Because I’m impatient (don’t tell my sons!), I ordered a proof—all right, I ordered a bunch of proofs—as soon as I’d uploaded my files to CreateSpace.
I don’t think that was a bad thing: waiting for the physical books to arrive gave me more than enough time to correct some formatting errors. Which is good, because I discovered a lot of formatting errors! I’m pretty sure I caught them all: I’m sure someone will bring any oversights to my attention.
I started writing this first book using Google Docs. After about 50,000 words or so, it seemed like my browser choked whenever I’d either load the file or leave it open for too long. I wrote the next 50,000 words in a second file. When it came time to “book-ify” the story, I copied and pasted from Docs to Adobe InDesign. Most of my formatting didn’t survive the transition. And italics? Yeah, all my italicized text ceased to exist. Flip through the pages (you can do that now!) and you’ll understand what an undertaking it was to re-italicize everything! At least I gave myself another opportunity to triple- and quadruple-check my formatting, too!
CreateSpace says it’ll be “3 to 5 days” before my title becomes available on Amazon. Keep your eyes peeled!