Self-publishing with Amazon: CreateSpace

I published my first book on Amazon two weeks ago. Amazon's self-publishing platform is called CreateSpace. Once you establish an account, the project homepage for the book allows you to methodically complete steps to publish. 

Page Numbers

There are templates available on the CreateSpace website to enter your book content. I struggled with page numbers. Chapter one started with page 3 instead of 1. Later in the book, I had page numbers duplicated. The blank page after acknowledgements had an iv where it should have been blank. After numerous attempts to understand the template and word tutorials, I resorted to transferring the entire book to a blank template where the page numbers, thankfully, remained correct. 

Photograph Quality

My book was a nonfiction gardening book. It had many photographs. Once I submitted the book interior, I received a notice about the dpi being too low on my photographs. I was comfortable with my photograph quality, and did not have access to the subject matter to redo them. I chose to click "ignore" on the warning message. Later, I obtained a printed proof that verified the photographs printed fine.

.doc or .pdf

I submitted the interior in a Microsoft Word .doc format. CreateSpace accepts many book formats. There were slight changes in running heads and page numbers from my submitted doc. In hindsight I think submitting in a pdf format might have avoided that problem.

Black and White

I originally chose a black and white interior for my book. I had read that photographs stand out better against a white background. What I did not understand was that this meant the photos would be black and white. For my book, color photographs were important so I changed to the color option. Obviously, the cost of my book increased. 

Book Cover

CreateSpace has an excellent book cover creator. I was up against a publishing deadline (gardening season was about to start!) so I used the CreateSpace cover creator rather than designing my own art. It seemed that I had to duplicate and step through this part more than once to get it checked as complete. 


After your book submission is complete for a paperback, you are given the option to offer the book on the Kindle or e-book platform. I will write about this experience in my next post.