@Jeff Countryman, back to your OP... I have had a great experience with Createspace as the entry point for publishing. They are ridiculously easy to use, took me about a week to do my first, mostly just learning the terminology of paperback publishing, gutter margins, odd and even pages, etc. The second was 550 pages, uploaded in a day. That included about 20 small graphics, that I meticulous edited to make sure they came out just right, plus a final read-through for typos while waiting for the cover to come in. That took about a week also, but it was all editing. Unlike many self-publishing houses, CS has telephone tech support that is top notch. For some reason, the number is hard to find, but once you get it, lock it in. They offer free ISBNs, and their site walks you through the publication process in a simple step-by-step process, from getting the ISBN, registering it, if you wish, with the Library of Congress, uploading your interior from Word into the book layout you selected, uploading the cover, pricing and launching. And no, I work for the Navy, not Amazon! At the end, they will generate a Kindle file from your paperback text, that you can upload into Kindle. for some reason, I have not had the automated upload work well for me, but I edit their Kindle-ready Word file for Kindle anyway... I eliminate the ISBN/copyright page, Table of Contents, and move acknowledgements to the end. I want the Kindle version to open directly into text. So I download their Kindle file, edit it, and manually upload into the Kindle bookshelf. Unlike some other self-publishing houses, such as Ingram, you never leave the comfortable environment of MS Word... no .mobi files, no .pdfs except for the covers, no html manipulation. You can go the other direction from KDP to paperback, but KDP states, or stated, that is a beta capability. Since KDP does NOT have telephone or chat tech support, and their turnaround on tech support e-mail questions is about 24 hours, I haven't used that capability. I just use them for Kindle. I am in Kindle Select, exclusive to them for e-books, but that gives me advantages such as the ability to launch free giveaways, which seems to generate significant sales afterwards. You can order copies of your book at cost, good for book signings. I recently ordered a batch of my first book, "Come, Follow Me," for some upcoming events. Although previous print jobs had all come out fine, all fifty of that order were faded to illegibility. One call to tech support, and I had fifty replacements at no charge, which were fine. I then got an e-mail, with a free UPS mailer, to return five copies for troubleshooting. So I am quite the fan of that route for self-publication, @Jeff Countryman. Has anyone here had problems with CS? Why do paper and e-book? Some people prefer paper books, and you will also want to have formal or informal book-signings at book fairs or local events. Typically my sales run ten to one Kindle over paper, but you can't sign a Kindle! Well, you can but you ruin the screen.
also on amazon at least if you do paper and E on the kindle book screen it tells the reader how much they are saving over paper and makes it look like a better deal
