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Surprisingly enough, Google Play Books got back to me! So I uploaded the book, as ePub and PDF. This means that - when approved - it'll show up in Google Books, and I can sell it. Hiccups so far: 1. It says "Pricing information is incomplete", which it isn't, but apparently this error message comes up when your payment isn't fully set up. (my bank account hasn't been verified yet.) 2. No W-8BEN or equivalent, quite. There's an automated tax questionnaire that doesn't seem to be the W-8BEN. For problem 1, it says to wait 24 hours, and if it's still broken contact them. So we'll see ... Anyone else got the ping back from Google? also: sales now over 4000, particularly with the stupid Bitcoin price bubble before Christmas. I got onto BBC News at Ten and all. 
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Dec 28, 2017 16:38
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Bushmaori posted:2: What is the deal with websites which already claim to be giving away my work for free? Obviously, the majority of these such as: http://robbvill.info/ebook/76062-Th...orld-Prima.html are scams. It's simple to understand this by the comments and descriptions, which look auto-generated. Are there any out there that are legitimate, though? I would like to get ahead of these if possible to prevent them from being released in places without my permission. They're worse than pirates - they're fake pirates. Really, the whole scam is they promise to offer ebooks, but really want people to fill in their surveys, get malwared, etc. Sometimes they have the goods, for some value of. One had my book as a PDF ... made from JPEGs ... of page scans .... of the epub.  I put my book up on libgen myself, 'cos if you're gonna be pirated be pirated by the best. It finally made it to the torrent sites a week ago, and I;m actually surprised it took that long.
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Dec 29, 2017 15:48
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This is awesome, and well done!freebooter posted:Covers set me back $80 each, so that's $320. I'm a subeditor in my day job, so I don't pay anyone to edit them. Covers, hell yes. If you are not literally a graphic designer, PAY SOMEONE. Editing ... I too have long been an editor, and what I did was post literally my whole book to my facebook in chunks. This was non-fiction, so what I was after was "what doesn't make sense", and my querulous nerd friends totally delivered on the querulousness I was after. This was the best idea I ever had in the writing of the book. Probably wouldn't work as well for fiction. But I would strongly recommend a second set of eyes. But HOLY poo poo GO YOU. me, I just got in New York Review of Books  ps: HOLY poo poo
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Jan 2, 2018 01:05
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freebooter posted:Not as glowing a review but a measure of how wide it's travelling - I've seen people in my mostly-Australian Twitter feed posting screencaps of your book in the past week. \o/ Oh! I successfully got through everything with Google Play Books, and the PDF has sold a few copies. A surprising number of people seem to want PDFs, but nobody else sells them ... If you're an unAmerican trying to fill in US tax information on Google Play Books, you get to the W-8BEN by selecting that you are a "Corporation" in the first screen. Then you have our dear old annoying friend, you can put in your UK national insurance number or whatever.
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Jan 2, 2018 12:16
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First week of Google Play Books: quite good for not-Amazon. 23 PDFs sold, 2 ePubs. I link the PDF on my book page. This suggests to me there's pent-up demand for PDF ebooks, because frickin none of the usual stores offer PDFs. Now I'm wishing I'd started selling a PDF myself when I laid it out in August. So if you're not doing Amazon exclusivity, I suggest selling your nicely laid-out PDF as an ebook yourself, if you can't get onto Google. What's a good way to sell this stuff yourself? Someone said Shopify, I've never used them. (I probably won't bother myself, but someone here musta tried selling books piecemeal.)
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Jan 7, 2018 23:19
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feedmyleg posted:Gotcha, makes sense. I'd heard some folks talk about getting dinged for larger file sizes, so I was thinking 30+ illustrations might not be great for the standard version of the book. Everyone not-Kindle doesn't penalise for file size, fwiw, unless it's actually outlandish. (I have illustrations in the ePub that aren't in the Kindle version, for instance.)
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Jan 10, 2018 02:18
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Trustworthy posted:Plenty of publishers put out fantasy, agents take on new fantasy authors, etc. IMO you just have to be very very very awesome+persistent+lucky to get noticed. yeah, in general that's the situation across all artistic endeavours. In 2018, self-publishing with 0 capital outlay is easy. Both the means of production and the means of distribution are within the reach of everyone with a computer. Same applies to music and video, you're likely to have adequate means of production just on hand and you can put a record out on Bandcamp/Distrokid and a video on YouTube/Vimeo. But the downside is: you are now in direct, face-to-face competition with every other creator in the whole world. And with every creator in history, to boot. So the hard part is entirely the promotion. Getting yourself noticed.
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Jan 14, 2018 16:09
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32-minute podcast interview with me, where I bloviate about what a great book I wrote, how I sold lots of copies - encouraging my FB friends list, Reddit /r/buttcoin and the bitcoin thread over on YOSPOS to be my street team, but mostly sheer luck and timing - and some production process. BTW, I realised why I've had such a hard time getting journalists to bite: "self published in economics" is a phrase meaning "batshit insane and printed in green ink". I didn't know this until I started getting this stuff in my email. No, a monetary system based on warthog nail clippings is unlikely to work well.
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Jan 21, 2018 21:47
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Ktb posted:Saw you quoted in a top 10 most read BBC news article today too. Good work! really, punditry is my lifeblood lately. Rory C-J contacted me, I read and decoded the white paper and precised it for him, then we had to work out what my quote would be. Target audience: ordinary football fans, subclass those who like a bet every now and then. How will they feel when they can't get winnings out? Very annoyed. hence use of words "actual pounds". actual sales are ticking along, 19 today. THIS IS AWESOME! but not remarkable ...
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Jan 25, 2018 03:01
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Kindle's print versions will now do proof copies and wholesale author copies - from Europe if you live in Europe! (so of course I bit the bullet and ordered a box of author copies from CreateSpace in the US yesterday ...) Hopefully as the process of dismantling CreateSpace continues, they'll port over the cover template generator ...
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Feb 2, 2018 21:48
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Icon-Cat posted:Another one of my little stories is out today and free through Sunday. Hope y'all enjoy. reviewed on .co.uk and .com - this is lovely! Anyone spending 99p on this will feel they got value for money :-)
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Feb 20, 2018 01:35
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New dimensions in self-publishing: Using CreateSpace for money laundering
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Mar 5, 2018 15:18
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freebooter posted:For those of you who publish on Createspace (or any print version really) how do the sales compare to ebooks? Is it worth doing? I've been doing this for more than a year now and am making enough money that I feel like I should try to be taking the marketing/business side more seriously, and it occurred to me that the only reason I never bothered with print versions was because I doubted anyone would buy them. But obviously lots of people do. yeah, I nearly didn't bother with a paperback 'cos I just don't read paper books any more. But lots of people wanted one, so I thought "this'll be a nice souvenir". It's about a quarter of my sales. Also, I get people who got the ebook but also buy a paper one. (Also, I sold a buttload of copies in December to current readers, so they could give copies to relatives to warn them about Bitcoin :-D ) mine's nonfiction and actually it appeals to people who have money. So YMMV. Fiction author friends report varying percentages of paperback sales, from 10% to 50%. Every book is gonna be different. so: totally do a paperback! And pay an artist to do a good and well designed cover! I also bought a box of 20 copies and am selling these as signed by the author. This is just a tiny bit on top, but it delights me every time. Signing books for people makes you feel like some sorta real author. Kindle Print does proof copies now, and if you're in the UK they actually frickin print here. However, they cover different countries to CreateSpace, because expecting Amazon to have its poo poo together lol. So I haven't moved the books over. If I could do it through both I totally would.
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Mar 22, 2018 09:55
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freebooter posted:Ta - although I know you're the Attack of the 50 foot Blockchain guy so I know you're a very successful outlier! the covers are slightly different (colour and proportions) - here's ebook and paperback. The physical object is greener than this looks on the screen, because four-colour printing is a demonic den of lies and iniquity:   Kindle Print is Createspace with a concussion - it's much the same but Createspace's tools are better, e.g. the cover template. Basically I think they want to replace CS with KP, but KP's still a bit rubbish. I'd push out print ASAP. Just keep the covers consistent :-) And really, make your print version look as good and professional as you can. A beautiful object people will be delighted to hold.
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Mar 22, 2018 16:57
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Popular Human posted:I know we’re not supposed to be too specific about the forbidden genre on here, but does anybody have any insight as to why Amazon just removed the sales ranks from everything in the Erotica category? I’m still getting sales, but this has got to crater the market if it continues, right? SESTA paranoia. It really is as utterly awful and disastrous a law as it was painted.
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Mar 23, 2018 14:03
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fwiw, my good friend Andrew Hickey just swore off Kindle Unlimited after his novel The Basilisk Murders made a grand total of four dollars in six months. No more exclusivity! https://twitter.com/HickeyWriter/status/986312532158832641
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Apr 17, 2018 21:03
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KrunkMcGrunk posted:I feel for your friend, but what has been said about his cover and blurb are 100% right. Also he's six months out from releasing what appears to be the first book in a series, and has yet to produce a sequel. Of course his KU numbers will be really bad. He insists the cover is right for the genre - I didn't believe it either, but looking at others in "cosy mystery" I can almost believe it - and it did sell actual copies on Kindle - just KU was terrible. The sequel also came out and did reasonably well. Basically he puts out something every two or three months and has a long back catalogue.
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Apr 18, 2018 19:52
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Question: Has anyone who's previously used CreateSpace tried the current iteration of Kindle Print? I'm assuming the actual books are the same (and actually printed by Ingram, lol) - but what's everything else like? Interacting with the system, countries it's available in, how much money you get, etc?
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May 8, 2018 20:36
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Blorknorg posted:The problem is there just isn't any 'plus' to KDP. You lose the extra distribution options, your book is available in fewer regions, and you have no option to buy cheap copies or even get a proof copy to make sure the end product isn't hosed. Just because it's inevitable doesn't mean it's worth embracing. I believe they now do proof copies and cheap copies. Pretty sure the rest is still the case though.
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May 14, 2018 00:14
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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:I set all my books free for Prime Day tomorrow. It took forever, I wish they would have a better way than having to do each one individually. I've just been posting the Smashwords and Book Depository links. (The paperback is Createspace so it's Amazon anyway, but ...)
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Jul 15, 2018 23:30
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moana posted:The worst I can think is that you'll lose all of the reviews associated with the previous version. The best is that you might get a big old bump in rank if Amazon sees it as a "new" book instead of updating an old book. this is mostly a case of asking customer service to merge them, isn't it? oh, while I'm here! A QUESTION: Does anywhere do usable print-on-demand in full colour? Doesn't have to be awesome, just not rubbish. Use case: a friend's large colourful coffee table book that had a good old 3500 print run that sold out (yay!) and she'd like to see about POD, 'cos the publisher doesn't think there's really demand for another full print run. Trouble is, I hear lots bad about colour POD. Four-colour printing is lies and deception in general, so I'm unsurprised. I have heard that CreateSpace - so presumably IngramSpark, who do most of their actual printing - are fine with B+W (I'm certainly delighted) but not so gret akshully with colour. Is there any POD that is actually good with colour? She'd like to release the book at all POD, without having boxes of goddamn books filling her house.
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Aug 13, 2018 23:32
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Icon-Cat posted:As the kids say, Lord help me, I'm back on my bullshit: here's another free story. This… this one's an odd one. FREE through Sunday August 26! There you go, a nice review on amazon.co.uk for you. Logrolling, it's what writers live on!
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Sep 2, 2018 22:00
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Chokes McGee posted:Do we do reading exchanges around here? Is that a thing? I desperately need someone to read a chapter or two of my prototypical sequel and tell me if I've actually got something or let me down gently if it's hopeless. ehh, put it somewhere and I guess we can read it?
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Sep 3, 2018 23:16
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, 
, or 
. Willing to do the same in exchange. Also if there's already a thread for this, I'll edit out and take it there. I just need some amount of feedback that someone's going to give a poo poo about this and I'm not howling into the formless void.
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BBQ Dave posted:Ok! Look out world 72 hours.... publishing my first ebook. gi's amazon link when it's up, and your keywords to search on - Amazon notices that poo poo
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Sep 6, 2018 08:05
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BBQ Dave posted:
feels good doesn't it edit: and three reviews!
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Sep 7, 2018 06:58
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Bardeh posted:Sorry if this comes across as me making GBS threads on your book, because I'm absolutely not - I think your book looks awesome. But little mistakes like these at the start of the book can be enough for pickier people to not take a chance on a self-published novel. it's nice that you can do stealth-edit typo updates much more easily with ebooks ;-) (also generally a good idea - Kindle readers do report this stuff as defects, and you get an "alert!" sign on your book page)
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Sep 7, 2018 11:18
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press f to pay respectsquote:We’re excited to announce that CreateSpace (CSP) and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) will become one service. As a reminder, KDP now offers Expanded Distribution to sell your paperbacks to physical bookstores in the US, as well as the ability to sell your paperback books on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com.au (Amazon.mx coming soon). With these features, KDP’s paperback distribution will be on par with CreateSpace’s distribution. KDP also offers features that aren’t available on CreateSpace. These include the ability to purchase ads to promote paperbacks on Amazon.com and locally printed author copies in Europe. yes but what about the money: quote:There are a few payment and printing fee differences associated with the move. Any royalties earned while your books are on CreateSpace will be paid according the CreateSpace's payment schedule, 30 days after the end of the month in which they were earned. After you move your books to KDP, new royalties earned will be paid on KDP's payment schedule. KDP pays royalties on a monthly basis 60 days after the end of the month in which they were earned. As a result, you’ll be paid in October for any royalties earned in September on CreateSpace and be paid in November for any royalties earned on KDP. In addition, some low-page count books will see an increase in printing fees when they are printed in the UK and EU. We've already sent an email to the small number of accounts affected by this change. Learn more about KDP’s printing costs here. so the move doesn't presently appear to be mandatory, buuut.
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Sep 26, 2018 10:32
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n8r posted:Createspace was some ancient tech - probably good it's gone away. We do a shocking amount of our business through createspace/kdp. not really, KDP is still Createspace with a concussion. I bet they're gonna kill the CS forums and the extensive help pages and layout template generators and so forth, even though they're vastly superior to the KDP versions.
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Oct 17, 2018 11:27
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Satire Forum Mom posted:If this is the right thread for posting about stuff you self-published, I recently put out a short story collection called Nein Stories. It's just a bunch of loose short pieces that I wrote that didn't fit anywhere else, so I thought I'd put them together and put it out into the world. I'd love to hear any thoughts or criticisms! GOOD COVER! Winner! Intro gets a bit "yes yes get on with it." I'd have cut the first two paras and slimmed the third. The fourth gets into a style that speaks to me - I giggled at "He looked like an extra in a Sonic Youth music video, which at the time I thought was incredibly cool, and honestly, still do." Fifth, cut "I guess the point of this anecdote is that" but the rest is good. Loved "Our alien owners have left us PS4’s, indie rock albums, and fidget spinners for our amusement." Love the Eiffel Tower story. I'll read the rest. Is it up on Amazon, the place where anyone pays for stuff?
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Nov 9, 2018 00:02
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Satire Forum Mom posted:Thank you! It's not on Amazon - I self-published something on Amazon before, and just didn't like the process, so I figured I'd cut them out and just put up a PDF. I realize this means I have no practical way of making a profit, but I mostly just wanted to get people to read this rather than try to make money. I'd do an epub too, for phone friendliness. (Nothing like spending frickin ages in Calibre fiddling with its docx to epub conversion.)
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Nov 9, 2018 08:06
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freebooter posted:The way they calculate it is apparently a secret, but the KENPC count that you can check under "promote and advertise" is accurate as far as cents earned per page goes. (Or fractions of a cent, rather). What's the current number like?
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Dec 8, 2018 00:53
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freebooter posted:About $0.004 last I checked. Not sure what it used to be. When I first started doing this the KU income was easily 4/5ths of the money I was making (and I was making a lot more overall back then, too). It's still the majority of what I earn, but probably only just. like, as a reader I actually use my KU lots and lots, dredging the bottom of the Kindle barrel, and when I get something good I do make a point of paging through the whole thing a coupla times. So at least now I know how many pennies the author is getting.
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Dec 9, 2018 00:34
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Translations! A fan translated my book into French. Nice of them! Native French speakers tell me the translation is OK, and even preserves my marvellous wit. So if we now sell this thing - what's a reasonable sort of rate for my esteemed translator?
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Jan 2, 2019 14:28
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n8r posted:You could also check Ingram Spark maybe? I'm really just familiar with those two options, I'm sure there are lots of short run printers available via google, but I'd be surprised if any of them can touch KDP's pricing. Amazon actually use Ingram Spark for some of their printing I think. The problem with going direct to Ingram Spark last time I looked was that you had to print 50 copies or get charged a bundle for setup costs.
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Jan 27, 2019 20:17
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FreshFeesh posted:I just put the finishing touches on my first novella’s rough draft (~40,000 words). What’s the best way to go about finding an editor for this kind of project? I know some people in publishing but they’re more on the 80-90k, wide-release kind of scale. I’m not expecting this book to make any money. I tend to furiously hit up my friends as beta readers. Google Docs is AWESOME for copy-editing. Enable comments. Possibly a different gdoc for each person? or just link it on your facebook and let yr friends run rampant
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Feb 5, 2019 11:20
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press F to pay "fuckin gently caress"Amazon posted:In late August we announced that CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) would become one service and all CreateSpace books would be moved to KDP. here's that faq, which doesn't contain anything interesting that I could spot at a 5 second glance. The bit you care about : you will miss a month of paperback royalties as you get shifted from Createspace's schedule to Kindle's. Welcome to monopsony, and enjoy your single customer!
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Feb 28, 2019 21:38
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gerg_861 posted:I'll also add that I just got the proof copy of my paperback version today from Amazon. I've used CreateSpace on the last two, and I feel like their Proof quality was much better than the KDP one that I received today. Also, it had a very ugly gray band saying "not for sale" on the front, which made it hard to evaluate the quality of the cover printing. From what I could see, the colors seemed muted. Inside the trim wasn't consistent on the pages. Not thrilled. As I understand it, it's literally the same printers that CreateSpace used, but is also what I've heard about CreateSpace quality on its worst days, so ... The trouble with four-colour printing is that it's goddamned lies by evil demons, and is never consistent. (This is why one uses a graphic designer who knows the evil that lurks within the heart of four-colour printing and will pick a schema that at least comes out usable in worst case.)
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Apr 27, 2019 22:59
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feedmyleg posted:I think it's a great cover that tells you exactly what you're getting into. However, if you're looking for feedback outside of that, 9 times out of 10 this thing is going to be seen as a thumbnail, and as a thumbnail everything gets mushed together to the point where it's difficult to understand what you're looking at. yeah, text is just the word "VAMPIRE" and some unreadable small print which may work actually tho maybe bold your name if you keep it at that stage
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Jun 21, 2019 13:47
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seconded. unless you are literally a graphic designer ... find an artist friend you trust, and pay them.
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Jul 24, 2019 15:47
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feedmyleg posted:Hm. I've designed books for print before, just never an ebook. I assume that I won't be able to just brush off my languishing InDesign skills for this. i mean, you need a cover that will look good at 160x100 and at 3200x2000 and maybe you'll need to tone the colours down from RGB to mere CMYK and allow for createspace's Satanic ideas on how to print colours, wherein my own book has been various shades from blue to green for the same original image
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Jul 25, 2019 00:47
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