CreateSpace Matte Covers Now Available

They're actually here! It feels sort of surreal. Just last week I was researching Lightning Source and their matte covers that don't curl. But when the price can go up to a few hundred dollars per book, you can see why I hesitated.

I love my CreateSpace books in most respects. There's one thing I don't like about the copies I have, and that's the way the covers don't lie flat. Ever. At first there's a little lift. Once you open the book it's there for good. Then over time, it curls upwards. Apparently this is worst with dark covers, and I happen to prefer my own books' covers to be dark.

People report not having any cover lift at all, which is great. I wish I was in that situation, but I'm not.

A common explanation for the curling is the glossy covers. My deepest hope is that having a matte cover rather than a glossy cover will mean the curling goes away, if not reduced significantly to something you'd expect to see on a traditionally published book.

So I've switched my cover to the matte option. Not only that, today's introduction of the matte covers also spurred me to finish redoing the typesetting and font for Aundes Aura, which I've been meaning to update to bring it into line with the next book I'm working on. If CS won't take the new font, I'll have to go back to Garamond, but at least I'll have the matte cover.

I'm very excited to get my next proof with a matte finish and hopefully a fresh new font. Most of my favourite books have matte covers (two series being Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire), and every step closer my book gets to those, the happier I'll be.

Do you prefer glossy or matte covers? Let me know in the comments!