It’s a Printed Book, I Think!

I spent all day yesterday giving my files formatted for printing The Book one more read-through, and I uploaded files last night, and this morning I went through the final approval process for making the book available to order.

This is a print-on-demand book, meaning that Create Space/Amazon prints and ships copies as they are ordered. If somebody orders one book, they print and bind one copy and ship it. I know they’re using new technologies to do this, because this couldn’t have been done cost effectively back when I was doing book production management.

I understand it will take two or three days before the book shows up on Amazon, but it’s my understanding that you can order from Create Space now, through this page. Or not. I expected to get a “congratulations your book is for sale” message and haven’t seen it.

12 thoughts on “It’s a Printed Book, I Think!

  1. GREAT!

    I’ll be ordering later on in the week, when my Temporary Assistance money comes in!

  2. I will include it in my next Amazon order. I tend to save up and order a big crate o’ stuff in one go.

  3. It will be awhile before I can afford the time (and to some degree the money) to buy and read it. I am very interested in the production process, as I have a book inside of me (a narrow audience, software engineering book) that I hope to write next year. Print on demand is a dream come true for authors. I’m definitely taking notes on your journey to get your writing realized.

    • moonbat — This really could shake up the publishing industry, especially since publishers keep cutting back on the editorial/development part of the work, and if you have a “niche” book you end up doing all the marketing yourself anyway. With this process I am not out much money if nobody buys the thing (although that would give me a big sad), and if people do buy it I get a much bigger royalty than the standard industry 15 percent of net. I have an advantage in that I spent years doing book editorial/production work and know how to put a book together; there’s a lot of little details about books you might not notice even if you read a lot. I’ve found the formatting proofing part is a slog, so if you can get help with that, do so.

  4. Yes – this is a really fascinating venture into the world of publishing. Thanks for sharing it, Barbara.

  5. I’ve found the formatting proofing part is a slog..

    If I understand what that means, this is exactly the kind of visual detail I love to iron out. I did a lot of technical documentation in the past – explaining through pictures and words together – and found I enjoyed it, and my users loved it. I am a fan of Edward Tufte and hope I don’t get too perfectionistic about it. I may email you for advice should I get into a jam. I’m envious that you spent so many years in the publishing business and so of course you’d have a huge advantage knowing how books go together.

  6. Congratulations!

    I spent all day yesterday giving my files formatted for printing The Book one more read-through …

    Oh God I did that for my wife’s book. It was eternal. There’s a grim, knowing look on my face as I high-five you.

  7. Congratulations. You would be both a published and purchased author, but the CreateSpace website disagrees with my billing address. I’ll try later this week.

  8. An article on NPR today discussed kids who are avid readers. Turns out they want, keep and display their print books — at least the ones that are meaningful to them. So even though we are all aware of the benefits of digital products, our treasured volumes have not been supplanted among those who really read.

  9. I read Chapter Four. No, it wasn’t too ‘out there’. I was fairly comfortable with the concepts, particularly the tendency to define G-O-D in human terms, which inevitable leads to projecting human character traits. Often times some sick flawed ones, but you were kind enough not to tread there.

    On even days, I believe there is a GOD, but even then, I don’t try to define what that means beyond the premise that GOD is beyond human comprehension and ANY attempt to go further is treading on the path to projection.

    On the subject of reality, I kept thinking of an episode of Star Trek TNG. It’s one with the hollodeck character, Moriarity. The character is sentient but can only exist on the hollodeck and he wants to exist in the real world. The episode is an exploration of reality which leaves you with the question, ‘Are you real?’ – and ‘Are you sure?’ – and the philosophers, ‘Prove it.’ (hint: you can’t.)

    Wonderful stuff, so far. Some people may get thrown by Chapter Four, but I’m not sure that the subjective nature of reality is beyond most people if it’s presented well, and I think you did.

  10. Congratulations!!! It’s a physical book!

    Later in the week I’ll order it from Amazon when I order some other stuff. I’m looking forward to reading it very much.

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