Get your book on Amazon from Australia

If you are baffled by how to get your book onto Amazon from Australia, then follow these simple steps.

Step 1:

Set up an account with CreateSpace (Amazon's print-on-demand service).

Step 2:

Choose your book size and upload your PDF interior files, which you should already have for your printer.

If your book size isn't listed, just pick a size slightly bigger, it will save you a lot of time and money only because you can fit all of your content into a slightly bigger page rather than a slightly smaller one.

A bonus of having a different book size is that you can then use a different ISBN, which will mean you can list on Amazon's expanded distribution network - not possible for books printed by Lightning Source.

CreateSpace has a magical online checking program that will tell you if your book will print incorrectly.  Just fix all the things that they have listed (it's super easy, because they show you the actual page and highlight the section).

(This may be a little time consuming, so if you have someone who can change the format of your interior slightly, then have them do it for you.)

You don't have to fix the errors the program finds, but if you do, then your book slides through to the Amazon bookshelves very quickly.  If not, you may get knocked back at the next stage, where a CreateSpace employee has to go through your book to check.

If you don't have the time or inclination, you can just get the guys at Amazon to do it for a fee (i think it's only around 100 or 200 bucks), or get your typesetter to do it all for you.

Step 3:

Upload your cover file.

CreateSpace will give you a template to work from - if you know how to use Adobe InDesign, you're set. Otherwise, you might be best to outsource this.  I'd go with the CreateSpace guys for this too.
Set your price point and your commission, elect to list your book an Amazon UK, EU, US, etc.

Step 4:

CreateSpace will mail you a copy of your book to check, we got ours within the working week. Check it and if it's all good, press the go button and you'll be on the Amazon bookshelves within 3 days (again, we were up within 2 hours and across their search network within about 6 hours).