Unlike the mill of the gods, the CreateSpace review process works quite quickly. After submitting the final product on April 4th, 2011 at approximately 9am I waited less than 24 hours to hear the good news: my book is printable! This means that I don’t have any live elements in unprintable areas, and that I haven’t included any media that the selected style of book can’t handle. The next step? Ordering a proof copy!
In the CreateSpace process this proof copy is sent to the author, who must then review and approve it personally before the book can be made available to the public. This is an inexpensive way for the author to receive their first copy: the proof is $4.95, with shipping coming in at a cool $6.99. The only downside to this model is the shipping time; the date today is April 5th, the estimated ship date with regular shipping was April 28th.
Wanting to expedite the process I opted for express shipping (~$20, I think), with the promise of my book arriving in just three days. The great news? Anyone who took part in the NaNoWriMo event in November last year and managed to complete the challenge received a code for a free proof copy. The credit for the shipping and the free proof copy brought my grand total to $15. That’s a steal of a deal for something I’ll be so pleased to see.
In the meantime it’s time to plan some of the marketing efforts for my first book, starting with a Book Trailer™. More on that later!
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