Hilda’s Comments (group member since May 17, 2013)

Hilda’s comments from the CreateSpace, Lulu and Lightning Source authors group.

Has anyone published with Barnes and Noble? I'm already sorted with Amazon but I'd like to extend to other platforms. Not sure how to go about it.

Unless you're American the only option for getting a createspace ISBN is the free one which means that you have to have createspace listed as publisher which immediately brands you as a self-publisher, which may be offputting for some readers/reviewers/critics.
I agree with you about the stress. It's doing my head in.

I've just discovered that the US tax people take tax off any money paid out by Amazon even to non-US people and that we're supposed to fill in some form to prevent this happening. Has anyone done this? Does anyone even know about it?

Robert wrote: "Hilda wrote: "I'm having trouble with formatting my text. I've followed all the instructions and the layout specifications are the same for every page in terms of margins but on many of the pages t..."

I discovered the source of the uneven text length problem. I had widow/orphan control switched on and to get your pages properly squared off this has to be off.

Robert, do you use the Createspace template and what font and size do you use? I thought I had the ms sorted without the template and using Garamond 12 but I think this is too big. I'm trying to change it to Garamond 11 but it just sends the ms all over the place.

I'm having trouble with formatting my text. I've followed all the instructions and the layout specifications are the same for every page in terms of margins but on many of the pages the block of text is one or two lines longer than on the one opposite it. Has anyone else had this problem?

I'm getting very confused by the various options for ISBN offered by createspace. I think I'd prefer to get my own from Nielson. Does anyone know if there are any disadvantages in doing this?

Here is what it says on the CreateSpace website:

Saving your file as a PDF

The final hurdle of achieving the file you were envisioning is saving your document as a PDF. The Resources article Creating a PDF for Print should assist you with saving your document into a PDF.

Still struggling. I've now got to the stage where my Word doc is ready to be converted to pdf. As my version of Adobe is later than 7.0, it seems I need to import CreateSpacePrePress.kfp. I've downloaded the zip file but can't make head or tail of the Pre-Flight Installation and Usage Instructions. It tells me to open Adobe and import it. I can't for the life of me work out how to do this.

I'm not even going to think of adding anything that isn't absolutely necessary!

Thanks ever so much for your kind offer, Robert. I've just - finally, after a day of exasperation - managed to find a set of instructions which have worked. For anyone else who might be running into the same kind of problem, here they are:

In Word 2007:

1. Click at the top of the first page you want numbered.
2. Click the Page Layout tab on the Ribbon.
3. Click the Breaks icon in the Page Setup group.
4. Insert a Next Page type section break.
5. Click on the Insert tab on the Ribbon.
6. Click the Header icon and select Edit Header.
7. Deselect Link To Previous in the Design tab that appeared on the Ribbon.
8. Go back to the Insert tab and repeat Steps 5 to 7 for the Footer.
9. If there's a page number in the header or footer for the first section, delete it.
10. Go into the second section.
11. On the Design tab again, click the Page Number icon
12. Click Format Page Numbers.
13. If you want the first section’s page numbers to count but not show, click Continuous.
14. Or, if you want the page numbering to start at one, click Start At. A 1 should show up in the list box adjacent to it.
15. Click OK.
16. Click OK to actually insert the page number.

That should do it. What you now have is two sections. Both sections have headers and footers, but the page number will appear only in the second section.

Yes, the 'link to previous' tool is what I've been having trouble with. It features in the instructions I was originally working with but I haven't been able to use it as instructed because it's permanently greyed out, on both my computers, no matter what I do. I see from googling that other people have been encountering the same problem but I haven't been able to find any solution.

Robert wrote: "as is usually the case with word, everything is complicated:

First make sure you have inserted a SECTION break after your beginning stuff and before page one.

make sure you are on the page which ..."
Thanks, Robert. I've followed your instructions exactly, done it all about ten times, and am still no further forward. I'm always left either with a document with numbers right from the first title page or, if I try to remove the numbers from the preliminary pages, I end up with none of the pages numbered. I thought it was maybe a glitch in the programme but I'm using two different laptops, with different versions of Word (2007 and 2010) with the same results in both. I'm just about hysterical with frustration and thinking I'm going to have to hand the job over to CreateSpace to do it for me.

Can anyone tell me how to insert page numbers with Word 2007 so that they start on the first page of the text (ie, excluding the book info pages at the beginning)? I've spent all morning trying to follow the instructions and am not getting anywhere.

Thanks, Robert. I found your link yesterday and it's proving very helpful.

Hello, I’m so glad to have found this group. I’ve already had a couple of travel books published via the traditional route but for my novel I’m doing it myself and managed to upload it as a Kindle ebook quite easily. The print edition is proving much more difficult and I’m getting tied in knots with it. So it’s good to know that help is available.