Is CreateSpace Finished?

So Amazon KDP is now providing the same service as CreateSpace. Print on demand for your digital books. Does that mean CreateSpace is finished? Kaput? Finito?

The upside - the price. CreateSpace's printing costs were so exorbitant, your beloved paperback had to retail at silly dollars per copy for you to make any kind of royalty.

Hence sales were slow to the point of non-existent.

The might of Amazon means they can print your slaved-over words on request for a fraction of the price, so a paperback of your work now needn't cost north of a newly released hardback, signed, with a gold foil finish dust jacket.

The downside? Of course there is one. If you let Amazon paperback your words, you have to remove them from CreateSpace. Forever.

For. Ever.

And unlike CreateSpace, Amazon won't be making your paperbacks available to rivals like Barnes & Noble. Oh no. This is a move towards monopolisation. And I, for one, am backing it.

In my experience, CreateSpace wasn't a viable revenue stream. Sure, I sold a few copies. But the price was a barrier. At least on Amazon, my paperbacks can be sold for a reasonable price.

So I've shifted over my novels. And I have to say the whole procedure was embarrassingly easy, especially for books already on CreateSpace.

The jury's still out as to whether or not I've made a good move. But with paperbacks making a vinyl style comeback, here's hoping more self-pubbed authors can jump a bit of that bandwagon.

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