How to create a cover for CreateSpace on a shoestring budget

On CreateSpace, there are a few ways to create a cover. Probably the easiest is to upload a cover PDF that is the exact dimensions of your book. If you don't know how to turn a JPEG (or other graphic file) into a cover PDF file, John Carroll has a good description of what to do on his blog.

However, many authors do not have the talent or funds to create a unique cover (or have one created). CreateSpace conveniently offers a cover creator template that allows you to make your own cover. No matter how strapped you are, I don't recommend using the stock photos. Why? Because they are easy to pick out, especially if you have used cover creator. I do use a stock photo for my study guides, but most people buying study guides are not exactly looking for a fancy cover. 

It is easy to find royalty-free stock photos that have expires or no known copyrights to upload for your cover design. Check out Flickr , CanStock, Wikimedia Commons, and even places like NASA. You are looking for pictures whose copyrights have expired or whose creators are licensing under the GNU free use (U.S. government photos are copyrighted by the citizens of the US and open to their use). (You should always cite the creators of your cover images. I recommend doing it on the copyright page with "Cover image by") You will not be able to copyright these images yourself, but they are frequently more impressive than the standard CS or KDP stock photos. Here is a cover I created from some old images of paintings:

Finally, you can find freelancers who are willing to design your covers at reasonable rates on freelance websites (Guru, eLance, etc.). Expect to pay $50 - $300 for good cover design. Here is our latest release:

Reviews

Reviews are the life-blood of Indie/ Self-publishers. However, reviews (reviewers) are difficult to find. On Goodreads, there are three review groups that I have joined.

The Strictly Reviews is the one that I have been a member of the longest. It is a no commitment group. By that, I mean that you post your book link and a brief description and let reviewers contact you.

To date, I have gotten one review for Sal, Captain of the Baby Guards as a result of being a member, and it cost me two books (the reviewer wanted a copy for her local library, which I was more than willing to provide). However, I posted it in the picture book section and the children's book section in December, and it was the last post to date (June) in these threads. I have received 0 reviews for The Inconvenient Widow. After adding The Corruption today, I see the fantasy thread has had no one posting in it (aside from my new post) since November (not very encouraging), the paranormal and Christian threads are not much better.

The General Review group was the next (and recent) group I joined. The premise of this group was that you join, you sign up when groups are forming, and you read and review other books from group members while they do the same for you. This group helps you get fair reviews. However, I recently joined and it is undergoing a transition.

Initially the group was set up so that you have no idea what you are reading and no matter what it is you are supposed to give it a fair review. Apparently there has been an influx of erotica and graphically violent books, which has created problems (people were refusing to review them). So, after a debate, which I of course embroiled myself in and probably shouldn't have, they decided to create a "hard core" group, which is primarily for erotica, BDSM, LGBT, and graphically violent works, the general group (which means you will have to review everything in it without complaining and it could contain some of the above "hard core" items), and the "clean" group that contains no sex, and no violence. Of course, the hard core group filled up quickly (I think there is only one space left in this round) and then the general group filled up (again only one space left), but the clean group is struggling a little (they are about halfway there). The benefit is that you give and get 4 reviews. It is also nice because the people reviewing you are not the people you are reviewing.

I also joined the extension of the above group - The Genre Specific Review Group. This group is run the same as the General Review group with elements of Strictly Reviews in it. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to be quite as popular as the General Review Group. However, I was able to join the fantasy group that was forming and have started that. Again, you join a group and when enough people have joined you are in it. In this group, you give and get 2 reviews, but you are not reviewing the same people who are reviewing you. This group is broken down into many genres, though. You can also let the moderator know if you want to give 10 free MOBI/ ePUB/ PDF books to have people review it. This is similar to the Strictly reviews board, but a little more controlled.

All in all, I should be getting 4 reviews for The Inconvenient Widow and 6 for The Corruption published on Goodreads, Amazon, and Amazon UK. The only limit on the number of reviews/ groups you join is that you are able to fairly give the number of reviews you commit to. For example, I will be reviewing a total of 10 books to get my 10 reviews. And each group has a maximum time limit for posting the reviews.

The Vast Minefield of the Internet

I know many people who type random words innocently into search engines only to get not so innocent results. I have had this happen to me once when I was trying to figure out how to spell a British phrase. I thought "cocking" meant "looking." Needless to say I never discovered the answer because I was so offended by what it turned up that I pursued the topic no further.

However, I have recently stumbled across a naughty website because I clicked on a topic a search engine returned and discovered that the link did not take me to the website it described. I reported it, but it made me realize how irresponsible some people are. What if a child had clicked on that?

Ideally, authors would stick to libraries and academic journals for their information, but that is not always the easiest method of research. For example, I wanted to check into crowdfunding for my last post. One would assume that would be an innocent topic, but alas no. I clicked on two crowdfunding websites only to find they were for crowdfunding perv, fetish, and porn niches.

While it is disturbing to stumble across these websites, it is even more disturbing to think that one would go to ones friends and ask them to fund your latest porn video. I am glad I don't have friends like that.

As someone who has to be on the internet all the time, I think all browsers should automatically be set to keep this out. I don't know if this is the way it is, but mine obviously is not. Prior to a few weeks ago, I never had any problems.

For a writer, not being able to type in key words and find relevant information wastes research time. I cannot write articles about up-to-date business internet information without being able to use the internet to find said information. I cannot recommend websites without using a search engine to find good ones. It seems to me that not only creating a .xxx extension for these websites, but also creating an a Google.xxx would be helpful. That way, my search engine won't show junk I don't want to see and people who want to see it can find it without sorting through non-perv websites.