Gordon Burgett's Blog

Publishing concerns before submitting to CreateSpace…

I like CreateSpace and enjoy their responsiveness to the writer/publisher using their system to get their bound book in print. It’s hard to believe that they are from the usually mute (and mostly invisible) Amazon.com family!

So my thinking isn’t whether I will use them or not, but how, and what I should do to make that use most productive for me (and thus for them).

First, I must remember that making my printed book available from them (or other bound/paperback ancillary publisher) means that I am competing with myself, and probably forcing my own price down.

That makes no sense if I’m creating a niche empire where I am selling unique, valuable, tightly-targeted information to my e-list and others on a direct mailing list I will also use. I simply want every buyer to come through my portal paying my price. Which means I self-publish the book (paperback or, rarely, cloth) and only release it after conducting a satisfactory pre-test, probably selling the book alone or, more likely, some choice of just getting the book itself or getting it bundled with related products. (More on this process and thought pattern at earlier blogs here and in my book Niche Publishing: Publish Profitably Every Time.)

How will Amazon fit into that scenario? If I am releasing a bound general book (not niched) or a novel, I may wish to list my self-published book at their site and make it available through Amazon Advantage at the price the buyer would pay if they ordered it through me. That way I would get about 40% of list price (the discount to Amazon Advantage is 55% and maybe 5% to ship to them), so I must calculate whether the profit margin even justifies that secondary selling venue. Particularly since Amazon will offer it at a “sale” price below mine!

If sold through CreateSpace, I will earn a 40% royalty if it’s bought from Amazon (most are sold this way) and 20% if sold by the CreateSpace ebook store. But if my e-book is sold through Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords (if I keep the digital price $9.99 or less), I would receive a 70% royalty. So do I keep the bound book in house and just sell the digital version through the ancillary houses (and directly)?

It’s very confusing, but it’s usually the most profitable route to go through Create Space for a general book or fiction (it will be listed by Amazon that way) and do the digital books too. It’s no contest for a pre-tested niche book. Everybody must buy it from me.

I will also keep the same ISBN number for all the paperback or ink-on-paper versions.

Four, I don’t have to release my version and CreateSpace’s (and the e-book publishers’) versions at the same time. I get my own version(s) of the book printed and selling before I approach the other houses. This allows me time to arrange for book club sales, with speakers selling B.O.R. or through/to their presentation sponsors (like an association wanting to give a “free” copy to every attendant in the audience), and to my web list, affiliates, or to other Internet marketers before there is any (or much) outside selling of my book.

There are probably six or eight other pre-CreateSpace considerations but these seem the most urgent right now.

Hope this helps you.

Best wishes,

Gordon Burgett

P.S. I just read an excellent, though a bit convoluted, plan asking the same questions above in the February 2012 IBPA Independent: “Amazon Availability, Part 2:Plan B in Six Steps,” by Aaron Shepard.

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Is your book almost finished but it needs a final, last-step professional review by a no-nonsense editor with 40 books in print and 30+ years in publishing? That's what I mostly do, plus run a publishing company. Email, call, or check this link for details. Other things: my website, a free monthly newsletter, bio, and my latest book, How to Get Your Book Published Free in Minutes and Published Worldwide in Days. Also, daily tweets as GLeeBurgett and other social networking links at about.me.

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