CreateSpace
reviews and complaints

This is not a complaint! You need to test the waters yourself and I found no issues using create space. I thought everything was easy and efficient. I chose create space because it is an amazon company as well. I do not know about you but, I do know that trashing someone's name based on a mistake or unintentional actions. It just might be that we are not perfect and with that understanding, people make mistakes. Therefore, give them a chance to fix it . Quit complaining, it did not cost you a dime for their time not knowing if your book is good enough to sell. Just saying!

I self published my book with CreateSpace five months ago. The cover of my proof copy was thick and slick. The pages inside were white and smooth. I ordered 50 copies to start. The cover color was wrong. The background, which is supposed to be pink was yellow. I complained. They replaced the copies, but I had to use some of the copies which were already promised to some people.

I just ordered another 30 copies. The cover color was off, but not as bad as previously. The cover paper is far thinner than the previous books. The inside pages are yellow and rough. The overall look of the book is very poor--what consumer might stereotype as self-published. CreateSpace promises you one thing and you get something far less in quality. It's a switch and bait.

(Please see prior post)

I have been advertising my book on social media; Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

I am somewhat popular on Instagram, having built a following of over 10, 000 in less than 5 months (No, I haven't bought my followers)

I decided to hashtag my name, and have followed my exposure throughout the Instagram community. I recently peeked at 220, 000, 000 views of my posts, which are mostly poems.

People follow me for my content. Many have asked where they can purchase copies of my books.

CreateSpace sales statistics are all goose eggs.

I hold a double degree in IT and Applied Mathematics.

If .00001% of the people my advertisement has reached purchased a book, then I would have sold 22 books. Um, .00001% is virtually ZERO.

The CreateSpace dashboard is a fiction, and so are the statistics on Amazon's Author Central.

And, just for yucks, the day I posted adds for my books on Instagram, Amazon coincidently changed the price for one of my books. The were holding a promo for $1.99 per copy, and within less than an hour they increased the book to the full price.

Hmmm, 'wonder why?

And I wonder just how much Amazon/CreateSpace has stolen from it's Publishers. Yes, according to the contract, the indie is the Publisher, and Amazon/CreateSpacce is our printer/distributor.

Again, this post is factual, which is more than can be said about Amazon's/CreateSpace's author financials .

Best Regards,

Marc Libidinsky

This is a review, not a complaint.

I've been looking for a good way to self-publish a couple of books, and have been considering CreateSpace. After looking at a complain about it on this board, complete with some agreeing and some disagreeing comments, I thought I would perform a test of CreateSpace. I put together a quickie book (a part of my autobiography - from birth to 6th grade), and submitted it to CreateSpace. At the end of the process of submission I ordered one proof copy, in order to see the quality of the final result. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the book, and even more surprised that the whole process hadn't cost me anything (except for the cost of the proof, which was quite minimal). I didn't need any of their services, so it was pretty straightforward. Here is the link to the book on Amazon --> http://www.amazon.com/What-Was-Thinking-Autobiography-Michael/dp/1490395229 Now, please don't order it, you don't care about me, and it's just a test. But if it floats your boat, knock yourself out.

Anyway, the second part of the test was to see if they actually credited sales to me accurately. Since I knew darned well nobody was going to buy this book (especially since I put "Don't buy this book" in the description), I could be sure that I could track all actual sales. Accordingly, I ordered seven copies through 3 different pathways (CreateSpace, Amazon, and a third-party retailer, and asked my brother and sister to order one each. After a few days I checked my Royalty Details report. I found that every single order was attributed correctly! This gives me some confidence that CreateSpace does actually work, and seems to be dealing honestly.

Your mileage may vary, but I thinjk I can recommend this company.

November 2010, I chose CreateSpace as a way to get my book on Amazon.com market and after getting the book through the processes of approval I ordered a rough copy of my book for review and discovered with shock that CreateSpace shipping prices were four times more expensive than any other shipping price. I had previously ordered my books from other self publishing (SP) companies so that is how I could compare prices.
CreateSpace regular ground shipping was over two times the price compared to the other SP co. express shipping. FedEx, UPS, DHL and other mail shipping services have standard prices for shipping. It is profoundly clear that CreateSpace has added their own extra charges for their extra profit. This easily contitutes fraud. It is outrageous!
I have notified CreateSpace of this and told them that any business with them will be put on hold or resigned until they change their shipping and any other possible fraudulent policies they may have.
Below are two self explanatory pictures comparing the prices. Judge for yourself!