Hey everyone! I have a short story that's 5,000-6,300 words long (there's an epilogue/bonus chapter/bonus story that I'm not sure what to call yet) and it's almost ready for publication. I'm trying to figure out everything I need besides the story itself to get it published on Createspace and Kindle. I plan to make an acknowledgement page, but does it need a copyright page, too? Some books have a blank page between the acknowledgement and copyright pages and the story part of the book; is this necessary or recommended? Should I put anything after the story itself, such as a blank page or a "thank you for reading" page? Sorry for all the questions--I honestly thought I only had one when I started!
It doesn't need one, but it's not a bad idea to put one in. For Createspace, I have the title page at the front, the copyright on the back of that page, then the story starts on the next page. The back of the title page is going to be blank otherwise, so there's no reason not to use it for something more useful.
I think I just did a web search for example copyright pages, and wrote some text similar to the kind of things they were including. You can go into lots of detail like many trade-published books do with Library of Congress records and that kind of thing, but that just takes up too much space in the ebook version (I have a script that takes the Createspace file and generates an ebook directly without having to reformat anything). In fact, it's really less a copyright page than a disclaimer page that happens to have some copyright information too.
What I did on my first "Come, Follow Me," was to just open a professionally published book, and used that as a template. I initially said "published by" CreateSpace, followed by their address, but more properly it should have been by me, published THROUGH Createspace. For number two, I just copied that, and changed the numbers. That book had an LCCN, the first did not. The goal is to make it look professional, so that one cannot tell by looking at that page that it was self-published. In fact, that should be your standard for the whole book. I used the same layout as @Edward M. Grant did for the print book, and like him, eliminated it for the Kindle version, so that goes straight to text. My second book had a table of contents, which I also eliminated from the eBook, but I am told I should have left it in, as it is hyperlinked, and would allow the reader to jump back to a particular chapter. Haven't made the change, but haven't had any complaints either.
Thank you! I have a library of books to use as examples, so I'll do my best. This brings to mind a couple more questions, though: - How will I know the ISBN number before I publish it? Don't CreateSpace and Amazon provide one (each) for free, and as such I only receive it when it's published? - I own a few e-books, and at least one of them has the copyright page at the end of the book; should I follow that example or leave it out entirely? - Is it necessary to include the ISBN and LCCN (which my book will only receive if it goes into libraries, correct?). - Would it be all right if I posted the copyright page on the forum to get some opinions? So sorry for all these questions! Every time I try to do my own research on short stories, all I get is the same "this is how to publish your short story through magazines" stuff on every website.
Amazon don't need ISBNs for ebooks, though you can provide one if you have one. I think the only benefit is that people can then search for the book by ISBN on Amazon. I use my own ISBNs for Createspace (they're free in Canada), so I don't know whether it gives you the ISBN as soon as you start the setup process if you use their free ones. If it does, you could just add it to the book once you know it, before uploading.
Yeah, the question was whether it's assigned when you publish, or assigned when you start the book setup process? In the former case, you can't easily include it in the book, since you don't know what it is before you upload the book file... you'd have to upload, publish, get the ISBN, then upload the correct version of the book.
Simple template/example search, and poof copywrited first novel. And I ain't no rocket-surgeon. I think you only get an ISBN if you plan on having physical copies made. I am not sure though.
