'sold' if they price is set too low.) Then determine if this price is reasonable.

 

[PhoenixF2B]

Createspace does not offer Hard cover versions for sale, which is a deal breaker for me. Lulu does but I am sure there are better solutions than Lulu. I am curious about Lightning Source though.