After publishing to CreateSpace, an option is offered to publish to Kindle. You enter the KDP platform and your CreateSpace book is converted to an e-book. This is a "backdoor" into Kindle publishing. Then you are allowed to preview the Kindle version. In my situation, the conversion process from my CreateSpace book was not successful. Most of the photographs were missing. I had hoped for better separation of chapters as with the print book. That didn't happen. I downloaded the HTML, and decided it was too complicated for my HTML skills. I took the final book file (the word .doc) and converted it to .pdf. This is easily done with Microsoft word by using the "Save as" command. Click "save as" and scroll down to the .pdf format to select it. Uploading this .pdf corrected the missing images. The chapter layout was not perfection, but it was usable. If I had to do it over again, I would upload a .pdf file to CreateSpace for a print and e-book process. For an e-book alone, I would try writing the HTML myself and upload that. N. J. NotJohn has a good blog about using HTML for Kindle publishing. I would try his suggestions. Here's Amazon's 2 minute promotional video on Kindle Direct Publishing.
My previous post on the CreateSpace experience is here.
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.
and titles are visible that link to my latest Garden Lady posts. If you want more of each blog to show, that can be adjusted in Settings on your blog interface. The only problem I had was when I tried to test the RSS URL using Chrome browser, I got a page full of code. I could see the actual website fine in Firefox. The RSS feed works in Chrome. It's just the test that showed code.
