If you want an actual printed copy of your book rather than just a Kindle version then you will have to use CreateSpace on Amazon. Once you have successfully uploaded your book onto Amazon then it is printed on demand to customer order. I found CreateSpace very easy to use and the best way that I work is to create the manuscript in either Word (if there are no illustrations) or Publisher (if there are illustrations) and then save a copy of your file into PDF format in the drop down menus when you click "save as". Manuscripts in PDF format seem to upload easily onto Amazon. I have put two books onto Amazon as PDF files and then Amazon converts them into their own format. When you have uploaded a book into CreateSpace you will be sent a copy of it to review by email within twenty-four hours.( You can also request a printed version to edit). It will have had a preliminary editing by Amazon but there may still be errors that you have to correct yourself( ie, the text not fitting properly into the page size that you have chosen), I just choose another page size.
After using a Kindle Direct only account at first I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you actually create a print book in CreateSpace you are also given the option of converting the same book into Kindle Direct just by clicking a button. So it's probably less time consuming just to use CreateSpace if you want a Kindle and a print version of your book rather than opening two separate accounts.
In Createspace you can earn royalties of up to sixty percent and Amazon offsets the printing fees against your royalty shares, so you do not have to pay any upfront printing costs. You can publish quickly using their free tools or you can take advantage of their professional printing services, which you have to pay for. Your book is available to distribute globally through Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es and Amazon.com and your book is always in stock and ready to ship with the print on demand service. What I like about a print on demand service is that it is more environmentally friendly than printing large volumes of books that may not sell.
With both Kindle and CreateSpace you can track your sales and royalty payments through a dashboard which is found at the top of your account task bar that you made with Amazon.
I have three books which I have self published on Amazon, two illustrated children's books and one fiction book. My royalty payments within the last six months has been just over two pounds.
So is it worth doing? Is Amazon a profitable site for independent authors? I will go into royalty figures, distribution and ISBN numbers next week.
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