Should you be printing your books with KDP instead of Createspace?
Today’s reblog is an interesting look at what the pros and cons are for authors to create their paperbacks on KDP as opposed to using Createspace. It may be beneficial for some, but as far as mine and Diane Tibert’s opinion goes, for Canadian authors, it’s a lose, lose. Despite the fact that Createspace holds our (Canadian) royalties as hostage until they’ve reached a $100 threshold, it would cost us even more than it already does to order our own books through Amazon with NO discount.
Have a read in more detail about Diane’s article:
The first news I heard about KDP Print was in an email from Amazon on February 15th. Since then, I’ve read articles, blog posts and comments about it and watched the praise given by Amazon for this service dwindle quickly.
In the email, Amazon announced they were making print book publishing easier for writers. They stated, “KDP prints your book on demand and subtracts your printing costs from your royalties, so you don’t have to pay any costs upfront or carry any inventory.”
That’s what CreateSpace does. Sort of. I believe CreateSpace takes the cost of the printing of the book from the sale price, then takes a cut of the royalties. Until I see the numbers and do the math, I am unsure which service will offer a better financial deal for authors.
The message also stated, “It also enables you to receive consolidated royalty payments for paperback and eBook sales. You can view combined reports and manage your print and eBook publishing from one website.”
Except, I’m okay with visiting two sites to get my sales reports. In fact, I prefer CreateSpace’s sales report much more than I do Kindle’s. Kindle’s is not straightforward and too clunky to find answers quickly.
Amazon claims the benefits of using KDP Print over CreateSpace are:
- Reach paperback readers through Amazon websites in the US, Europe (amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.fr, amazon.es, amazon.it) and Japan (amazon.co.jp).
- Earn up to 60% royalties on the list price you set, minus printing costs.
- You get to use Amazon’s catalog system. CreateSpace’s catalog used the BISAC system. With the new KDP Paperback features, you can use the same categories you picked for your eBook, plus you get keywords!
- Distribution to Japan.
My Assessment of These Benefits
- My paperbacks through CreateSpace already reach these markets and more. Did you notice one important country missing from the list? CANADA! In other words, I cannot order a copy of my own book, and neither can my friends, my neighbours or anyone else . . . Continue Reading
Source: Amazon’s New KDP Print Feature is Bad News for CreateSpace Users – Diane Tibert
DGKayewriter.com 
Thanks for the info Debbie, I am hopping on…to read more 🙂 love and hugs.
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Most welcome Balroop. Thank you for reading. 🙂 ❤
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I’m so glad you published this review, Deb. I only publish my fiction to Kindle right now and have been tempted by the Print Book option. I get all my non-fiction books printed for about $5 each (varies depending upon length), but I do have to order 100, and then store them. Not too bad, but not print on demand.
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Thanks for sharing this Jacqui. You’re American so it would be quite feasible for you to create your paperbacks on Createspace. The cost per book is somewhere between 2-$3 per book plus shipping isn’t so bad for Americans. I have a friend who orders 20 of her books at a time for something cheap like $10 shipping. For Canadians it’s brutal. First off the price is in U.S. dollars, then the shipping is killer. At the end of the day to order one of my books ends up costing me almost $14 Canadian at the end of the process. 😦
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Yikes! I had no idea it was so cheap for me–so expensive for you. I may have to rethink all of this.
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Just sayin’ 🙂
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Sounds like another way to make a fast buck.. with none of it going to the authors.
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You got it Sal! 😦 ❤
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So discouraging as a Canadian author 😦 Thanks for providing us with all of the information via Diane’s well-written post, Debby. CreateSpace is what I’ll stick with for my next book, for sure!
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Yes Christy, as expensive as it is for us Canadians, it’s the lesser of the evils because if you print on KDP, you get NO author discount when ordering your own books!
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Thanks for sharing, Debby. I really like Createspace, so I hadn’t considered the kindle conversion option. Good to know more about it, though. Heading over to Diane’s to read the rest. 🙂
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Welcome Diana. It seems many author don’t prefer leaving CS for paperback because once you download paperbacks on KDP you’d have to order your own copies from Amazon instead of CS with NO author discount!
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Hopefully, if we all stay with CS, Amazon won’t get rid of it! That was the scariest part of Diane’s analysis.
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Yes! Or maybe they will perfect the KDP system because when they opened up for POD, it was (and I believe still is) in beta. 🙂
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Maybe. I tend to do some fancier formatting with my print books, so I still don’t know if I’d want to do a straight conversion.
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Decisions, decisions, lol. 🙂
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I was planning to stay with Createspace but always good to read options. I’ve often thought about Canada being left out of this industry. What is with that? I have a wonderful review an Amazon.ca that no one in any other part of the world will see. What’s that about?
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The problem with Createspace for Canadians is, we don’t get paid for our paperbacks until we reach $100 threshold in sales. If we load to KDP, nobody (including all countries) gets a break in author’s discount on ordering our own books. But for Canadians we have a hefty exchange rate plus hefty shipping charges. And yes, reviews. When reviews are left on .ca they aren’t shared to .com. You have to be lucky enough to know the reviewer to request that they kindly copy and paste their review on .ca to .com. You’d think these things would be automatic with Amazon. 😦
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You’d think a lot of things would be automatic with Amazon but it’s not the case. That place honestly confuses the hell out of me. And they’re constantly changing what they’re confusing me about. ?
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Now that’s a fact! They are always changing things. We get our best information from one another through informative blog posts. I see or hear, I report, lol 🙂
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Thanks, Debby. My thoughts precisely. Although, to be honest, print has never been great for me (I’ve bought more of my own books on paper than anybody else has). Well, at the moment I’m not selling anything on Amazon even in e-book format so I’m wondering if it’s worth the bother at all.
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Many authors feel they don’t sell nearly the amount of paperbacks than ebooks. For those reasons, that’s why POD is great for purchasing minimal amount of books, one at a time if we like. For those purposes, I’d stick to Createspace. 🙂
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Thanks for sharing Debbie. Very helpful.
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Glad to help Adam. 🙂
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Personally, I believe Amazon are phasing out CreateSpace. I can no longer MP3’s through them. Now they are doing away with videos as well… Books are all they have left. ?
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Wow Kev, thanks for sharing that disconcerting news 😦 Well I hope they keep books because until they perfect KDP, it’s unjust that when authors download their books there instead of CS they get NO author discount when ordering their own books. It’s awful!
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I agree. ☹
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The biggest drawback for me would not being able to order copies at wholesale prices. That also would be the deciding factor ?
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Yes Tina, as you WELL found out this unpleasant surprise already. ❤ xo
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Haha! Do you believe I forgot about that already? Selective memory is alive and well ~ not only in this ole brain, but also in a certain politician’s whom we love to disparage 🙂 ?
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Lol, what are friends for? I was certainly thinking about your experience when I wrote this. 🙂 ❤
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What DID you Canadians do to deserve the treatment you get from Amazon??? It makes no sense whatsoever.
And I’m happy sticking with Createspace for my paperbacks, all the time it exists. I can surely see a time though, when Amazon decides it’s no longer necessary…
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Lol Deb, seriously, Canadians get the shaft. And I should hope by the time they try to phase out CS they better be offering author discounts for their own books. 🙂
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I’m not holding my breath…?
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😦 I hear you.
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A recent change has been made by Amazon when working with CreateSpace. Now when your book description is passed to Amazon from CreateSpace, Amazon ignores all carriage returns embedded in the text file. Although CreateSpace says “Plain Text is the preferrred format for your description”, that is no longer true, unless your description is a single paragraph. If it is a multiple line paragraph, Amazon will turn it into one paragraph.
This is true for CreateSpace PODs (paperbacks) that have been on Amazon for years and the Carriage Returns had always worked as planned. Better check them out. All your pargraph breaks are now gone. The Kindle book description is still good, just the CreateSpace POD on Amazon is messed up.
This is an Amazon change, not a CreateSpace change. Your carriage returns are all still OK on Barnes & Noble – so neither CS of Ingram are eliminating the Carriage Returns.
You will now need to go back to your CreateSpace description and add HTML tags to your description so it appears correctly on Amazon. Making this change will not affect your text on Ingram or Baker & Taylor. They also accept the HTML tags.
This is a sneaky little change. How many authors check both their EBook and paperback presentation on Amazon on a regular basis? If you check your book, Amazon defaults to the EBook version.
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Thank you so much for sharing this!!! 🙂
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