Are you an Author, Musician or Film Maker?
Think getting your products into the hands of consumers is going to be difficult? You think you need a big time Agent to get your manuscript published and printed?
Well actually its not that difficult.
Amazon.com has been providing publishing solutions for a number of years and their CreateSpace website is all you need if you want to see your Book on Thermal Dynamics printed in full color or your music ready for download or distribution on Disk.
The way it works is you produce your work in an acceptable format.
Upload your work to Amazon and select your method of distribution.
After that all you need to do is sit back and Amazon will print off your books and ship them to your customers.
Now there is a little more to do then just that.
You should get an official copyright from the Library of Congress. And as for any work you want to make sure you fact check and go through all the other steps necessary to protect your work and yourself.
If you are producing a book you want to spell check, have your grammar checked and have your work reviewed by some friends for readability and content.
So what can you earn on Amazon?
Price setting is up to you.
Amazon will take a cut based on the cost to produce / distribute the work. After that they will take a cut of your profit based on the price you set minus the cost to produce.
The prices are up front and so are the standards you need to meet to send in your items.
Who can benefit from Self Publishing?
Anyone can… If you are a professional artist and not under contract already then you can publish works on Amazon….
If you are just starting off or if you need to produce a product for a limited audience Amazon is great for that too.
You could write your own Children’s Book or produce some statistical information. You can write your own music or put out your own short film.
The ideas of how to use their distribution system is limitless.
Technical Aspects
Books and covers need to be sent in PDF Format Images must be 300dpi and all Fonts included inside the pdf file. This method of preparing a Printable PDF is called Preflighting. For this reason you may want to use a professional DTP application for final output and many Kinkos or other office centers will rent you time
For more information on publishing your book visit
https://www.createspace.com/Products/Book/
For Publishing your own book watch their Introduction Video it will help answer many questions for new users.
https://www.createspace.com/Special/Help/Videos/BookTour.jsp
For Musicians
You may submit your audio files in either Uncompressed AIFF 44.1KHz 16 bit OR in MP3 – 320KBps constant bit rate formats.
All audio files must be uploaded in a single zip file.
Audio Files should have sequential numbers 01-happysong.mp3 , 02-treesong.mp3
Names can not be longer then 100 characters.
Maximum running time is 74 minutes (700MB)
For more info Visit https://www.createspace.com/Products/CD/
For DVD Video Authors
The recommended method of sending Amazon your DVD movie title is to publish it to a DVD and mail it to them.
You will need to follow all of their recommended information when building your title.
You can then decide to have amazon publish on DVD or distribute it by download.
https://www.createspace.com/Products/DVD/
Final Note
Publishing with Amazon CreateSpace does take a little research and preparation.
You will need to learn a little about how your products get produced that way you can provide the appropriate files and information to Amazon for Publishing.
The money that you make will depend on whether you go for a Pro Plan or not.
If you are a new Author you may want to test the waters with a free account and then upgrade later.
Remember to read all the terms of your contract.
Pay close attention to Distribution Rights that you give to Amazon and when and how you may sever your agreement with them.
So, you thought it would be cool to publish your own ideas and work… well get out there and do it.
