My experience with Lulu publishing

Just wanted to share my experience and how easy it was. I was looking for a way to publish my dad's memoirs without having to print/bind the pages myself. Now that I actually published it through lulu.com I know it would have been impossible with the supplies I have at hand to self-bind since his book ended up being 253 pages. I believe I could probably cram 50-75 pages in the bindings I have but not any more (I used to sell personalized children's books and have the binding equipment from the blank books left over).

I have been furiously formatting, proofing, adding a TOC, and editing his memoirs over the last few weeks in hopes of being able to get something in hand for the holidays. I felt it was a fitting tribute to mark the fifth year since his passing and wanted to give this gift to my family members.

I looked into Blurb but it would have cost me $37.95 per book there for the 253 pages in a trade paperback. Lulu was less than $10 for the same format and I found a discount code for an additional 20% off with the coupon code DECBOOKS11 (good until 12/31). I did spend a bunch on shipping just so I could guarantee receipt by 12/24 but could have gone for regular mail for $3.99 if I weren't in such a hurry.

I formatted the book in Word 2007, setting the page size to 6x9 (trade size), building a table of contents, mirrored margins with odd and even page headings, etc. then used the free Word add-in to save the file as a PDF document. Lulu would also accept RTF or Word documents, but it handles PDF files best. One thing to note is that Lulu processes the cover in a separate file from the interior of the book so I had to separate out the cover page I had created in Word prior to saving as a PDF. I had to save it as PDF twice since the first time I forgot to embed the fonts and received an error message when I uploaded the PDF file to Lulu.

I used Lulu's cover creator which had pre-built backgrounds and templates or I could have uploaded artwork/photos from my computer (or, I believe, several online photo services).

I chose to make this project private but you do have the option of making it a public file. I see that many of Lulu's book options are eligible for a free ISBN and distribution through Amazon.com.

I was so impressed with how quick and easy this was (wrapped up the entire process in less than an hour start to finish) that I am considering printing a number of other books through them (my grandmother's cookbook, photo books, etc.)

I will post when the books arrive to let you know if they meet my expectations on quality and I'll bring one to one of the meet-ups/write-ins if anyone is interested.

Ciao,

Linda

Thank you for sharing this, Linda. I look forward to hearing your review on the finished product!

I used Lulu to print up some mock-ups of my first Nano. I later re-edited my cover design, page formatting, etc. (in addition to editing the actual content) so my later paperbacks looked even better, but I have pics of the original version up on my poor neglected blog:

http://hldyer.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/in-deep-smit-092608/

I've been very pleased with everything I've done through Lulu. =)

Thanks for the link ... at least you now have one more visitor :)

The book looks great! Looks like you chose the hard cover option and I love how it looks. I took the perfect bound option since I wanted to go a little less expensive thinking my brothers might want to make some revisions/additions. Maybe the next round will include all my dad's articles as well ... or maybe I'll save that for a separate publication. At least I know I come by my love for writing honestly. My dad was a long time contributor to a couple local newspapers. He wrote travel articles, editorials (in Mike Royko/Andy Rooney style), and covered the local conventions. I would love to actually publish his memoirs and share his genius with the world, but sadly my mother objects saying that he wrote them for us kids. His articles are another story though.

Thanks for posting this. I'm glad to hear that everything went smoothly; it makes me optimistic for when I run my own book through LuLu. Let us know what you think of the finished copy!

Received the books yesterday! Quickly wrapped and express mailed one of them to my brother so he should have it in hand tonight. My mother was brought to tears and wondered when I had time to work on it (being a night owl who can operate on 4-5 hours of sleep does have it's advantages at times).

I loved the cover and the quality of the binding. My only disappointments have to do with formatting errors that possibly could have been caught if I had downloaded the lulu version prior to rushing off to print. I didn't realize that when you upload the interior pages that it is EXACTLY how the book will be formatted from the moment you upen the cover. I should have put in a title page and a blank facing page. Next time.

My other objection is that the header is too close to the top and there is too much room at the footer (like the page was shifted up). I didn't have enough space between my header and my body text either so it looks a little cramped. I think I was trying to conserve page count at the time I formatted it. I'll know better next time as well.

I am pleased with the result and will probably have hard cover versions made once I fix those formatting issues.