For the print edition of Time Rats 1, I decided to try Createspace. I've always used Lightning Source before, since I thought their product was superior, but I've recently been helping a writer friend with her paperbacks using Createspace, and was impressed by their quality. They have a sophisticated online preview system, which I found extremely helpful. Plus the set-up costs are quite high at Lightning Source, and with Createspace you only have to pay for a proof copy. Createspace provide a free ISBN, too.
That's my proof copy in the photos, and I'm very pleased with it. Ebooks are great, but there is something very nice about a physical edition. The paper is a little less smooth and creamy than Lightning Source's, but I can live with that. The main thing I would change if I could is the position of the barcode on the back, and unless you have your own ISBN, you are stuck with it where it is, and can't move it up and to the center as I would have liked to do. But this is a minor matter, and I don't suppose readers will care.
I got the paperback ready while Time Rats 1 was doing its thirty day stint in Kindle Scout, thinking that if I was rejected, I could get the ebook and the print book out almost immediately. But TR1 was selected (woot!), and Kindle Press ask authors to delay the release of the paperback until they have launched the ebook.
