Somewhat helpful

I rated this a 2 for a couple of reasons.
There were so many typos in this book. Both spelling and grammatically. Definitely needed a couple other editors to go over this book before even doing a self publish.

The other reason was that it was confusing! He would go off on explaining how to do one thing with Create Space, mention something else you could do, and would switch gears. It kept hopping from one place to another with no definite specific layout.

Much needs to be done for this book to be even more helpful for future readers.

Great book!

This book is an absolute hit! I followed the easy and clear instructions and designed and formated my own book, including the cover. An artist friend of mine provided the photo and the layout of the front cover, but the rest I did on my own. I couldn't have done it without the help of this book.
Great job! I can only recommend it.
Christa Polkinhorn
Love of a Stonemason(a novel)

Easy to understand!

I like your book, Jimmy. It's not only fun to read but easy to understand. I haven't put all the steps together yet, but I'm closer than I was before I bought your book. Thanks!

I didn't find this book very helpful

I will admit that I've self published in the past (using the "old model" of self-publishing) so I probably have more knowledge about this process than some other readers do. But I'm not at all familiar with the new POD programs so bought this book to learn about CreateSpace. What I found in this book, however, is summed up by this paragraph "I admit that I do not have the best credentials for writing this book. I have not worked in the publishing industry, and I know little about the Adobe products and Quirk Express[sp]... but I do have two things going for me. I did get a novel successfully published with Create Space--I am talking about The Song of the Coyote--and I got this book published also with them. That shows I do know how to do it. What I'm going to do in this book is to show you what I did." This paragraph was not part of the introduction to the book; it is part of the book's content and is repeated in various ways throughout the book.

I really wanted to learn about CreateSpace but there was minimal information about that program. For example, the author mentions that CreateSpace has a free program and a pro-program that costs $39. The author said that he chose not to spend the $39 for the pro-program but never told us what is included in the pro-program. I know I can find that information on the CreateSpace website but I would have expected it to be included in a book about CreateSpace.

The book is filled with grammatical and spelling errors, as well as poorly written sentences. For example, the author says "in my coyote book, I used Comic Sans MS font for everything on this page and I bolded the whole page."

The author does include step-by-step information about using Word and PowerPoint to ready the book's files in preparation for sending them to CreateSpace and that is really the only thing of value that I found in this book. I suspect that there are other books that provide this same information while also telling the reader much more about the POD process. Another book that I bought at the same time I bought this book is POD For Profit by Aaron Shepard which is jam-packed with helpful information. I highly recommend it and if Shepard's books about approaching Amazon.com and using Word to design your book are as helpful as POD For Profit is, I would definitely buy them instead of How to Self-Publish for Free.

Jimmy Clay's Createspace guide

The information in Clay's guide is invaluable to anyone like myself who is in the final stages of sending off a book to Createspace and has never gone through the process before. The tone is encouraging and user-friendly. By ordering this book, I received the guidance and also a sample of Createspace's product before investing my time in it.
On the downside, the book is in serious need of editing.
Example: (p.9) "They see these books and will have to take note when a great one is in their mist."