Self-publishing via Word and Createspace – overview
This is the first in a series of how-to posts that will help you publish a print version of your book…without making all the mistakes I made with Innerscape. The posts will focus on Word 10 and Amazon’s Createspace. The information is accurate as at April, 2017.
Right, first and foremost – what is Createspace?
Createspace is the print book arm of Amazon’s self-publishing toolset. Createspace allows you to publish a trade paperback version of your manuscript which will be produced on a ‘Print On Demand’ basis [POD]. POD is a fast way of printing small to very small print runs of books.
How small? Try just one.
Essentially, when a customer buys a POD book, they are placing an order for a book that does not yet exist in physical form. Once the order is placed, the book takes 1-3 days to produce, and then it’s posted out to the customer just the same as a book printed in the ordinary way.
PROS
Amazon will place your book for sale just like any other book – i.e. it will have the same visibility, or lack thereof, as any other book.
Self-publishers can have the pleasure of holding a physical copy of their own work.
Readers who do not like ebooks can find and buy your work in a physical format.
POD costs nothing up front, and printing charges* are subtracted from the sale price of the book – no sale, no charge.
POD books do not have to be warehoused.
CONS
Because POD books lack efficiencies of scale, they are not cheap*.
Because POD books come from Indies [and may or may not be returnable], bookshops generally do not accept them.
Most Indies sell far more ebooks than POD versions, but that may simply be a function of price [see above]
Preparing your manuscript for printing via Createspace requires a fair bit of work, or at least I found it to be so.
This is a cutesy video that walks you through the sales and royalties side of the process:
*Before you can calculate your royalties, however, you have to set a price that will not only cover your print charges, but will also bring in a small profit…to you. Working out the print charges, however, is a little bit like finding the end of a tangle of string.
Print charges depend on the total page number, BUT >>
the page number will change depending on the trim size of your book – i.e. how big or small it is, BUT >>
Word documents are in A4, not in standard trim sizes, so a 200 page Word document could be up to 400 pages, depending on the trim size.
Trim size
I admit, I struggled with this. Trim size refers to the actual physical dimensions of the book you end up with after the printing process is finished. But what are these sizes? And how do they relate to my Word document?
After much floundering I found this table of trim sizes:
[image error]
This information is from the Createspace website and the sizes shown in bold are the standard ones. Without going into too much detail, ordinary printers can print any sized book you can imagine, but POD printers like Createspace can only print the standard sizes. So, go standard. 
