CreateSpace Kindle Conversion Service

As of November 16th, my print sequel Wings of the Dawn, Book 2 became available on Amazon, and less than a month later, is now available as an e-book, published through Kindle Direct Publishing.

Amazon's CreateSpace makes converting your print book to an e-book easy. For a conversion fee of $69 (very reasonable compared to the hundreds of dollars other self-publishing companies want to charge for the same service), CreateSpace handles the file conversion and uploading of your book to the Kindle Direct Publishing site. (Authors, please note that you must first set up the account and then complete the "rights and pricing" portion before you can publish.)

The "learning curve" for me was familiarizing myself with some e-book basics, since I actually do not own a Kindle, and sorting through Amazon's two royalty options - 35% and 70%. (The 70% option is somewhat of a no-brainer, but conditions do apply.) If you're an author and would like to learn more, here are some helpful links:

• Amazon's Sales and Royalties FAQ page
• Amazon's List Price Requirements page

I also learned some new terminology, namely, DRM or Digital Rights Management. Amazon gives authors the option to enable DRM or not. If you opt to enable DRM, you prevent the sharing of your e-book. If you do not enable DRM, users can share or send your book to their friends for viewing.

For more information, check out this helpful article called Amazon add optional DRM for Kindle publishers which does a nice job summarizing this option.

From what I have read, the conversion process can also work the other direction. In other words, if you start with an e-book through Kindle Direct Publishing, you can then create a print book with CreateSpace.

Have you converted your e-book to a print book, and if so, do you think it's easier to start with an e-book or with a print book? I welcome your feedback.