Deborah Woehr

Lulu has updated its book cover interface since August, which I consider an improvement. All you have to do is click on the section of the cover you want to edit to design your cover. My computer screen wasn’t large enough to capture the entire screen, so I’ve spliced it into two sections.

The cover above is Lulu’s default, which you can change by selecting a cover from the Gallery or uploading your own file. If you’re going to use your own file, remember to format it to 1838 x 2275 pixels (6.25 x 9.25 inches) before uploading. Otherwise, Lulu will give you an error message.

The snapshot below was an experiment with the Gallery cover options. Lulu makes it very easy not only to upload your images, but your synopsis for the back cover, something which I didn’t see available (unless I missed it) when I first started the publishing process for the anthology. Back then, I had to copy and paste it to the back cover image in Photoshop. Now, you can enter your description directly into the interface and not have to worry about centering it properly.

I’ll include the one-piece cover section, while I’m at it. I don’t know how many of you will be using this feature, but I’ll be testing it out when I’m at the publishing phase for Prosperity.

Once you’ve uploaded your cover, the next step is setting your book’s price.

The thing I hate the most about getting sick (or coming back from vacation) is catching up on all of the work that had to sit while I was down. I managed to squeak out a few paragraphs for Prosperity this week, almost making it to the 80K mark. But looking it over Thursday night, I’m going to have to redo the chapter I’m working on. That’s one of the things on my To-Do list.

The first priority is finishing the Lulu series. I’m almost there, so it shouldn’t take me too long. The good news is that I received the final copy of the anthology, and it is finished. I’ll be making it available to everyone later today or this evening. Check the sidebar for the link!

For the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to upload a public domain ebook to convert into a “book.” Look at the screenshot, where you’ll notice links to Lulu’s Services Marketplace. Also, look at the very bottom of the screenshot. You can back up at any time before you hit “Publish” to edit your information or to upload another file.

Click Upload File from My PC, click the Browse button, select your file, and click Upload. Depending upon your Internet connection, the upload time shouldn’t take more than five minutes for a 3MB file. If you find that uploading directly from the interface takes too long, Lulu has another FTP option that you can use.

Before you upload, make sure that your file size is set to 6 x 9. To do that, go to Page Setup in Word and choose Custom size.

Once you have your file uploaded, click Save and Continue.

The next screen involves your binding option. More on that later.

If you haven’t done so already, sign up for a free account on Lulu. Once you’ve signed up, log in and click on the Publish tab. I’ve included a snapshot of this page so you can see what the general interface looks like.

In the left sidebar, you’ll see a section for Flash Tours. Watch those, if you’d like a video demonstration or click on the “More Info” link in the Paperback Book section.

If you’re ready, click on the Paperback Book link. Enter your book’s information in the next screen. If you have any questions about a particular section, click on the green question marks.

Select your category and keywords.

Place your synopsis in the Description box. I recommend that you format your text with HTML so it will look right on your book’s landing page.

Don’t worry about entering the ISBN if you don’t have one yet. Lulu does not require this number in order to publish your book. You’ll have the option of buying an ISBN through them once you finish the process and click Publish. I’ll show you that screenshot in a later post.

Once you finish entering your information, click Save at the bottom of the screen. Next, you’ll be taken to the Upload & Convert screen.

Note: Lulu allows you to save your work if you need to stop to do something else.

This is where I screwed up. Lulu requires your page count to be divisble by four. Not a problem, I thought. I’ll just add a couple of pages to the back and one to the front to get the right number.

I succeeded with that, but the layout wasn’t what I had expected. First off, my title page was located on the second page instead of the very first. The anthology is divided into author sections, with the first page showing a picture of the author’s blog as well as a short bio. Some of these pages were printed on an even page, while others were printed on an odd page. It was not consistent.

At first I thought I was being anal (that happens sometimes). I flipped through a couple of anthologies I own and saw that they started each section on an odd page. My mistake was relying on what the computer showed me. Had I printed the entire manuscript out and pasted the pages together, I would have seen exactly where to insert a blank page. As it turned out, I inserted 20!

For novels, this is not a big deal. You can have your chapter headings on either page. But I’d like you to print out your manuscript anyway. Get out a glue stick and tack the pages together, starting with the title and copyright pages.

Make mock covers for the front and back of your book, while you’re at it, and add them to your manuscript. Inspect each page for its position. By the time you turn the last page, you’ll know what your book’s interior will look like. Take this time to perform a final copy edit.

Checklist

1. Is your title page the first thing you see when you open the cover?
2. If your book has a Table of Contents, does the first page land on an odd page? It should.
3. Are the chapter headings all the same size and font? Do they line up in the same position for each chapter throughout the book?
4. Are your fonts consistent throughout the book? Do they clash with or compliment each other?
5. Catch any typos that you didn’t notice before?
6. Does each page contain 30 lines or less? This is Lulu’s recommendation for 6×9 paperbacks.
7. Are there any orphans and widows on any of the pages?
8. Are your graphics in the right position on the page?
9. Are your headers consistent, including page numbering?

Now that you’ve checked over everything, it’s time to talk about book covers.

Most authors don’t use graphics in their novels. If you do, then you’ll need to convert them to grayscale in order to publish your book through Lulu’s Global Distribution program. I’ve yet to see a black and white graphic that looked good in print, even at 600dpi, but that’s what they want.

What Fonts Can I Use?

With Lulu, you can use any font you’d like for your book, as long as you embed them into your PDF file before uploading. I’ll include their font list below.

* Arial
* Book Antiqua
* Bookman Old Style
* Century
* Courier
* Garamond
* Palatino
* Tahoma
* Times New Roman
* Verdana
* Symbols

For the purpose of simplicity, I chose the Palatino font for the paperback version of WBA’s anthology. That way, I didn’t have to bother with the embedding process because I wanted to speed up the printing process.

Text Formatting

Below are the steps you need to take to optimize your pages for print. Prepare to ditch all of the rules you learned in typing class.

1. Change your straight quotes into curly quotes. In Word, select “AutoCorrect” from the Tools menu, followed by the “AutoSelect” tab. Make sure the “smart quotes” option is selected. Then press Okay. Make sure your quotes are facing the right way.

2. Replace hyphens with em dashes. By default, Word replaces two dashes with a single em dash. If you need to convey a range (such as 2004-2007), use an en dash, which is a cross between a hyphen and an em dash. Do not put a space before or after these dashes.

Windows command for en dashes: Control-Minus (on the numeric keypad)
Mac command for en dashes: Option-Hyphen or Command-Minus

3. Ellipses. Add spaces between the letters and periods of all ellipses. Ex. a . . . a In Word, use the Nonbreaking Space with these commands:

Windows: Control-Shift-Space
Mac: Option-Space

4. Print Emphasis. We were all taught to underline our character’s thoughts as well as titles before we submit our manuscript to traditional publishers, who will then italicize the underlined words before they publish your book. Change every underlined word into italics.

5. Print Spaces Between Sentences. For print books, use a single space between every sentence and after colons. Use the Find/Replace feature to make this change.

6. First-Line Indents. Do not use the tab! Instead use the ruler or the paragraph format dialog box and set your indent to 1/4 or 3/8 of an inch.

7. Delete all hard returns. Using the Paragraph Format dialog box, set your spacing before and after all headlines and body text. Use 1.5 spacing between headlines and paragraphs as well as between paragraphs.

8. Set all paragraphs to justified format. Go to “Preferences” and select “Do full justification like WordPerfect 6.x for Windows.” Word should be able to squeeze and stretch the spaces between the words without making them look funky.

9. Check for Widows and Orphans. Select all of your text; check the Line and Page Breaks tab in the Paragraph Format menu; and click “Control Widows & Orphans option. Press Okay. Check each page to see if this worked. If not, you can combine paragraphs or insert a page break to eliminate the problem.

10. Use a Drop Cap to start each chapter. Select Drop Cap from the Format menu and click on the “Dropped” icon.

That was a mouthful, wasn’t it? Stay tuned because there’s more to come.

Lulu’s Policies

First, visit Lulu and read the Lulu Basics FAQ to learn about author rights, royalties, etc. Also check out their requirements for Global Distribution, which is what you’ll be using to distribute your book. Their instructions are very straightforward. However, if you have further questions, you can go to their forum, once you sign up.

The First Step in Creating Your Book (Once You’ve Written It)

In this segment, I’m going to talk briefly about editing, as many of you have talked about this subject in your own blogs in the recent past. Make sure your manuscript has been edited before you begin. Because any changes you make can affect the layout of your book.

Lulu has an excellent Editing Checklist. I recommend that you print it out first. Then read through everything in the Book Formatting FAQ. They base their instructions on the assumption that you use MS Word to write your books, so most of you should have no problems with PDF conversion. They give instructions on how to convert Open Office documents.

Next, download their book templates. Since you are writing a novel, download the 6×9 template for your manuscript and your book cover. At this point, I created a folder for these files on my computer to separate this project from my original manuscript.

Open the manuscript template and paste the contents of your original manuscript into the template. Save your new file as a .doc or .rtf and place it into your project folder.

Now, you are ready to format your text. I’ll cover that in tomorrow’s segment. In the meantime, if you have any questions (or suggestions, if you’ve published through Lulu), feel free to post a comment or send me an email.

Several of you asked me to post about my experiences with self-publishing the anthology through Lulu. So I will do that. At first, I thought about compiling a free ebook to tack onto the sidebar because I want to include illustrations. I may still do that.

For now, I’ll start posting here. Overall, it’s been an easy process using their interface. The hard part has been formatting the book correctly so that the pages will line up the way I want them to. I’ll talk about that, font usage, interior page layout, book cover design, etc. Look for Part I on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Writer’s Blog Alliance

Today made up for my two weeks in Hell. The domain Finally transferred to the Namecheap site. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to transfer it over to John’s server without any more hiccups.

I found an article late Saturday night that explained how to transfer your website without experiencing significant downtime. The Number One Rule they gave was not to tell your current web host!

Anthology

The edits are finished. The second proof is on order. I could have kicked myself for opting for the cheapest mail service because it took so stinkin’ long for the book to arrive. Tonight, I opted for the 2nd Day service while cringing at the shipping costs.