The process of taking a book from a word processing format to one that is PDF ready for CreateSpace sounds simple enough, however, I’ve come to realize that these things rarely go as planned. If you doubt me, just take a few minutes to check out the community forums on the CreateSpace website. It’s loaded with problems and issues. I’m not blaming CreateSpace. After all, I would think it’s nearly impossible to create a system that’s 100% foolproof when your customer base is so diverse. Then again, maybe it’s just me.
But even so, I was determined to get my novel uploaded to Interior Reviewer of CreateSpace this weekend. Most of my problems were in the header/footer and “saving as a PDF” area. After nearly pulling my hair out, I decided to dump Word and try to use OpenOffice. Many other writers seem to prefer it and I’ve read it’s easier when working with a Mac. After several hours reformatting in a word processing system I wasn’t used to, I changed my mind again. No, I’m not crazy but I was frustrated. I like Word and knew there had to be a way to make it work. So, after several more hours, I had a formatted book ready to upload. However, in trying to save to a PDF, I again had error messages. Ugh! So, I went back to the community forum. Although this wasn’t my error message, this advice I found worked for me:
Hallelujah! I had a PDF! Of course, once I had it, I had to change my margins AGAIN to get the effect I was looking for but who cares? I uploaded to CreateSpace and now I’m going through Interior Reviewer one page at a time to find corrections. How many more times will I go through this process? Who knows? Even so, seeing A GUILTY MIND on the CreateSpace reviewer is keeping me motivated. Small steps…small steps.
If you have advice for any other writers, please feel free to share and to anyone in the same boat as me – Good Luck and All The Best!
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