# Poor quality from Createspace?



## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

Has anyone else had a problem with the quality of printed books from Createspace? I've noticed a problem with pages not being trimmed correctly, being printed crooked. I even had covers printed totally crooked as well. Maybe I've just had bad luck lately.


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## suliabryon (May 18, 2009)

Hmmm. Are there good alternatives to them? Following with interest...


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

They trimmed the tops off two books from my last order. Looked like someone took a meat cleaver to them. :/

My Ingram printed books aways come out beautifully, but they definitely cost more!

Rue


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## Stephanie Marks (Feb 16, 2015)

My last Createspace batch showed up a couple weeks ago and they were lovely.
As for alternatives there is also Ingram Spark. Though it's more out of pocket, just a heads up.


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## SasgoraBooks (Aug 27, 2015)

Kylo Ren said:


> Has anyone else had a problem with the quality of printed books from Createspace? I've noticed a problem with pages not being trimmed correctly, being printed crooked. I even had covers printed totally crooked as well. Maybe I've just had bad luck lately.


Were these problems on Proof copies or actual production copies?


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

DarkarNights said:


> Were these problems on Proof copies or actual production copies?


Production.


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## SasgoraBooks (Aug 27, 2015)

I'm expecting my first production delivery from them next week, that's a little worrying.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Last I checked with them, they were saying cover alignment could be off by up to 1/4 inch. Pretty sure I'm remembering that right, but maybe it was 1/8 inch. Whatever it was, it was large enough that I asked my cover designer to remove the sharp lines between the boards and the spine: I figured they'd rarely end up in exactly the right place.

But besides that issue, I've always gotten good results from CS. No crooked or cleavered books.


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

It's an 1/8 of an inch. She had me measure how much shorter the books were. They were a full 1/4 inch shorter!  

To their credit, she did tell me they would make a note in the file not to do that again.

Rue


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## SasgoraBooks (Aug 27, 2015)

ruecole said:


> It's an 1/8 of an inch. She had me measure how much shorter the books were. They were a full 1/4 inch shorter!
> 
> To their credit, she did tell me they would make a note in the file not to do that again.
> 
> Rue


And hopefully you got a new batch free of charge?


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

Yes, they replaced the two copies with the cut off tops at no charge to me.

Rue


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## Lukeofkondor (Jul 15, 2015)

Weirdly the last two proofs I got were terrible. Trimmed weird, blurry cover, and some of the inside pages looked faded and washed out. 

However, my previous print stuff came out looking fantastic from CreateSpace.

I'm wondering if they've changed they're process or something.


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## cvwriter (May 16, 2011)

Kylo Ren said:


> Has anyone else had a problem with the quality of printed books from Createspace? I've noticed a problem with pages not being trimmed correctly, being printed crooked. I even had covers printed totally crooked as well. Maybe I've just had bad luck lately.


Yes. I have had problems with my interiors and with one cover. They have more printing facilities now, and I've noticed a major decline in quality. I've printed several books over the years with minor issues that were easily correctable. Not so lately. After months of complaining, my book is now passable but not quite as good as my book from last year.


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## Lizash (Nov 11, 2015)

I had a batch of books that came back with a very short top margin. I contacted them and they requested images, which I sent. They then replaced the books at no charge. But overall I'm kind of distressed about the light print and lousy image quality. I've also contacted them about this. I sent images on that as well, and they said their saturation was standard. Compared to my printer copies, it's very light.


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## Goulburn (May 21, 2014)

My first lot of books from both Lulu and Createspace, two years ago, ended up as $250 worth of land fill. Disappointing and costly experience of poor quality yellow thin see through and badly trimmed paper that I would not sell or even gift. 

I tried again two months ago, this time only ordering one proof copy of each book. The quality of everything,  cover, trim' and paper, was beautiful. I was delighted.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

Sounds like a lot of problems. Hopefully with a lot of us reporting issues, they'll make efforts to improve their process.


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## Guest (Nov 13, 2015)

I've had problems with book cover colors looking like the printer was running out of ink and the tech was too lazy to change cartridges. No telling how the books look when shipped direct to readers. We have no way of knowing the quality of the finished product unless the reader complains. #whenyoutrytodoeverythingnottolooklikeanamatuer


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

I've ordered a lot of books from CreateSpace, and the only problem was on one large order, I came up short one book each on two books - CS made up the difference immediately.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

beccaprice said:


> I've ordered a lot of books from CreateSpace, and the only problem was on one large order, I came up short one book each on two books - CS made up the difference immediately.


I'm really referring to quality issues. But it sounds like you've never had any problems there. To be honest, I've had quality problems with the last several things I've ordered from them.


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## Darren Kirby (Oct 6, 2014)

I've ordered from CS several times, the last being a few weeks ago.  I can't recall ever having issues like what you describe.  I think these issues could happen with any book printer, and the real question then becomes, how do they handle it.  From what others are saying, CS handles the issues correctly by reprinting the bad copies at no charge.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

Darren Kirby said:


> I've ordered from CS several times, the last being a few weeks ago. I can't recall ever having issues like what you describe. I think these issues could happen with any book printer, and the real question then becomes, how do they handle it. From what others are saying, CS handles the issues correctly by reprinting the bad copies at no charge.


In my opinion, that's the least they can do. Their considerable shipping times to authors makes this frustratingly inconvenient. I prefer they do their due diligence and quality check the product before sending it out. I'm sure other printers, such as IS, do just that. Doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation to me.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

I haven't ordered my own books for a long time but just got an order of 4 copies of each of 4 books this week. Since CS has always done so well for me, I unpacked them without looking closely. This thread made me go and take a good look at each book - no problems at all. Cream paper, 6 x 9.


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## Cap&#039;n Crunch (Aug 10, 2009)

I had a couple of books cut at a a noticeable angle. I just kept them for myself. If it happens again, though, I'll definitely contact them for replacements.


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

Ryn Shell said:


> My first lot of books from both Lulu and Createspace, two years ago, ended up as $250 worth of land fill. Disappointing and costly experience of poor quality yellow thin see through and badly trimmed paper that I would not sell or even gift.
> 
> I tried again two months ago, this time only ordering one proof copy of each book. The quality of everything, cover, trim' and paper, was beautiful. I was delighted.


I noticed earlier this year that Createspace had replaced the horrid pee-yellow paper with a much nicer cream paper similar to Ingram's paper. Very happy about that! 



Lizash said:


> I had a batch of books that came back with a very short top margin. I contacted them and they requested images, which I sent. They then replaced the books at no charge. But overall I'm kind of distressed about the light print and lousy image quality. I've also contacted them about this. I sent images on that as well, and they said their saturation was standard. Compared to my printer copies, it's very light.


All of my Createspace copies have much lighter print than the trad pubbed books and IngramSpark books. Unfortunately, I think that's just the way it is with their printing methods.

For low quality images, are these colour or B&W? My B&W images turn out just fine (although faded, like the text).



AnnChristy said:


> While I've never contacted them to replace bad ones, I've gotten unusable ones in pretty much every order. The last batch had two or maybe three that were cut so badly the entire header was cut off. That's a heck of a lot more than 1/8 of an inch. More like 1 inch. In general, they're quality is so spotty that I've been researching alternatives.
> 
> Does everyone think Ingram spark is better? I know some people use CS just for Amazon, and IS for all other venues, but I'd prefer not to have CS anywhere. Does IS sell on Amazon too?
> 
> And does IS have the same issues with quality as CS?


IS is head and shoulders above CS in quality, IMVHO. The paper is just that little bit nicer, the colours on the covers are exact, the ink is black not faded grey, the covers are always cut straight and the glue on the spine is much cleaner. Really impressed with their product.

However, you get what you pay for, so IS is more expensive than CS. There's the $25 setup fee, the $12 annual fee, they charge a $1.50 printing fee per order, and the cost of the books is just a little higher, plus shipping is too. But if you want the quality, it's there.

I wouldn't recommend using IS for all your distribution, however. You will still get a higher royalty using CS for Amazon. But you'll get a higher royalty using IS for everywhere else as you can control the discount. CS takes an automatic 60% royalty, whereas you can go as low a 30% with IS.



Kylo Ren said:


> In my opinion, that's the least they can do. Their considerable shipping times to authors makes this frustratingly inconvenient. I prefer they do their due diligence and quality check the product before sending it out. I'm sure other printers, such as IS, do just that. Doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation to me.


When they replaced my books I had them in 2-3 days, and that was to Canada. So they are very good about replacing them. You just have to call and let them know. But I do agree that it would be much better if they got them right the first time!

Hope that helps!

Rue


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## Maarika (Apr 19, 2015)

My proof copies also looked a bit crooked or trimmed weirdly but the published copies looked fine. 
Maybe having a larger bleed area would make errors like that less visible? I'm not sure if CreateSpace accepts files with bigger bleeds (or if they resize them your files to fit the trim size if they're bigger).


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## H.M. Ward (May 16, 2012)

Kylo Ren said:


> Has anyone else had a problem with the quality of printed books from Createspace? I've noticed a problem with pages not being trimmed correctly, being printed crooked. I even had covers printed totally crooked as well. Maybe I've just had bad luck lately.


I've ordered more than I can count from them - it's rare to get a wonky book. They were quick to fix those issues too. Email CS if you haven't and tell them. They'll reissue the batch. This is a rare problem with CS.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

H.M. Ward said:


> I've ordered more than I can count from them - it's rare to get a wonky book. They were quick to fix those issues too. Email CS if you haven't and tell them. They'll reissue the batch. This is a rare problem with CS.


Oh, I emailed them. And it hasn't been so rare for me. Once is rare. Every time I get something from them, there seem to be problems. I'm getting ready to place another big order. We'll see what happens.


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## Guest (Nov 13, 2015)

I just had some books sent directly from Createspace to a photographer. She said in her email to me today that the cover is "awesome." I assume that means no problems. 

Aside from the rather pale "black" ink used for the interior, I've had no serious quality problems with Createspace in the several years I've been using them.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

Nimrodish said:


> I just had some books sent directly from Createspace to a photographer. She said in her email to me today that the cover is "awesome." I assume that means no problems.
> 
> Aside from the rather pale "black" ink used for the interior, I've had no serious quality problems with Createspace in the several years I've been using them.


I will say that, when I first published a year ago, I didn't have any problems. This is a more recent thing, like since the summer.


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## SasgoraBooks (Aug 27, 2015)

I'm wondering if the more common problems can be traced to any specific printing locations. Some locations may have better QC than others. The location is listed by the barcode on the last page.


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## Guest (Nov 14, 2015)

Kylo Ren said:


> I will say that, when I first published a year ago, I didn't have any problems. This is a more recent thing, like since the summer.


I guess I better have some books sent to me so I can check on the quality, then. Thanks for pointing this out!


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

I've also had some problems, sometimes with paper quality, and sometimes with the quality of the cover. This used to happen less often a couple of years back.


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## horst5 (Aug 9, 2013)

Hmm, I worked with createspace for 2.1/2 years.
Never incurred a problem.
Horst


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## John Twipnook (Jan 10, 2011)

Nimrodish said:


> Aside from the rather pale "black" ink used for the interior, I've had no serious quality problems with Createspace in the several years I've been using them.


I think I solved the light-black-ink problem in Createspace. But it's a little more hassle.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=182655.0


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

John Twipnook said:


> I think I solved the light-black-ink problem in Createspace. But it's a little more hassle.
> 
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=182655.0


Valuable, John! Thank you!


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

DarkarNights said:


> I'm wondering if the more common problems can be traced to any specific printing locations. Some locations may have better QC than others. The location is listed by the barcode on the last page.


I was wondering about that. All mine seem to come from Charleston, SC.


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

John Twipnook said:


> I think I solved the light-black-ink problem in Createspace. But it's a little more hassle.
> 
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=182655.0


Interesting. Except it's not just Word generated PDFs that look faded. My novel interiors were created using InDesign and they still came out faded compared to the IngramSpark copy. And I used the exact same file type for both: PDF/X -1a:2001.

Rue


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

Kylo Ren said:


> I was wondering about that. All mine seem to come from Charleston, SC.


My order that had the tops cut off came from Middletown, DE.

Rue


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## Guest (Nov 14, 2015)

John Twipnook said:


> I think I solved the light-black-ink problem in Createspace. But it's a little more hassle.
> 
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=182655.0


That's very interesting. I've already tried to solve the problem with the text by using a heavier font, but that does nothing to improve the appearance of the illustrations in my books. Maybe I can play around with color profiles and see what I can do. (I'm using Pages>PDF in Mac OS 10.9.5) Maybe there's something I can do without investing in Pro software? Since I sell almost no paperbacks at all, I'm reluctant to put money and huge amounts of time into this (right now).


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## suliabryon (May 18, 2009)

Having not used them before, maybe I am misunderstanding. I thought many createspace allowed customers to order books via print on demand through amazon? Wouldn't you as an author then be concerned that someone would get a shoddy copy?


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

suliabryon said:


> Having not used them before, maybe I am misunderstanding. I thought many createspace allowed customers to order books via print on demand through amazon? Wouldn't you as an author then be concerned that someone would get a shoddy copy?


Absolutely.


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## suliabryon (May 18, 2009)

Thanks. I just wondered, because everyone's replies had to do with copies they'd ordered themselves, vs., say, a bad review due to a badly printed book.


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## Drainland (Oct 25, 2013)

I know Amazon and Lightning Source aren't playing well at the moment. So I'd be super wary of switching paperback POD away from CS at the moment. I've had to switch BACK to CS recently because a new title had been 'out of stock' for a week...second week of release :-|


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## SasgoraBooks (Aug 27, 2015)

We can only hope that orders that come from Amazon.com customers get more QC scrutiny.


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## Melody Simmons (Jul 8, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> Last I checked with them, they were saying cover alignment could be off by up to 1/4 inch. Pretty sure I'm remembering that right, but maybe it was 1/8 inch. Whatever it was, it was large enough that I asked my cover designer to remove the sharp lines between the boards and the spine: I figured they'd rarely end up in exactly the right place.
> 
> But besides that issue, I've always gotten good results from CS. No crooked or cleavered books.


Yes, good idea. I always blend images over the spine. Createspace themselves warn not to have any hard edges there. Yet with their Cover Creator templates you do not have a choice, which is why it is better to get a proper double-page PDF done.


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## Keith Blenman (May 31, 2009)

I've been happy with everything I'd ordered through them. But from reading responses on here it seems like they're offering pretty good customer service when there are problems. So that's comforting.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

No problems here... yet. No doubt I've jinxed myself now.


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## Reaper (Nov 5, 2013)

I just opened a package which contained a Createspace-printed book and, thankkfully, it's fine. However, I'm attending a launch event in Cambridge at the end of the month for a Terry Pratchett-inspired anthology - a ton of books were delivered to one of the other authors so I'm going to check and make sure they're all okay. If nothing else, thanks for the heads up Kylo, and I hope any issues you're having are resolved promptly.


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## Alastair McDermott (Nov 14, 2015)

I've gotten several books printed with Lulu and a couple with a local independent printing company. The latter required a 150+ run but very high quality paper and cover. 

Lulu has been hit and miss but mostly positive. I do dislike the cover paper quality, it tended to curl up away from the book after first reading. I'm testing some other sizes and paper quality with Lulu now for my own book.

I haven't really gotten into CreateSpace yet, it appeared to be a bit more onerous than Lulu. I'm considering doing Amazon distribution from within Lulu because of that - any advice on that appreciated.


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

Six print books in with a few hundred copies ordered over the years - and only had one dodgy book where the cover was misaligned. I photographed it and had an apology within a couple of hours and a replacement two days later (priority shipped as I'm UK).

Interestingly I'm seeing a lot of trad paperbacks now that are presumably being eco-friendly in that the paper is clearly recycled and much thinner. The quality looks lower than I'm getting from CS now.


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## John Twipnook (Jan 10, 2011)

ruecole said:


> Interesting. Except it's not just Word generated PDFs that look faded. My novel interiors were created using InDesign and they still came out faded compared to the IngramSpark copy. And I used the exact same file type for both: PDF/X -1a:2001.
> 
> Rue


It's a quirk of the printing process I think. No matter what software program you use to generate your manuscript, in order to have deep rich blacks in text the PDF sent to Createspace or Ingram must have fonts embedded and "100% black" specified for text. I've tried a bunch of ways and the only way that I've found consistently works is using Adobe Acrobat for postscript-file-in, then do Preflight, then do PDF-out. Sucks to have to buy Acrobat but there's a free 30-day trial.

Edit: what I have is Acrobat Pro X, but apparently Adobe's not making that any more. It's a subscription model now. Like Photoshop now is. Sorry. Anyway what you want is the PDF creator version, not the reader version (there's two kinds of Acrobat). And definitely not the server Acrobat!


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## Evenstar (Jan 26, 2013)

I've hadlots of bad copies from CS. Tops hacked off, pages not lined up with the one opposite. These days I tend to order them directly from Amazon.co.UK because it works out cheaper with no postage cost. But the pages are really yellow compared to the createspace creamy pages, so that's disappointing.


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## John Twipnook (Jan 10, 2011)

Nimrodish said:


> That's very interesting. I've already tried to solve the problem with the text by using a heavier font, but that does nothing to improve the appearance of the illustrations in my books. Maybe I can play around with color profiles and see what I can do. (I'm using Pages>PDF in Mac OS 10.9.5) Maybe there's something I can do without investing in Pro software? Since I sell almost no paperbacks at all, I'm reluctant to put money and huge amounts of time into this (right now).


Hello guinea pig warrior. Adobe's annoying new subscription model can actually help you. Since you'll only be using Acrobat Pro for a one-time thing you probably won't need it longer than 30 days, the billing cycle. That costs $15. And there's a free trial period as well. No getting around the learning curve time sink though. Maybe 2 hours incl download time?

https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/products/acrobat-pro-cc.html


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## John Twipnook (Jan 10, 2011)

John Twipnook said:


> Hello guinea pig warrior. Adobe's annoying new subscription model can actually help you. Since you'll only be using Acrobat Pro for a one-time thing you probably won't need it longer than 30 days, the billing cycle. That costs $15. And there's a free trial period as well. No getting around the learning curve time sink though. Maybe 2 hours incl download time?
> 
> https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/products/acrobat-pro-cc.html


Edit: if you get it, what you want is to "print" or export either one from Word or Indesign or whatever to create a postscript file. Open that file in Acrobat. Make sure fonts are embedded and "100% black" in Preflight with PDF standard set to PDF/X -1a:2001. That's the magic PDF file.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

For all the copies I've ordered from CS (proofs and regular copies alike) I've only had ONE come out messed up. The book was way too long (as in actual length of the product, leaving a weird bar on the top above the cover image). I sent a picture to CS, and they replaced it quickly and with apology. I was very happy with the quick response.

I also had a friend order a CS book, and she ended up with a different book inside, which was also upside down. I'm pretty sure they remedied that just as quickly, though I can't remember for sure. I'm sure mistakes are bound to happen with as many books as they send out, and at least they're prompt to fix issues when the do come up.


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## Blerg et al. (Mar 27, 2015)

I had a batch with the whole range of problems, crooked covers, trimmed improperly, glued improperly, glue all over the place. 

But I contacted them and they shipped me a new box for free. I kept the old box and gave them away as samples. 

So I'm very happy, but I always check my boxes and I'm considering listing paperbacks myself instead of letting Amazon do it.


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

There is, of course, no way to compare what others consider too light print to what I consider satisfactory, but I do consider what I get from CS quite good when it comes to darkness of the print. In fact it's noticeably better than what the last couple of hard covers I got from the library had and as good as hard covers on my bookshelves. I use WordPerfect for my pdf's, and when you convert it has 5 choices for the output ranging from "Commercial Printing (Largest file size)" to "Publishing Online (Smallest file size)." I choose the Commercial Printing and the files aren't too large for CS. It does embed the fonts.

I wonder if some conversion programs automatically give you "Publishing Online" or "Publishing Online and Printing" quality. I also see "PDF/A-1a - Level A Compliance" and "PDF/B-1b - Level B Compliance," as choices, which I haven't the foggiest about.

Surely fonts also make a difference. I've never tried anything but Bookman Old Style for my CS books, but I remember when I was preparing the first one, I tried Georgia and Book Antiqua and rejected both because of how light they printed from my (laser) printer.


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## Gessert Books (Apr 20, 2015)

Oftentimes RGB black, after conversion to greyscale, will come out screened (light). Text should be set greyscale, at 100% black, or 100% K in CMYK. Barring obvious style choices of course. Acrobat has a lot of prepress tools that can help correct errors with this, usually by way of the prepress / preflighting tools under the Print Production panel.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

CS has been fairly reliable for me. One particular batch of 30 books from a satellite printer (jobber) came out too red. And while it took a while to work my way through their support, I finally got someone on the phone, sent them some comparison photos and had a replacement set shipped fairly quickly.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2015)

John Twipnook said:


> Hello guinea pig warrior. Adobe's annoying new subscription model can actually help you. Since you'll only be using Acrobat Pro for a one-time thing you probably won't need it longer than 30 days, the billing cycle. That costs $15. And there's a free trial period as well. No getting around the learning curve time sink though. Maybe 2 hours incl download time?
> 
> https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/products/acrobat-pro-cc.html


Two hours and download time will seem like nothing after the four hours I spent last night trying to convert PDF to CMYK (or is it CYMK?) using every application on my computer (in the hope it might improve the situation). There is a site that says it will do that for me for free, but I don't want to upload and then download something from a site I don't trust.

I bookmarked the Adobe site for that free trial - thanks!


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2015)

John Twipnook said:


> Edit: if you get it, what you want is to "print" or export either one from Word or Indesign or whatever to create a postscript file. Open that file in Acrobat. Make sure fonts are embedded and "100% black" in Preflight with PDF standard set to PDF/X -1a:2001. That's the magic PDF file.


Okay! I hope that process will work out better than exporting from Pages to postscript and opening the postscript file. When I did that, the page size was all messed up and I couldn't fix it.


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## Windvein (Sep 26, 2012)

One time I ordered a batch and one copy had like 50 pages missing. They hadn't fallen out, they just weren't printed with the book. It was pretty easy to spot since it was so much thinner than the rest. It was very startling though. They did replace it rather quickly. And it has only happened once.

I always find the proof ordering nerve-raking. I've done my own cover several times and the spine always gives me trouble.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2015)

Windvein said:


> I always find the proof ordering nerve-raking. I've done my own cover several times and the spine always gives me trouble.


Do you do the spine yourself? I've never tried that - I just upload the front and back covers and let Cover Creator do the spine. It's not beautiful, but it's easy.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2015)

Evenstar said:


> I've hadlots of bad copies from CS. Tops hacked off, pages not lined up with the one opposite. These days I tend to order them directly from Amazon.co.UK because it works out cheaper with no postage cost. But the pages are really yellow compared to the createspace creamy pages, so that's disappointing.


Do you happen to know if the createspace books printed in the UK have solved the problem with peeling glossy covers? I've been doing only matte covers since reading several complaints about peeling laminate from the UK createspace printer.


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## John Twipnook (Jan 10, 2011)

Nimrodish said:


> Okay! I hope that process will work out better than exporting from Pages to postscript and opening the postscript file. When I did that, the page size was all messed up and I couldn't fix it.


I've never had an issue with Acrobat Pro, it's pretty solid. Let us know how your pages look after you order your proof copy. Good luck!


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2015)

John Twipnook said:


> I've never had an issue with Acrobat Pro, it's pretty solid. Let us know how your pages look after you order your proof copy. Good luck!


Thanks!


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## Windvein (Sep 26, 2012)

> Do you do the spine yourself? I've never tried that - I just upload the front and back covers and let Cover Creator do the spine. It's not beautiful, but it's easy.


Hi Nimrodish,

Sorry for the delay in my reply. I do the full cover, but my books are usually 200 pages, so not very thick. I think that's my primary spine problem. I get the Amazon cover template and follow it closely every time, but I must miss something or something's off with the template generator.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

just as I was leaving home to take my daughter somewhere, a big box from Cretespace arrived -  a week nd a hlf before I expected it. Even when I chose the slowest delivry method (bcause I hate spending too much on postage), CS almost always delivres books sooner than I expect.  As soon as I get home, I'll check the books for quantity and quality, but I don't think I'll be dissapppointed.


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## daveconifer (Oct 20, 2009)

That's a drag.  In most cases we'll never know if our dead-tree books are making a bad impression by looking shabby in various ways.  I hope these turn out to be mere anecdotes.  In my experience (it's been a couple of years) everything I saw that came off their presses were top-notch...


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

From my experience in manufacturing, there will always be fails in any production run. 

Proper QA (quality assurance) catches these fails and removes them from the product line before they are shipped to consumers. Still, flawed units get through for one reason or another. This is why we have warranties and recalls on products. If I were pressed on it, I would say for any production line, there will be a minimum 1% fail rate; for every 100 units produced, 1 will be defective. 

I would note that from the comments above that CreateSpace has been very responsive when failed product has been delivered and they quickly take care of it. That's good. If they were denying it or refusing to replace defective product, then there would be a problem.

So, my conclusion is that this is a good example why everyone needs to adopt the practice of inspecting the delivered product and report any problems promptly. Also, make sure you give yourself enough time to address any problems. If you are doing a book signing in two days and you are having the books directly delivered to the location of the signing, you won't have any time to deal with any flawed copies. Instead, you should have them delivered to you first with enough time so you can inspect them and have any flawed units replaced.

Second, don't absorb these units as a loss. If CS did not deliver usable product, then it is their responsibility to either replace the problem units or to give you a refund. Also, by informing them that there was a problem, that alerts them to the problem so they can address what may be causing it--thus reducing the occurrence of that problem not just for you, but for everyone.

Last, you have to understand that there is going to be some variation from copy to copy. Are the flaws you perceive within the limitations that CS notes? Is there a quality issue that makes the product completely unusable to the customer? Would the customer recognize that there is a flaw? Do you have an unflawed copy of your book that can serve as a standard? How do the copies you received compare to this standard? Are any deviations you found within reasonable bounds from the state of your standard copy? With all this, just remember to do your QA to ensure the product you are selling to your customers is up to snuff.

Note: yes, I was purposefully using words such as "units" and "product" instead of "books", and "customers" instead of "readers" to point out that you are selling products as a business and you should treat what you are selling as such. You wouldn't be very happy if you bought a TV or a car it didn't work. You would expect an immediate replacement or a refund for it. You should treat the product you are producing--a printed book--with as much care as you would expect in other products.


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2015)

Windvein said:


> Hi Nimrodish,
> 
> Sorry for the delay in my reply. I do the full cover, but my books are usually 200 pages, so not very thick. I think that's my primary spine problem. I get the Amazon cover template and follow it closely every time, but I must miss something or something's off with the template generator.


Good luck. Letting Cover Creator generate the spine provides the perfect spine width, but since Createspace printing wiggles around and always puts part of the back cover onto the spine, I try to make the back cover's right margin the same color as the spine (when possible) so it isn't noticeable.


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2015)

I've done 8 books through CreateSpace now and only had one proof with a miscut page. I've never had any issues with colour or spines. If you upload everything with the proper specs, spine correct size etc you shouldn't have any issues with the look of the book (barring any mechanical issues during the printing).


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2015)

I've yet to have any real issues with quality from CreateSpace, having done eight proofs or so and ordering about 20 copies.  The only time I had any issue with the light print was because I'd used auto color for the font color in Word instead of setting it specifically to black.


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## ilamont (Jul 14, 2012)

I've never had a problem with the interior at CreateSpace in 3 years, but the spines are often shifted right by 1/8" or so. I've also noticed that the proofs are made with higher-quality paper than the production copies. 

Someone mentioned that IS/LSI has better paper. However, the same 102-page book will have a .23" spine at Createspace and .21" at LSI, which suggests that thinner paper is being used. Or maybe LSI asks for thinner spines for some production-related reason?


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## SasgoraBooks (Aug 27, 2015)

I got my first order from CS last week and everything looked good. I did notice some pages that were lighter than others, sometimes withing the same book as darker pages, and sometimes even on the opposite side of the same page. They were not so light as to be a quality problem, but they were noticeable since I was specifically looking for variances in the print darkness. Because I did have pages that were nice and dark I think the lighter pages were an ink running lower issue rather than a PDF/Font software issue.


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## eswrite (Sep 12, 2014)

Had it happen (crooked pages, skewed cut), and they replaced with rush delivery. Definitely contact them. It's the only way they know they have a problem. They'll be in a world of hurt if they start getting complaints through Amazon.


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## Michael W Griffith (Sep 6, 2014)

I like CreateSpace. But, however, although, after ordering two separate proofs, the text for the title, the author name, spine, and on the back cover were all printed in a completely different color, making it very difficult to even pick out the text from the rest of the cover. Actually, out of the box of 25 I ordered, 2 of the 25 were printed correctly. 

Mistakes happen, and I contacted Support. We went back and forth several times and I eventually had to list the product number (something like 27498384R00205) for each misprinted book. After several days they finally agreed to replace the misprints and the new ones are perfect.

I hope it's a one time thing...


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

Just received a shipment of 11 books (5 of one book, 6 of another) from Createspace. As I feared, three of the books had interiors that were noticeably crooked. I've contacted Createspace for replacements and hopefully they'll get to me before my signing event next weekend.


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## belindaf (Jan 27, 2011)

I've had minor print quality/page cut issues,  but mostly have had good luck with CreateSpace. I have had books shipped and improperly packaged though. They arrived with torn, bent, or otherwise mangled covers. I have four books with them and maybe two issues in ordering over a hundred books (I ordered a big convention order from them and they arrived perfect).


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## Guest (Nov 27, 2015)

Createspace is not the only game in town.

Google "book printers" and do the research. It's a competitive field.
Prices vary widely. Avoid printers wanting a "set up" fee.

Do not use a printers that also prints business cards, wedding invitations, etc.
You want a "book printer" that ONLY prints books.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Okey Dokey said:


> Createspace is not the only game in town.
> 
> Google "book printers" and do the research. It's a competitive field.
> Prices vary widely. Avoid printers wanting a "set up" fee.
> ...


I'll take this a step further. When I did searches for "Book Printers", I got every little shop that also did business cards, wedding invitations, menus, etc. There is a local print shop I like to use that does incredible work for those things, but printing books is beyond them.

What you want to use as your search phrase is *Book Manufacturers*.

With that phrase, you will now get the businesses that actually print books for the Big-5 (4?) and other publishers. These are the people you want to work with. There are only about 35 actual book printers in the United States. And they recognize that having only four primary customers in New York City is a dangerous situation if they want to stay in business. So, they offer the same pricing for little guys like us (independent authors) as they give to the big publishers. That's how I found the printer I am working with right now.

The advantage with CreateSpace is that you can have books printed with no upfront outlay of capital. The trade off is the price per copy is going to be expensive and the quality assurance is questionable.

The advantage with using a book manufacturer is the quality is going to be top notch and they are very willing to work with you, even for "small" runs of printing, plus their QA is also going to be top notch. The downside is you have to pay up front; the price per copy will be less than CreateSpace, but that price is going to be dependent on how many copies you are going to be printing in a run, and you may end up with inventory sitting in your home for a long time before you can sell off all those copies. So, you'd better make sure there is demand for your books before you do a run-you only make money on what you sell.

Some book manufacturers also provide POD printing as well. So if all you need is a dozen copies, you can go that route. My guess is the pricing will be similar to what CreateSpace charges per copy. I have not looked into POD printing yet, but I just may look into that if the pricing is good.


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## Mystery Maven (Sep 17, 2014)

Okey Dokey said:


> Createspace is not the only game in town.
> 
> Google "book printers" and do the research. It's a competitive field.
> Prices vary widely. Avoid printers wanting a "set up" fee.
> ...


But is there anyone besides Createspace and LSI who will distribute to Amazon, etc.?


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Just received a new order from CreateSpace and checked the books thoroughly due to this thread. I didn't find anything wrong with them. I've been very happy with their products.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Mystery Maven said:


> But is there anyone besides Createspace and LSI who will distribute to Amazon, etc.?


I have come across a number of writers who are printing their books themselves and then selling them via Amazon as Amazon Partners instead of using CreateSpace. Amazon takes the orders, processes them and passes them on to the author. They also pay the author for the shipping and handling. This does mean that you as a businessperson-or anyone you designate on your behalf when you want to take a vacation-are obligated to process that order as quickly as possible.

Bear in mind, printing your own books puts the risk on you. You outlay the cash up front and hope you can sell your products and make your money back. This is business at its rawest. The trade for taking on that risk is you can make double the money per copy sold than you would through CreateSpace. Depending on what you paid per copy to have them printed in the first place.

My plan is to use CreateSpace to sell softcovers and to test the market. If/When (it will take a while) there is enough demand, then I will print a short run of hardcover books and sell them via Amazon as a Partner.


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## Mystery Maven (Sep 17, 2014)

WDR said:


> I have come across a number of writers who are printing their books themselves and then selling them via Amazon as Amazon Partners instead of using CreateSpace. Amazon takes the orders, processes them and passes them on to the author. They also pay the author for the shipping and handling. This does mean that you as a businessperson--or anyone you designate on your behalf when you want to take a vacation--are obligated to process that order as quickly as possible.
> 
> Bear in mind, printing your own books puts the risk on you. You outlay the cash up front and hope you can sell your products and make your money back. This is business at its rawest. The trade for taking on that risk is you can make double the money per copy sold than you would through CreateSpace. Depending on what you paid per copy to have them printed in the first place.
> 
> My plan is to use CreateSpace to sell softcovers and to test the market. If/When (it will take a while) there is enough demand, then I will print a short run of hardcover books and sell them via Amazon as a Partner.


Thanks. That's what I thought. I wish there were other options.


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## WDR (Jan 8, 2014)

Mystery Maven said:


> I wish there were other options.


This thread isn't as bad as it sounds. In any mass manufacturing process, you must accept that there is going to be a 2%-5% fail rate in the products being produced. Of those items that fail, a manufacturer must have enough Quality Assurance (QA) checking in place to ensure that fewer than 1% of those fails get through into retail space. What this means is for every 100 books you order, you should expect to find up to 5 books that are flawed in some way.

My only complaint in this is perhaps CreateSpace should be stepping up their QA a bit. I would think if an author put in a large order (10+ books), someone should do a quick visual check before dropping them in the box. Plus, perhaps they need to put in an automatic system that will at least do a visual check on the printed matter before and after the cover is applied and reject any that fall outside acceptable tolerances.

On the plus side, I think the quality of the product coming out of CreateSpace has been improving over the years. I haven't really seen any major complaints online by consumers (readers). And CreateSpace seems to be doing brisk business. Then again, I can point out that I have not actually done a search online to ascertain if there are complaints about the quality coming out of CreateSpace. But CS continues to do business and it appears to be growing. That would suggest the quality is acceptable to consumers.


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## O. N. Stefan (Nov 30, 2009)

I had 10 copies of The Deadly Caress sent to me early November. The quality of the print books was great. Even the librarian at the local library, who purchased two for the library, was impressed.

 www.getBook.at/B016G5T7AG


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## Elliott Webber (Sep 24, 2015)

I got my first two proof copies today and everything looked excellent at a first glance but then I noticed that every page where there's any sort of picture the whole content of the page is slightly pixelated. I think the problem is that Word downsampled the images to 220dpi though. On the other hand, the PDF looks great so I'm not sure. I've emailed them about it and am waiting to hear back. The cover and the rest of the interior looks great though and I paid for the middle of the road shipping that was supposed to arrive on the 24th but to my surprise it turned up in the mail today. Printed and flown across the world in 4 days is not bad.


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## Kylo Ren (Mar 29, 2014)

WDR said:


> This thread isn't as bad as it sounds. In any mass manufacturing process, you must accept that there is going to be a 2%--5% fail rate in the products being produced. Of those items that fail, a manufacturer must have enough Quality Assurance (QA) checking in place to ensure that fewer than 1% of those fails get through into retail space. What this means is for every 100 books you order, you should expect to find up to 5 books that are flawed in some way.


In my recent order of five books for one title, three were bad with pages printed crooked. That's a 60% fail rate and not acceptable. Of course, CS replaced them quickly, and the replacements they sent were fine.


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