CreateSpace – Designing Your Own Cover

CreateSpace – Designing Your Own Cover

Authors, Books
In a previous post about publishing through CreateSpace, I mentioned how easy it is to design a cover using their Cover Creator tool. The only problem that I have found is when you have a full-sized cover already designed, perhaps for an Ebook, and that has the book name and author name already blended in. You can hide many elements using their tool, but I could not find a template that would let me hide the title. The next option was their cover template which gives you a pre-formatted template based on the number of pages in your document. The problem with using that is, because I am not a graphic designer, I do not have the proper tools to edit a PDF. That took this tool out of the…
Read More
Ebook Authors, Can You Publish Using CreateSpace?

Ebook Authors, Can You Publish Using CreateSpace?

Authors, Books
Many of us avoid the Publish On Demand option because of two main reasons – cost and effort involved. I can now speak to both of those, from my own experience. First, I had believed that there were setup costs and others to distribute your book through CreateSpace. It turns out that I was wrong about that. I reformatted an Ebook using their Word template and submitted it to their “Interior Reviewer.” The review process produced a single issue – the graphics that I had formatted for Ebook distribution were lower than the quality required. So far, no cost other than my time. My next worry was the cover design. They require a front and rear cover connected to the spine. I am adventurous enough to investigate the size needed…
Read More
Writing Your Own Book

Writing Your Own Book

Authors, Books
My name is Stephen Link and I am the author of "Unleash the Power of Outlook" published by Holy Macro Books. As the title indicates, this is a user guide for Microsoft Outlook . This article details the events surrounding the offer to author my own book and the adventures of bringing the project to completion. How did an offer to write a book materialize? I was heavily involved in a help site called Experts Exchange and one of the areas where plenty of time was spent helping others was in the Outlook section. The author of another book (same publisher) titled "Dreamboat ON WORD," editor of my book, was also involved in the Outlook area. In 2003 I was contacted about writing a book. After investigating and verifying the…
Read More
Have You Ever Considered Your Own Udemy Class Offering?

Have You Ever Considered Your Own Udemy Class Offering?

Authors, Promotional, Technology
It takes quite a bit of effort, but you can do it. The extra income can be a major benefit. Yes, putting yourself "out there" for potential criticism can be a daunting proposal. It will also involve a huge amount of work to create an effective Udemy class, or on any of the other available online training providers, for that matter. As an author, with 13 books published and an upcoming Udemy class, I have become quite accustomed to putting myself out for the world to criticize and appreciate. The best part about this process is that it has been done with minimal financial investment. That is, of course, until we start considering the value of the time invested. My latest book took 15 months of part-time work on the…
Read More