My manuscript and cover submission to CreateSpace is complete and accepted! The great thing about CreateSpace is that you can do it all yourself (costs way less, practically for free). The hard thing about CreateSpace is that you can do it all yourself (formatting can be a bitch). I would like to thank especially Genevieve Margherio at Red Lemon Creative (www.redlemoncreative.com) for assisting me with the cover formatting! I could not have done it without your generous expertise, Genevieve!

All in all, so far in my self-publishing process I do recommend CreateSpace as they are very easy to use and provide a ton of options for all types of creative projects: books, comics, music, films, etc. There is alot of debate about it either way in the self-publishing community, but I gathered in my research that it is overall best to purchase your own ISBN. Mick Rooney, author of To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish? had this to say in an on-line forum on the subject of ISBNs:" The publisher of the book is the person/company whose name the ISBN's are registered in. So, you would need to buy and use your own ISBN's to properly self-publish - in effect, only an author can actually self-publish. Even creating your own internal and cover files and listing your own imprint on the title pages and back cover will still result in database and online stores listing the book as published by CreateSpace, once a CreateSpace ISBN is used." So, that's what I did. It's a bit extra money, but worth it.

The other benefits of using CreateSpace is the venues of distribution. My book will be on Amazon, the largest book distributor in the world. But, they also give you a free webpage to promote your book. I actually get more proceeds if people purchase the book through that web page, but that's fine. I can send people there first through my marketing material, but Amazon is fine too. Either way, whatever gets it out there. Here is a screen-shot of the webpage provided....authors can modify slughtly with their own banners and changing the text coloring, and background if needed:

I will send the link out once the book is completely ready. CreateSpace is printing the first copy now and sending it to me for proofing. I have a chance to look at it in its final form and make any last minute changes if necessary. Can't wait to see it! Over all, I'm enjoying the CreateSpace experience and would recommend it to anyone.

Stay tuned for the Red Mass release. There will be a book signing/release party at Aquarius Bookstore in Kansas City soon....will get that date out there as soon we get it pegged down! Cheers!