Preparing my ms for createspace

I confess. It takes longer for me to absorb new things than it used to and yep, I had quite a learning curve in trying to get my ms ready for publishing with createspace. You'd think it would be pretty easy all things considered but ... I found the most difficult part was embedding my fonts. My programs kept saying they were embedded while the createspace reviewer claimed they weren't.

So here's the steps I took after opening my account and the steps you'll want to take if you're using word:

1.  I chose the 5 x 8 size as this size to me looks best and is easiest to hold. But that's just my opinion. So the first order of business was to go to page layout and select page size. Make sure to click "for whole manuscript"
2.  I then had to choose margins. So yeah, that was a bit of trial and error. They assume in their discussion that folks will understand it all. Basically, they need at least .25 margins for top bottom and sides but they want a .75 margin for the inside fold. That said, I made my margins .4 all around. The gutter was then set at .35 because when you add .35 with .4 you get .75. Click "mirror" margins and you're good to go.
3. For the header - click different for odd and even. On one page put your author name and the other page, your title. Use center alignment and choose a gray font color. There is also a place where you can put in how far the header is to the top of page. Even though you set your margins, you'll need to set these as well. They seem to work independent of each other.
4. You can also set your page numbers and again, set the margin for their placement as well.
5.  Scroll through and look for any blank pages and delete those you find. Also look for inconsistencies in where your chapter name falls on each page.
6.  So here's where embedding fonts gets tricky - well, at least for me. You can embed them when you save your word doc. If you click on the file button, you'll see "word options" on lower right. Click that. Now click on "save" and at the bottom of that menu you'll see a box that says "embed fonts."  This won't work for all fonts, FYI.
7. At this point I had two options for making the pdf. Createspace wanted PDF/x which meant I had to use Adobe Acrobat Pro as word didn't have that option. I found how I could check to make sure the fonts were embedded and uploaded and of course, Createspace says my fonts aren't embedded. Ugh. I uploaded until I finally gave up and let them do the embedding.
8.  I used adobe photoshop and indesign to make my cover and ....

On Friday, I should be getting a proof of Texas Forged in the mail. I already have a digital version but I wanted to see the physical version first before I gave it my blessing. Whoop!