Amazon has updated its self-publishing platform CreateSpace and will be rolling out new features over time. This includes the expansion of its publishing and design tools.

The updates come from customer feedback. CreateSpace has more: “This improved title setup experience highlights a streamlined workflow and project homepage that displays your progress so you don’t miss a step, along with a free image gallery to use with Cover Creator, an expert setup option, and more.”

Amazon is soliciting feedback on the updates. Follow this link to take a survey on the new title setup and management experience.

Amazon’s CreateSpace has formed a partnership with The Library of Congress to make at least 50,000 public books available through Amazon.com.

The Library of Congress has also come to an agreement with Amazon Europe to make thousands of books in the public domain available in France and Germany using print on-demand technology. The library will give CreateSpace and Amazon Europe’s print on-demand business digital copies of scanned public domain books in their collections to be manufactured on-demand.

Back in February, The Library of Congress partnered with The British Library to bring about 65,000 public domain titles into its collection.

In June, Google struck a 30 million euro deal with Austria’s national library Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek (ONB) to digitize 400,000 copyright-free books from its collection.

Attorney/author Aaron Richard Golub thinks that the stigma of self-publishing is going away. That is why for his second book, he decided to forego pitching it to publishers and went straight to Amazon’s CreateSpace self-publishing platform.

“You used to be stigmatized if you published your own book, but those days are fading,” said Golub.  “Why should I spend the next three years trying to get my book published when I can publish it right away online.”

Golub, whose first book The Big Cut came out through St. Martin’s Press, was not impressed with working with a traditional publisher. “I was in the top 10 on the LA Times bestseller list and they wouldn’t spend any money on marketing,” he said. He finds that working with Amazon has better returns. “I don’t have to share 90% of the royalties with the publisher,” he said. “The royalty spread is much better through Amazon.”

Golub’s new Kindle book is called Feisengrad. It is a satirical novel that criticizes authority. It takes place in a police state run by baseball umpires. Here is an excerpt: “”An Umpire was then immediately dispatched to the troublesome area for a little game of baseball. A cop was always present. Mischief threatened the order of the invisible system or invisible mischief threatened the order of the mischievous system.”

Feisengrad is also available through Barnes & Noble.