It just seems too easy. Too good to be true. Those were my thoughts when I first heard about CreateSpace a few years ago. And because of those thoughts, it kept me from letting my biggest dream of all come true. Fast forward a few years and I’m on YouTube checking out videos of people who have published on Lulu and CreateSpace and the differences between them. It was then that I decided to go for it. What’s the worst that could happen?

There were a few minor bumps along the road, but that’s what you have to go through when you are learning something new. Those minor bumps, of course, felt like landmines to me at the time. This was my first book “baby” and I wanted her to be perfect. First, I was on the lookout to find someone who could transfer my word document to a pdf file that CreateSpace would accept. And I wasted a lot of time with some people on fiverr because they said they could do something that they really couldn’t. I ended up finding seowritersking who was wonderful to work with, and patient with my nerves.

In case you haven’t yet heard of fiverr, it is a website that shows you a directory of people and services that they provide, for $5 or more. It took me for what seemed like forever to find someone who could format my book to Kindle accurately without looking like it was slapped together by a five-year-old. There will still be hiccups, they might not get it perfectly right the first time, but usually they include revisions with their “gig” as they like to call them. I always like to give specific help in articles, so if you are in need I strongly recommend exnihilo. I can’t begin to tell you the amount of grief I went through trying to find someone who was able to get my book into Kindle format and look exactly how I wanted it to.

The moment of truth all came when I ordered my first proof copy of my book, (which was around 4 dollars plus 3 and some change for a 268-page book with no pictures, which I think is a steal for the author) and I found…cue the music for dramatic pause…errors I hadn’t noticed before. I think I went through maybe four proof copies until I got it perfected. Here’s what I don’t want. I DON’T want you to feel like a failure if it happens to you. My eyes were so tired rereading my book on the screen for days and days that mistakes were bound to slip through the cracks of my red, burnt out eyes, it happens to all of us. “To err is human” as they say. And knowing all that, my heart still fell to my toes and that’s normal. You want it to be perfect, and when it’s not there yet, you start to doubt yourself if it ever will be. I promise you, you will perfect it. I won’t lie, though, things got a little crazy inside my head.

Somehow through the brain fog craziness I found my saving grace. It really was like a miracle. A seven-day miracle, if memory serves. I found a free trial of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC online. And with that I was able to change the pdf that was previously locked from being edited. Usually, I don’t go in for all that free trial rigmarole. You have to fish out your wallet, feed them a credit card number, and remember when to tell them to stop the trial. I don’t know about you, but I have had a hard time remembering to do that in the past with other free trials. But and it’s a big BUT, here’s the wondrous silver lining, you don’t need a credit card number, they don’t require it. You get the few days and then they cut you off when the trial is over. And if memory serves, they even extended it a few days.

Hopefully I have been able to cut out some of the scariness that comes with the CreateSpace territory while introducing you to some alternatives, if you are not a computer aficionado, as I happen not to be.