Self-publishing at Amazon.com

[spaze]

Hello,

Anybody have experienced self-publishing through Amazon's CreateSpace? Is it really as simple as they let you know on their website? "Just sign-up, create content and start selling" sound really easy.

[mr ploppy]

Preferably from a non-American point of view.

[spaze]

Well, I went and registered and all options I had were paperback, CD/DVD or Audio book. No option for eBook.

Any idea why? Is this another "You have to have US residency" thing again?

[mr ploppy]

Createspace is for real books, not ebooks. If you just want to publish ebooks on Amazon you're in the wrong place.

[DMSmillie]

As mr ploppy says, Createspace is for paper books, spaze. If you want to publish ebooks with Amazon, you need to use their Kindle Direct Publishing website : http://kdp.amazon.com. The Community Forums there contain a wealth of info on publishing via KDP.

If you still want info on publishing print books with CreateSpace, just say - I've put a few books through CreateSpace on behalf of the authors of said books.

Both CreateSpace and KDP are pretty straightforward to use. Just take some time to read through the knowledge base info and FAQs for each website, so you have an idea of what the options are before you dive in.

The biggest issue for non-US authors self-publishing with US companies like Amazon is the income tax thing. US tax law requires companies like Amazon, Smashwords, etc, to retain 30% of the money they would otherwise pay out to you, and hand it over to the US Inland Revenue "on your behalf" as income tax. God knows why. But it's not something these companies have any direct control over - US law says they have to do that.

Most countries have tax treaties in place to provide exemption (whole or partial) from such "pre-emptive" taxation. The process of claiming that exemption is a bit tricky, but do-able. First, you have to obtain an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) from the US IRS. Once you have that, there's an IRS form you have to fill in (form W8-BEN), with your ITIN, and send to the company that is withholding money, to claim exemption from tax withholding. After that, they will pay you the full amount. There are two routes to obtaining the ITIN:

1. Wait for a year or so and then submit a US tax return (you can do that even if you've never stepped foot in the US) to obtain a refund of the taxes paid (since you'll be declaring the income and paying income tax on it in your own country). Once that has been processed, you'll be issued with an ITIN which you can then use on the W8-BEN form to claim tax treaty exemption from tax withholding.

2. The other route is to submit form W7 to the IRS to request an ITIN on the grounds of wanting to claim treaty exemption from tax withholding, along with an officially notarized copy of your passport (or the original, but if you have to post the stuff to the IRS, sending your actual passport probably isn't a good idea) plus a letter from the company withholding the tax confirming that they are doing so, and that you're not simply an employee of that company. Now... that letter is a problem for those publishing via Amazon's KDP website, because Amazon, for reasons best known to them, refuse to provide such a letter. They suggest that providing the IRS with details of your publishing activity with Amazon is perfectly adequate. Needlessly to say, the IRS don't agree, and won't issue the ITIN without the required letter. Last I heard, however, both CreateSpace and Smashwords are able to provide the required letter without any problem if you are publishing with them, so unless you're only publishing for Kindle via KDP, those are viable alternatives for getting that ITIN. Assuming you're able to get the required documentation together, you post it to the IRS, and a few weeks later, they send you your ITIN.

Google 'IRS form W7' and 'IRS form W8-BEN' to find your way to the info about these forms (and PDF versions of them) on the IRS website.

If you're able to get to the US Embassy in London or Paris, then instead of having to obtain an officially notarized copy of your passport and posting it off to the IRS in the US with the W7 form, you can go along to the IRS office in the US Embassy, and stand in line to hand over your W7 form - the benefit being that you can give them your actual passport, they produce a validated copy of it while you wait, and hand your passport back to you. They then keep the form and accompanying documentation to send off to the IRS office in the US, and you receive your ITIN in due course. That "over the counter" service is also available in the US Embassy in Beijing, but you have to arrange an appointment - from the info on the IRS website about all this, you can just turn up at the US Embassy in London or Paris and wait in a queue to have your form processed.

The other issue for non-US authors publishing with Amazon is that they only pay by paper cheque (those with a US address and bank account can receive payments directly into their bank account). The minimum amount they'll pay by cheque is $100, so for a brand new author that no-one knows about yet, it might be a while before they receive that first payout. Mind you, when Amazon started their Kindle self-publishing service, they were sending cheques out once the amount due went over $5 (the same threshold for electronic fund transfers) - for most people, the bank charges for paying in a foreign currency cheque drawn on a foreign bank are wayyyyy more than that, so for some, the cheques were useless. Amazon did at least listen when people complained, and raised the threshold for payment by paper cheque to $100.

I'm neither an accountant nor a lawyer (never even played one on TV! ) so please take this as layman advice, from someone who's had to research this particular issue so they can flag up the required process for clients. If in any doubt over the best approach, consult an accountant.

[G J Lau]

I am in the throes of publishing a paperback version of my novel using CreateSpace. So far, it has been a pleasure. The tools they have for guiding you through the process are excellent.

My son designed my book cover, but I used their template to create a book jacket. If you are at all familiar with graphics packages, it should be easy. (I use Paint.net.) All you have to do then is load the image into a pdf file.

I formatted the text in OpenOffice and converted it to a pdf file using Nitro. All of this is freeware. So far I have spent $50 for expanded distribution and a proof copy of the paperback. I may need another proof copy, but that should be it.

The quality of the proof copy was excellent. The cover was really nice, and the paper was of good quality. All in all I would recommend them to anyone.

[Nada y Nadie]

Originally Posted by spaze

Is it really as simple as they let you know on their website? "Just sign-up, create content and start selling" sound really easy.

If you've already written your book, it is pretty easy to get it published by CreateSpace. However, "start selling" isn't as easy as it sounds. A lot of authors think people will buy their book as soon as it is published, but people won't buy it unless they've heard of it, and it takes a lot of work to get the word out. Some people think CreateSpace will help them promote their book, but they don't unless you pay for one of their packages, and I don't know how well these work.

Unless you already have a fan base looking forward to your book, you'll probably have to spend a lot of time and energy getting your book to sell.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by spaze

Hello,

Anybody have experienced self-publishing through Amazon's CreateSpace? Is it really as simple as they let you know on their website? "Just sign-up, create content and start selling" sound really easy.

I, too, published this way. No problems. Well, maybe the cover. If you have a good cover design that is complete, including text, no problem. If not, you're down to picking one of their standards, and filling in the details, uploading pictures, etc. Definitely not as good.

I would recommend it for the paper version. Their kdp system for ebooks is okay, too. Of course, it's just mobi format, but it's also prolly about half the market.