You can create your own cover for your self published book when you list it on Amazon.com, using the free cover creator service (with CreateSpace… other services have similar things) or you can get a professional to make you a cover and provide you with a PDF.

A PDF is a Portable Document File… which is totally ready to print,
fixed in stone, unchangeable, inalterable… or is it?

Red Cornish Chick and Just A Couple of Chickens

Red-Laced Cornish Chicks love the Book!

I used the cover creator service for the cover on my draft proofs, and then I worked with a professional graphic designer for the cover of Just a Couple of Chickens.

Michael Motley did a great job.
We sold out our first short-run printing (Awesome!) and took the opportunity of the second print run to add some positive review comments to the back matter on the cover.
Since I had, and still have, five out of five stars on the review page at Amazon.com, I added that phrase to the cover.

“5 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com”

But when I uploaded that PDF cover file to CreateSpace so that readers ordering directly from Amazon.com would get the same cover… Amazon.com emailed me suggesting that I not refer to Amazon in case the POD book was sold through one of their other distribution portals. 

Whut?  I said, then ignored their advice, because no matter where the book landed, it was still true that it had 5 out of 5 stars on the amazon.com review page. Made sense to me.

Amazon changed my cover file.
Took out the 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com sentence.

Changed my PDF file. 

WHUT? I said, to myself. “I didn’t think you could modify a PDF”.  I knew they were adding a barcode in the white box left blank for the additional of a barcode, but I didn’t know they could add – or DELETE – other stuff.

Amazon has opinions, and the ability to change PDF documents. It is a Brave New World of Big Brothers… but most importantly,

“Just a Couple of Chickens” has 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com !!

 

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