You can publish your book for free. It’s true! Just go to CreateSpace (now Amazon kdp), It’s owned by Amazon.

Upload your manuscript, upload or create your book cover right on their website. Go through their process of quality checks, fill in a lot of blanks (ISBN, BISAC, author bio, book synopsis, selling price, etc.) and in a few days your book will be offered on Amazon.com for sale. They’ll even give you instructions for creating a Kindle e-book.

CreateSpace will publish your book for free.

This begs the question: “If CreateSpace will publish my book for free why do authors pay $5939 for True Potential’s most popular publishing package?

That’s a great question. If I can’t answer it, I’d better find another job.

When Free Isn’t

So what’s involved in successfully publishing and launching a book? If CreateSpace can do it for free and True Potential (or any other publisher) can’t, there must be something missing.

Things like:

• editing – extra $2820.00 on CreateSpace (60,000 words) If you catch any typos or needed changes after CreateSpace’s edit process, you pay for an additional round of editing.
• cover design – extra $399.00 (1 concept, 1 revision) on CreateSpace.
• alternate cover concept – extra $99.00 per concept on CreateSpace.
• interior layout – extra $349.00 – $409.00 on CreateSpace.
• basic book information and author bio – extra $249 on CreateSpace.
• revisions – extra $79 – $109 per occurrence on CreateSpace.
• Library of Congress registration – extra $25.00 on CreateSpace.
• trade distribution – CreateSpace will make your book available to Amazon and to bookstores as long as they are the exclusive distributor.
• book review – extra $425.00 – $575.00 from Kirkus.
• ongoing marketing – It looks like authors can’t advertise their CreateSpace book on Amazon (ironic)
• e-book – if you’re unable to follow the auto-repair manual-like instructions for creating your e-book, CreateSpace will do it for you – extra $139.00 – $149.00
• e-book distribution – CreateSpace version is available only on Amazon Kindle, not available on Apple iBooks or other e-book sellers.
• Author’s cost for books – The reason True Potential’s most popular publishing package is the most popular is that we include 500 author’s copies and authors can buy additional books whenever they want at a 60% discount. Our authors completely cover the cost of publishing and make a profit from selling the 500 books included in the package. Additional CreateSpace cost for 500 author’s copies – $1625.00

So how much does it cost to publish for “free” on CreateSpace?

If we try to match what CreateSpace is capable of against True Potential’s 500 author’s copies package and do the math.

• CreateSpace – $6459.00
• True Potential – $5939.00

Conclusion: It is possible to publish your book on CreateSpace for free. If you’re comfortable with doing your own editing, book design, and marketing, if you’re willing to spend hours learning how to submit files, design covers, build ebook files, understanding your BISAC codes and fulfilling all the publishing functions and roles yourself, CreateSpace is an option worth considering.

What’s your goal?

If your goal is to turn your manuscript into a printed book as cheaply as possible and you’re willing to do all the work yourself CreateSpace is an option worth considering.

If you don’t want help reaching your intended audience or selling your book after it’s published CreateSpace is an option worth considering.

or …

If you want every step in the publishing process to be designed to make your manuscript to become it’s best book and reach it’s intended audience you may want to consider other options, like a real publisher. Someone in the business of selling books and helping you sell books, helping you reach the world with your message. Isn’t that why you embarked on this journey in the first place?

What CreateSpace doesn’t do:

What I haven’t listed above are those benefits True Potential includes (to actually reach your audience) in our packages that CreateSpace doesn’t. You can check those out right here: https://www.truepotentialmedia.com/publishing-packages/