Not Your Usual Suspects: Createspace

NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

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NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Don't Judge A Book By Its...Interior

After and Before

The funny thing was I was quite happy with my interiors. I seemed to have avoided a lot of the associated hassles people spoke about when making print books for Createspace. I used Word and formatted the print versions myself, and I was meticulous, and I followed the guidelines exactly.

Then I accidentally received the judges comments back from a contest I entered and BAM! Apparently, I suck. I won't go into detail because that wouldn't be professional. I decided that while I might not be able to win that reader over, I was in a position to rethink my interior formatting.

So I did.

I'd been on a panel with Julianne MacLean last year and knew she used Createspace to format her interiors. So I approached my contact there and she (love her) actually offered me a freebie to see how I liked their service--it's hard to get a better offer than that, right?

After (Createspace) and Before (me)

Top-createspace Bottom-Me

OK--while at first I wasn't seeing a big difference, I do like the way they did the Copyright page and my list of other books. Then I looked inside at the story itself...

After (Createspace) Before (me)

The difference seems to be in the margins and in the kerning. It's subtle and yet their version seems a lot more professional than mine. So, I'm sold. I did a good job (IMO), but their's looks like a 'proper' book. I haven't redone all my books yet, just the Cold Justice Series. Now my cover artist is adjusting the cover size so I can load these new versions onto my local bookstore's Cafe Press printing machine. Then I'm going to check out Ingram Spark.

So although it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to hear negative things, you have to try and use them to empower you in some way. It's easy to be bitter and life is too short :) There are other places that format interiors too. Ask around and find someone you like.

Now I have a box of books formatted the old way, LOL. Guess what? I'll probably use them for contests.

The End!

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