I was going to look at ordering a few copies of my book on createspace the other day, and I discovered I couldn’t log in, furthermore, the “forgot password” never sent me a confirmation/reset email
I tried the email address in my autofill and 3 others I have used and never got the emails.
So I emailed customer support on what is now known as KDP print and someone with an “Indian” sounding last name obviously had no clue, told me she couldn’t find an account with my email address on it, that if someone else published the book for me to have them use their email address, LOL!!!!
After going back and forth over 3 days I decided screw it- and created an account on KDP, then I uploaded my manuscript PDF and it asked for my ISBN, I put the one in FOR my title that Ive used on it all along which I bought from Bowker directly in 2012, the freaking system tells me the number is already assigned to another title!
NO KIDDING!!!! it’s assigned to the very title I’m UPLOADING go figure!!!
Tried several different ways, no go, so I email them again about that and another “Indian” name wrote back telling me that the ISBN is in use for a title already… and that I could use their “free” ISBN or buy one from Bowker, oh GAWD these people are helpless!!!!
So I email them back with some screen shots showing my title and ISBN in my Bowker account and told them to CALL me.
6 hours later, and not 5 minutes after I bought ANOTHER $99 Bowker ISBN just to be done with the damn thing- someone from KDP Print calls me, during the course of the call I said yes, like my email said- I don’t want Amazon selling/marketing and yada yada I only want PRINTING like Ive had done by createspace since 2012, I sell my book myself retail direct, well it turns out they don’t do JUST printing any more, you have to sign up for the whole package with Amazon/Kindle marketing/listing and bla bla bla, so I said “FINE!! forget it, I have no further use for your service” and hung up on her.
Good grief, if I knew createspace was going away I would have bought a bunch more books, now I had to scrounge around and try to find another printer like Createspace where I dont have to order 50 books at a time, that has 7×10 size paperback, and doesnt cost like $75 each like 48hourbooks or some others quoted!
I tried to find an alt to CS 2-3 years ago and every one them cost at least twice what CS charged. my 298 page book that has a LOT of color plates in it ran me about $21 on CS, I think 48hour books quoted me something like $65 each a couple of years ago, that’s why I never switched to another printer.
So I spent some time getting instant quotes and went to Lulu.com again, punched in the criteria and got a quote, some others wanted- $67 each, $56 each, well Lulu had some choices, so I tried variations and discovered the price diff between 60# paper and 80# premium paper was only $3, what was surprising is the “standard color” showed the cost would be $14.77 per book but changing that to “premium color” shot the price up to a whopping $48 each.
I ran into an issue with my cover, it said it was not sized right for the 7×10 book! it was sized fine on Createspace… so I edited the file, had to fix everything due to the change in size, created a new PDF of it and uploaded that and it went through ok then.
So I decided to order ONE copy in the cheaper “standard color” to make sure the interior and color are all correct.
They have a hard cover option that adds about $8 more, hardcover was not an advertised option on Createspace but I heard it had a $100 setup charge.
Still, $48 is more than double what I have been paying, there’s no way I could sell a book for that kind of price, thay have been $35 with postage only because they COST me $21 plus UPS shipping TO me, so I made my cost and a very few bucks for my time.
I’ll have to see how well or badly the “standard color” looks compared to what Createspace did. I upgraded the paper to coated 80# which will help.
