Hi, everyone,
Just a quick update – I finished fiddling with my cover and uploaded all files to CreateSpace! To remind you, this is what the old cover looked like:
This is what I’d ended up uploading:
The main changes are:
- I went back to a gold leaf title – it doesn’t look flash in a thumbnail, and I will probably leave ebook cover as it is – but it makes more sense when printed, improves the illusion that it is the title embossed into the leather cover.
- Darkened back half – it looks more dramatic somehow. Hey, matter of preference.
- Fiddled endlessly with the rip – see if you can spot the change!
- Could not get the quotes on the back to read properly when printed in red – the only drawback of the darker version.
- Gave the leather “cover” a more pronounced “spine”.
- My photo is smaller and bio wording slightly changed.
I was all set to publish, but unfortunately CreateSpace picked up a major oops on my part – I’d left the ebook ISBNs on the copyright page, instead of the paper version ones. The problem was, I had the document formatted by somebody else and so now it would be an additional cost and a day or two of delays. I couldn’t have that, of course, so, like any old school Russian, I found a workaround. For some reason Adobe would not let me change the text, so the final solution involved extracting the pdf page into Photoshop, finding a close enough font, fixing it up in Photoshop, saving as a pdf and inserting the updated page back to the original pdf. Whew!
There’s another little bit to sort out with CreateSpace – I bought my own barcode, but there was no prompt to upload it, like I thought. I’m now not sure if I’m supposed to add it to the cover myself, or if I will just go with the CreateSpace barcode, even though I have my own ISBN. Aargh!
So now I’m waiting again for CreateSpace to review and approve the files. If I get an email thumbs up tomorrow, I’ll order a proof copy – with expedited shipping, it will be in Australia in 3 business days! This means that if all goes well, the paperback will be available for sale in just about a week! Can’t quite believe it…
Ana Spoke, author 
You will be well on your way to establishing your own publishing house, soon. Grit and determination are indeed assets as well as knowledge and talent.
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Thank you, Mike! I don’t love publishing, but oh my god, how I love marketing! Authors fear that bit, and I can’t get enough 🙂
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Wow, what a process. I’ll stick to ebooks. What you’ve described would drive me up the wall. Good for you!
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Thank you 🙂 let’s see how the sales go – maybe you’ll change your mind…:-)
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Congratulations! It looks fabulous. What a process….
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Thank you! It is an Everest, but quite doable one step at a time 🙂
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Thanks Ana. Anyone who has had experience with the CreateSpace process, or is planning to, will benefit frm your blow-by-blow account. Thank you for taking the time to share.
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Thank you, James 🙂 I wish I did layout myself, that will be a learning experience for the next one…
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Please keep us posted.
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I will!
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It looks great. Well done. I think the gold title and spine looks really effective. Hope all goes well.
Just wanted to say as well that I’ve been enjoying your posts on marketing and now these front cover / createspace posts. I’ll be going through this soon and you’ve given me an insight into the process.
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Thank you, Suzanne! Hope I will continue to do so – I’m going to try handing out flyers at a major train station this week, will post results of that as well as the 3 ads over Thanksgiving.
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Much prefer the darker back cover, Ana. Not long now 😊
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Thank you, Susan!
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Well done Ana! I`m very happy for you! Just a tip, I have been in touch with Createspace a lot asking about their process of self publishing. They are so helpful when you e-mail them and ask for advice. At one stage they e-mailed me three times in one day. Ask them anything, you don`t have to figure it all out yourself. Again, well done!
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Thank you! Yes, they’ve been very quick and helpful so far – makes such a huge difference…
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I LOVE the new and improved cover! Like the new bio as well. But I haven’t found the difference in the rip…what is it? The gold in Shizzle and the spine makes the leather underneath stand out. You are so talented. Why do you want to hire someone to do this when they will not ever do as decent job as you have? You could win an award for your cover. I’d let you do the cover for my book when I get it written your that good. In paperback in an week? Whoa, doesn’t that make your head spin? Dream come true! How are you going to market it? Just in Australia? I want to know all the details and what is the big marketing push for Black Friday week? Is it OK if I keep tweeting about your book? I do like to get rather inventive with them so folks take notice. Get detail click thru’s but I don’t know if they buy the book.Think I asked enough questions? Ha,ha. Good luck with this week. Hope the sales volume is HUGE!
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HA! Found the difference in the rip…..duh. And I like it much better. What can I say I was looking at the whole cover by itself not comparing side by side. The tear is wider at the end on the latest version. Nice touch!
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Well done, Olivia 🙂
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Thank you, Olivia – yes, please keep on tweeting! I’m so touched every time I see someone sharing a link…and yes, I’ve noticed your puns 🙂
I’m an insecure designer, but probably will design myself from now on – such a pain to work with others and then feel bad when you don’t like what they did…
CreateSpace will distribute all over the world! I will contact stores with my pitches, let’s see how I go 🙂
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Wow! I really liked the original cover but love the changes! Quick question – how did you do the leather cover effect? Is it a background or an overlay, or something else?
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I bought an image from Shutyerstock. The words are gold leaf overlay with embossed effect.
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Do you have to have a different ISBN number for the ebook and for the hard copy? Silliness. That’s “the man” getting to involved in nitpickery. Oh well. Good luck!
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Yes, not only that – a different one for each edition. Oh, and this is paperback – if I ever do a hardcover, you guessed it, another ISBN
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Do you find they are worth it? I hear many authors forego ISBN altogether.
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I’ve just started, so have to rely on advice of others. I think I will know for sure after a year of this
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I love the cover! Good luck with finishing up the progress 🙂 I can’t wait to see how it does it stores
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Thank you! Who knows, could be better than the ebook 🙂
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You’re welcome 🙂 We’ll just have to see. Who knows, maybe I’ll check it out 🙂
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It just gets better and better! Well done.
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Thank you, Colin!
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Congratulations on this massive milestone -printed editions of your book!
Thanks for all the posts as well relating to our process and journey of publishing your book…you’ve really helped me with a few things and made me realise how much more work I need to put into my novel.
Congrats again 🙂 x
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Thank you so much, Aneta 🙂
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I love the changes you made. You did a fantastic job and I think it’s inspiring how much work you’ve put into it. 😀
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Thank you so much, Kristine!
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It looks fantastic. I like the darker color – it contrasts really well against the model when open and looks more ‘businessy’ when you’re only looking at the back.
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Thank you, Jim! I’m slowly fiddling my way to success…
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I also like the darker shade and colors
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Wow I applaud you on this. Great job 🙂 I love the new cover btw.
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Thank you so much 🙂
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You need to add the ISBN yourself before saving the cover as a PDF for upload onto CS. If you don’t and they see it blank, they might plonk one of their own ones there instead. Also, your white box for the ISBN looks as if it’s flush with the spine. Maybe this is an optical illusion, but you need to locate it 0.25″ to the left of the spine. I hope this helps. Good luck 🙂
By the way, the cover gets better and better.
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Thank you, Sarah – they got back to me saying exactly that. Live and learn. The white box is ok – the spine is much thinner than “red leather” lets you to believe. I’ve used their template, which made things so easy!
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Good luck with it all. At least you know your novel doesn’t have any glaring errors or typos, having published it as an eBook first. I am so glad that I ordered a proof copy to read. Can’t believe the little blighters that have slipped in, despite all those proof reads. There’s something about seeing the book in print … I am desperate to make the beginning of December for both versions but keep finding things that are wrong with it. Lots of deep breaths required.
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Good luck to you too, Sarah! Did you pay for the proofread? If so, you should get at least some of your money back?
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No, I’ve only paid someone to do the book cover. I haven’t paid for anything else. I’m meant to be a qualified proofreader but I guess I’m too close to my own work! One of my very good blogging friends in the US very kindly read the novel through in detail, primarily to spot UK turns of phrase or names for things that would totally baffle US readers. I had no idea how many differences there were between US and UK English. It was an eye-opener.
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Hi, Sarah – yes, I would say after staring at mine for years, everything blurs…if it makes you feel any better, I’d paid close to $3k AUD for three rounds of different level edits, then went over with Grammarly and still found errors…
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It’s all so expensive.I’m looking at all the money you’ve paid for marketing as well as the edits, and thinking this isn’t an option for me. If I can just earn back what I’ve paid for the cover art and earn enough on top of that to pay for the art for my next book cover, this will be enough for starters. I just have to be innovative about the initial marketing drive and hope that word-of-mouth will take over from that. It’s all such an unknown, but better than waiting forever for responses from literary agents and publishers.
My overlooked proof error discovered today …’phased’ instead of ‘fazed’. Glad I noticed it.
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Hi, Sarah – yes, I’m in a lucky situation of having a good job and no kids. I’m also impatient as hell – I’m sure you will get “there” with other methods, I’m basically attempting to take on the risk that a publisher would on your behalf. Let’s see if it pays off. If not – I’ve had even more expensive hobbies, like kiteboarding. $3k just for equipment, but oh, such fun!
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Lol 🙂 I like your philosophy, Ana!
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I love the changes you made to the cover. The black fade is really striking. Well done!
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Thank you, Allie 🙂
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Good luck with the revisions. With my first book it went on forever because as soon as I picked up the book I spotted a mistake and they were quite a few I hadn’t noticed in the e-version and as I had somebody do the formatting for me it was forward and backwards for ages. I hope your process is much smoother….
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Oh no…I’m in the same boat – I will definitely do formatting myself from now on…
I can already see where I could improve, but I’ve decided not to mess with it, unless I find glaring errors – time to move on!
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I`m finding that publishing my book is an up and down process. Sometimes I seem to run into a brick wall and it takes a long time to move on. At other times things just happen easily, I meet the right person to help me or someone gives me the right advice for my issue with my book, at times when I haven`t even asked for advice.
My way of dealing with this is when I`m writing my next book(I have all the ideas and the story I just have to write it) I`ll know the process and exactly what to do if I encounter the same problems. Then hopefully I`ll have less up and downs!!. Everyone has their own ways of dealing with the issues that come from publishing a book,that`s just my way.
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That’s pretty much the reason for my blog – I’m writing down what has worked and what has not, so that the second book is easier. Otherwise I would forget it all!
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I’ve published 6 books thru Create Space and I have never gotten cover and interior to work on the first upload! I take notes! I make spread sheets! and something new happens every time. One big problem seems to be my version of Adobe doesn’t tell me the dpi for various sections of a pdf file. *sigh*
Must need some sort of pro version for that. But I get there.
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Oh, no! I know I’d saved the pdf from the Photoshop as “publication quality”, but it didn’t say how many dpi! Bummer! Fingers crossed – my proof will arrive in Australia on Thursday…
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The dpi thing (you want a minimum of 200 but 300 is recommended) has been annoying. I’m not ready to buy pro-level softwares, so I have some klugy work arounds that I think work okay… but don’t give me the property data to be sure. And I’m convinced Create Space problems are not always “me.” I had one cover rejected for two reasons – one was that words were covering the barcode area. But the whole bottom third of my back cover was letter-less! I fixed the other issue (my oops) and resubmitted – and never heard about the supposed bar code thing again.
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Hmmm…one weird thing that CS wanted me to fix, was to remove dashes in ISBNs. Yet I looked at a ton of books, professionally done, and their ISBNs had dashes, just the way Bowker has them. But it’s pointless to try and argue with them…
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Amazing cover design, congratulations!
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Thank you so much, Ben – I did it myself!
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Hey can I ask a question? I have two websites (meandersofthemind.com and BenEzard.com) – Meanders is the old one… and it says you are following Meanders…? How did you even get to it?
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That’s the one I see under your name right now…
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Thanks; Think I found the issue and solved it. 😦 I wonder how many people are following my defunct site.
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Well done! I can see “Ben Ezard” now and following it
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Thank you, Thane, and congratulations!
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