01 Feb Ending of CreateSpace Author Services Delays Publication of Over the Mountain
CreateSpace Offered One-Stop Shopping
I was coming along nicely with my final edit of Over the Mountain. It’s my third novel that continues the saga of the Barton family, and is set in Birmingham, Alabama, in the early sixties. The last step was to download the manuscript to my Kirkus editor and then wait until February 13 for it to be returned to me, ready to print.
As I had done previously, after completing the editing process for Hattie’s Place and In the Fullness of Time, I contacted Amazon’s CreateSpace.com to arrange for a cover design for the book, and to have the edited manuscript formatted for print and for Kindle. Through CreateSpace, Amazon has offered an incredible one-stop-shopping service for indie authors, by combining its publishing service with a range of reasonably priced and professionally done author services.
Services I consider Essential
I’ve blogged about these helpful services, which you can read in Indie Publishing: The Book Cover, and The Cost of Indie Publishing. Just to give you an idea of the cost of services that I have come to consider essential:
- The cover design with two options is $399
- The internal formatting of the manuscript is $199
- The conversion of the manuscript to Kindle format is $79.
I was in for a real shock when I learned that Amazon has ended its author services business. Now, I would no longer be able to have my books formatted or my covers designed through CreateSpace. This rude awakening sent me scurrying around to find an alternative route.
One option would be to take advantage of the extensive and free author support still available on CreateSpace. Though it, I could simply do my own formatting and cover design. I already did that for my first book, Retirement: A Journey Not a Destination. I succeeded in publishing it for about $150. But that’s something I don’t care to do again, given my limited technical skills.
Promising Sites
I found several websites that looked promising before I landed on one that I decided to give a try:
I Settle on Author Packages
The name of the site is Author Packages at https://www.authorpackages.com. It’s a small online business of designers and writers who operate out of an office located in Glasgow, Scotland. They offer all of the editing and formatting services I was looking for. It’s a competitive price, albeit slightly higher than CreateSpace.
I filled out a request for services from Author Packages. Shortly, I received an e-mail from Mark, who agreed to design my cover. He was very thorough in gathering information about the book. He asked about the characters and plot. He also wanted to know of possible articles and landmarks mentioned in Over the Mountain that he could use as focal points for the cover.
He stressed his company’s committed to customer satisfaction. They’re dedicated to help indie authors get their books published without having to spend a fortune to do it.
Mark will do the graphic design and his wife, Lorna, will do the interior formatting of the text.
I’m hopeful that Author Packages will fill the void left by CreateSpace, and that I can develop an ongoing relationship with the company for future publications.
That said, the process of finding a new service to design a cover and format my book delays the publication date by several weeks.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress and will share the cover as soon as it’s ready.
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