You have the choice to publish your projects as personal projects, marketplace projects or distributable projects. The last option will use a Lulu owned ISBN number. Read on to see what this means to your back cover design.
NOTE: Lulu has just made Lulu - Published by You available to the UK for a setup fee of £79.95. This lets you use your own ISBN number on your book.
The essentials:
Cost per copy(100 page black & white paperback book): £2.98 (after the 28th of October)
Setup Charges: No setup fees.
Layout Help: very beneficial to get help.
Cover Artist Help: Requires skill to complete, so I would strongly suggest you use someone familiar with the process.
Editorial & Proofreading: Personal preference, but no content is added, suggested or offered in any way by lulu. Copyright statements, in copy library filing details etc will have to be included by you as part of the front matter in the book content file..
Choice of Binding: perfect bound, saddle stitch or coil boud
Book sizes available: Loads. They have trade sizes, paperback size, letter sized, square and more. By far the biggest choice of sizes so far.
The Lulu Publishing Process - How it works.
When you start a publishing project with lulu the best thing to do is to go to their FAQ section. The help information is very good, but that is also where they have all their templates. This book for instance is being blogged on blogger, but also copied into their paperback template.So the first thing to do is to grab the template file, doc or RTF file. Next you need to paste in your ebook content. Make sure to change the font to a serif font like times new roman as it reads better on paper than a sans serif font.
You will also have to add all the layout pages that goes in the front matter. Do you remember what that means by the way? It describes the first pages in a book, before the "good stuff" starts. Then after the front matter, you put the content into the book file. You or someone you pay then make sure everything is laid out properly and proof'ed.
Note that one of the troublesome things you have to contend with is page numbering. Traditionally the page numbering should be in the outer corners which means the numbers are left justified on the even pages and right justified on the odd numbered pages. I avoid all that hassle by simply placing the page numbering in the centre.
So once you have proofed the content, you can create your project and upload the file to lulu.com. You can register on the site at this point just to make sure you have continued access to the project.
This next bit is important...
Now you have to create TWO MORE FILES: the FRONT COVER and the BACK COVER. These are also available from the FAQ's template section. That gives you the outlines and exact sizes that you need to work to. The templates show where everything needs to go and also where the cover ends and the bleed begins. If you don't know what this means or where to begin, get a graphics designer on elance to do it for you.
All of this cover stuff is easy to do for someone that knows what do to. You can find those sorts of people on elance if you don't live with someone that can do it for you. (lucky me!)
The covers have to be submitted as gifs or photo shop files by the way, but the templates are in those formats already.
All in all you have to create three files to actually publish a book on lulu, but the wizard guides you through all that on their website so it isn't as complicated as you might think. In fact I think you may begin to see that it is actually pretty easy.
Can I temporarily distract you with a note about ISBNs at this point?
If you go for the distribution option for your book, lulu takes the non exclusive publishing rights and will need you to leave a space on the back cover for them to add the ISBN number. Their Book FAQ's and the template information pages have everything you need to know about this and exactly where you need to leave the "white hole" for the ISBN & Bar code.
Why Choose Lulu?
I think the most important reason to choose lulu is that you can have your book distributed to other book stores without using your own ISBN's, and the process to get the book published is pretty quick and easy.
You also have an impressive choice of booksizes and decent binding types available to you which means you can print books from 4 pages to 740 pages. And that gives you quite a scope.
You also have an impressive choice of booksizes and decent binding types available to you which means you can print books from 4 pages to 740 pages. And that gives you quite a scope.
You may also want to use lulu if you don't mind using companies that have just laid off a quarter of their staff! (a whopping 24 people!)
If you are on a very restricted budget should you use lulu?
If you are on a very restricted budget should you use lulu?
yes. There are no set up costs unless you want to use your own ISBN numbers. If you can afford your own ISBN numbers you should however hold off and use one of the next two companies I am about to review as they are cheaper per copy and also provide better distribution opportunities.
Publishing with lulu is easy: 1. create the content, 2. create the two cover files, 3. upload. Each copy created is pretty cheap and postage is usually just £3.50 for a single item delivered to an EU or UK address. Comprehensive Book FAQ information makes the job a breeze and this is the cheapest way to produce a book without paying a setup charge.
