Well, I finally managed to jump through the multiple hoops in the Createspace formatting process and produce this,
Whilst it feels great to hold the book, I'm left feeling frustrated by the whole process. Admittedly, some of the issues were caused by my own ignorance, but others weren't.
Cover formatting was by far the biggest challenge for me. Since I have no experience of working with manipulation software, I'm not embarrassed to say, I struggled to format the cover to fit inside the correct template. As I said, it's probably down to ignorance than anything else but it wasn't the easy task I'd expected after reading the guides.
The second issue I had was the text itself.
You download the formatted template for the size of book you choose directly from Createspace and simply insert your book onto it.
Sounds easy and I thought it was, until I got the proof back.
For some reason, even after viewing the book in their digital proofing programme and finding no problems, the physical book arrived with all sorts of issues.
I still don't understand why some of those issues arose because I changed nothing. By the time I received the third proof I was on the verge of accepting the book when I noticed something else had changed between proof two and three. Fortunately it was a simple issue.
Whether it was because I've inserted the original art work for each individual book which caused formatting problems, I don't know, but my document had them in from the first upload so I doubt it.
I'm glad they're in though because I think they add to the book and also give those who bought the collection the opportunity to see the original covers.
All in all it was quite an expensive task. Ordering the proofs is not cheap if you want them to arrive in a timely fashion, and not wait over six weeks!
Would I do another one?
Probably because having my hands on the book felt pretty damn good!
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