Just as there are many reasons to have a book published, there are lots of ways to make that happen. I have recently undertaken a journey with CreateSpace to publish my middle grade novel, Moving Targets. This is a story about bullying that I have been working on for quite some time. For awhile, I thought the topic would be exhausted, but it seems to holding its own and even gaining importance over time.
So, why CreateSpace? Well, I’ve seen books done by the company and the quality looks good. You have many choices of trim size and page count.
Best of all, it’s print-on-demand so you can order as many, or as few, copies that you want. And then there’s the bonus: the per-copy cost is consistent. In other words, you don’t have to order a skillion copies to get them at a reasonable (and salable) cost.
There’s a step-by-step process by which you create your book. I have yet to upload the text because I keep going over and over and over it. The folks at CreateSpace have informed me that the text need to be print-ready when I upload it, so I become an obsessed copy-editor. This after I have already edited the book for content. That’s been a bit easier for me. The copy-edit part challenges my attention to details. What’s really helped, though, is developing a style sheet for the book that includes punctuation instances as well as other quirky thinks I’m doing.
For example, during I use the word gonna when the kids are talking. It’s a style choice I consciously made to help make the dialogue sound more realistic. But I stopped there, choosing not to include things like wanna, coulda, shoulda, etc. Too much of that, I believe, would bog down the reader. So, it’s a matter of balance and degree.
The biggest challenge for me has been the actual formatting of margins, gutters, font type and size, and spacing. What really helped me was looking at other books – sort of mentor texts – and seeing what others have done. None of that helped, however, when I go to the very end of the text and the last line of the 150 or so pages got split, with a few words on one side of the page, and a few on the other. Hour after maddening hour I worked on that, playing with the settings, looking at online forums, using bad language, none of which helped. Finally, I called a tech genius friend, Cameron Yee, who figured it out in less than three minutes. I am continuously amazed at the knowledge and skills of people on this planet. Oh, the problem was with the justification setting.
So, that’s the extent of the project thus far. Next week I’ll be uploading the text and hopefully the cover, done by one Kurt Cyrus, another cohort brimming with talent. Until then, I will keep searching for rivers and widows and look forward to the time I push the Enter key, which will finalize the upload. If you have any interest in publishing something, check out CreateSpace. As far as I’m concerned, so far, so good. Will let you know how the process proceeds.
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