Lulu vs CafePress vs CreateSpace

Since I have written so many pages on Lulu, CafePress and CreateSpace and have used all three systems, people invariably ask me which one I prefer the most and have gone with.

It really comes down to the super easy Amazon integration. None of these systems have "ideal sized books" for print on demand. It's just the way the printing companies are set up. They aren't going to be the little in-hand novels you're used to. They're going to be a larger size. It's sort of an "emotional" hurdle to get over.

Once you have accepted that, then I really do like CreateSpace. Despite the many problems I had early on, at this point it is very easy to work on my books there. I now have six books in the CreateSpace system. Once I got the hang of their template it was very easy to plunk in new elements for a new cover and save it out from Photoshop to a PDF. You just upload that PDF file and the cover is all set.

For the actual book itself, again it was a learning process to get the page numbers to line up right and to get everything pretty looking. Once I figured that out, though, it's very easy in Word on Vista to save it out as a PDF file, upload that PDF file into CreateSpace and you're all set.

So you load up a cover PDF, load up an interior PDF and a day later they let you know they look all right. So you get their eyeballs glancing at the work and at least doing a sanity check. Then a few days later the actual final book shows up in your hands! Instant gratification! I use this to create review copies for friends and family members. I print one and hand it to someone. They give me feedback, I make changes, load up a new PDF and print out another one. So it's very interactive, back-and-forth and people get to read and review an actual physical book which makes it easier on them.

I definitely recommend CreateSpace for all those reasons.

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