Tag: CreateSpace

Converting Paperbacks from Createspace to Amazon

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing

I’ve got over 30 books in paperback.  I’ve been with Createspace, KDP and Smashwords from the beginning.  Now Createspace is closing down.  Amazon started it and is folding it back into Amazon. 

I’ve tried the Amazon paperbacks and the process is about the same as Createspace and the quality is there as well.  Changing from Createspace to Amazon isn’t horrible but what to do about the 30+ novels I already have.  Do I want to keep them all in paperback?  Should I consider not publishing in paperback since most of my sales are ebooks?  What about the journal I created?  Should I keep that in paperback form?  It isn’t in ebook – obviously.

It’s a lot of work to set up each book.  When I’m publishing, it takes around 3-4 hours just to get them uploaded and all the settings the way I want the book to be.   Do I really want to take all that effort for items which I don’t get a lot of sales on? 

Also if I’m going to do this, then I want to redo some of the manuscripts.  I know there are spelling / grammar errors as I’ve reread them and been annoyed by them.  A lot of the newer books, I have a better routine so there are fewer but the earlier it was published the more likely I am going to want to update the manuscript.  In reality, I’ve already done updates to the ebooks.

All of this ran through my head but I decided I do want to continue offering paperbacks and it’s good to have paperbacks for my own purposes.  I wasn’t sure how it would work to discontinue my Createspace copies and go to the Amazon copies.

Thankfully all of this was addressed by Amazon.  I went in to see how complicated it would be.  It wasn’t.  The paperback option is listed right with each of my books.  For the latest, I was able to go in and use the same file and convert them in a under 15 minutes (roughly).  The longest part is when they do the review, which is typical.  Their message is slightly humorous and suggests a cup of coffee or making a sandwich. 

So far I’ve converted about half of them over to Amazon.  The ones I have left, I will spend a little more time reviewing the manuscript before I convert.  Hopefully this review won’t take me too long.

The nice thing, my prices to the public have gotten slightly lower in most cases.  This might encourage sales.  I had one book at 19.99 which no one bought but I revamped a little, changed margins and so on in an effort to reduce the number of pages.  To be fair, the book is long but still few people are going to invest that much in a book.  I managed to get the price down $7. 

Hopefully the rest of the conversions don’t take me too long and I’ll be all set.  The only other thing I have to figure out is how to get the books which don’t have an ebook converted over. 

Back to Couponing and Crocheting and Publishing

by eileentroemel, posted in Crochet and crafting, Life, Writing

Saturday afternoon I spent a chunk of time clipping coupons – for myself, my sister, and my daughters.  For the first time in nearly six weeks, I made a grocery list based on my apps and coupons.

Ken went grocery shopping early on Sunday as he usually does.  He overspent by a little but I knew he would because we haven’t really shopped while we’ve been helping our daughter move.  He used a bunch of coupons – saving over $32.  In apps, he saved over $5.

I meant to spend my Saturday working on publishing but by the time we were done with errands, I was wiped out.  I tried napping to get rid of a headache and get some energy back but spent the time talking on the phone with multiple people including some of my daughters.

Sunday I managed to get one book published – Draconian Peace.  Here’s a brief description of it:

Racial tension has destroyed the relationship between the Draconians and the humans, leaving thousands of mixed breeds disenfranchised.  Prejudice and suspicion mar the joining of Dewi Bradon, half and half, and Lord Lachlan Camdon until they learn to look passed their race and trust in each other.  As they begin to trust, changes ripple through society and expose rampant corruption and crime.

It’s available on Amazon and Smashwords for now.  It will get out to all the other options as time permits.  There is a paperback as well on Createspace.

I kept getting interrupted so only one item published.  I did work on a holiday gift and have it about three quarters done.  I’m pleased with the pattern and how it’s working out but it means I’ll have another pattern to publish.  I might submit it for publication first to see if I can get it in a magazine.

A View from the Recliner

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

It is difficult to be limited in what I can physically do.  However, I’m trying to be productive with my time.  Research and marketing have been top of my list while I’m laid up.

To this end, I spent a chunk of yesterday researching new age bookstores for Moon Affirmations and emailing a number of them to introduce my book.  Whether it will produce any sales only time will tell.  Next for me is to see what a good place to market to for the romance novel and the poetry book.

Great news for Moments in Nature – it is now available on Barnes and Noble.  Also Smashwords has connected with two more channels of distribution.  One of which is to get into libraries which are great users of ebooks.

Aside from book stuff, I’ve been crocheting.  I’m done with baby gifts and am now working on sponges.  I’ve had three requests for sponges so I’m working with my left over crochet cotton to make sponges for these three people.  After the sponges though, I’ll probably go back to working on the afghan I’ve got started.  I have three more afghans to make after this before I start looking at other bigger projects to take on.

While crocheting, I watch tv.  I finished MI5 and have moved on to other things.  I watched a movie about World War II called The Couple.  It was interesting.  Then I watched a PBS series called Heat of the Sun which takes place in the 30s in Kenya.  That was pretty good.  Finally last night I started season 1 of Grimm.  I watched two episodes and it was okay.  It seems a bit darker than I normally like but I’ll watch at least a couple more episodes before I give up on it.

My days seem really short because I’ve been sleeping in.  This is great for my sleep level but tomorrow when I am back at work and can’t sleep in this could be bad.  Hopefully it won’t be a problem.  I’ll be glad to go back to work and catch up.  It will be nice to have a different view than the one from my recliner.

Moon Affirmations is on Amazon!

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing

The paperback of this book is now available on Amazon!  It looks a bit raw as I think they are still working on the page but it is available – see the link below.

Now I need to start working on how to create an audio book because that is the next step for this book.  I want it available in all formats that I think the end user will find helpful.  It is a matter of figuring out how to create an audio book. 

I know that sounds ambitious but I think for this book an audio book will help the reader to perform the meditations.  It will become like a guided meditation rather than having the reader memorize what they are supposed to be meditating on. 

Check out the paper copy here:
http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Affirmations-Daily-Meditations-Energy/dp/1499300069/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399383798&sr=1-2&keywords=moon+affirmations

Technical Difficulties

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing
Every day this week I’ve worked on cleaning up images and getting the document ready for print format.  Unfortunately I’ve had technical difficulties. 
First I had to learn how to change the dpi (dots per inch) of each image.  Fortunately it was fairly simple once I had the right program. 
Second I had to take the new images and clean it up.  Because my images are drawings that have been scanned there was a lot of gray surrounding the lines.  For a digital image that has to be cleaned up as well which I did but when you increase the dpi then more imperfections appear.  In print , the gray surrounding the lines makes the image blurry or fuzzy.  With 45 images for the entire manuscript it is time consuming to pull each one up in Paint and use the eraser to go along each line.  However, every spare moment I’ve had this week I’ve been working on them.
Unfortunately, I’ve had additional technical problems.  I sat in my office chair early in the week and one of the wheels broke off.  Now if it had just fallen off, duct tape would have fixed it but it actually broke.  This meant I didn’t have my comfortable chair.  At first I was using a dining room chair which is okay for short periods of time.  When I spent any amount of time in it though, my back and legs hurt worse than normal.  Ken brought up an old office chair from the basement last night and it is okay but still not as comfortable as my chair. 
This mean after I worked on fourteen pictures last night I couldn’t stand to be in the chair any longer and had to give it up for the recliner.  With the precision work I have to do, I need a desk and solid surface for my mouse to be on.  I’m down to eight pictures with each one taking about an hour or so depending on how complex the picture is. 
Since I had to redo all the images, I made a point of double checking that they were working.  I uploaded a partially finished manuscript to CreateSpace to see if their system liked the new photos.  This gave me a double check that all was well and I just needed to finish the images.  I was thrilled to find that the document had no errors and the images looked amazing.  Plus by doing that I was able to rearrange images so they worked better. 
Images in a digital format have to be in line with the text.  There is no creative placement.  With print I’m able to move them around and place them where I think they look the best rather than where they work digitally.  While it has been a lot of work to change up the images, I feel like it has been a good lesson learned as it has allowed me to produce a better product.
At this stage, all I want to do is work on finishing the images.  Unfortunately, I have a lot to do this weekend.  My todo list is filled with grocery shopping, errands, gift wrapping, food prep and so on.  I’ll still carve out time though.  Barring any more technical difficulties, I’m hoping to have a paper version ready by the end of the weekend.  Fingers crossed and chair situation resolved, I hope to accomplish this.  Then I can look at poetry books next.   
Smashwords:
Amazon:
While you are out shopping, take a look at Secret Past too.  It is available here:
Available on Barnes and Nobles:
Available for sale at:https:
Available on Amazon: