Steve L. Edwards

When our Newfoundland and Jack Russell went berserk to announce the arrival of my package from Lulu.com, I was instantly more excited than they were. How often do six perfect-bound paperbacks with your name on the cover show up on your doorstep?

For me, using a Print-on-demand service to self-publish my special project turned out to be a lot of fun. But before you decide to go this route, be aware of your ultimate goal. Do your research, and be realistic with your expectations.

Naturally there are exceptions to every rule, but the odds are that self-publishing will not make you famous. It won’t make you much–if any–money, and it probably won’t get you noticed. It isn’t a shortcut that will allow you to bypass the system. It won’t land you a major book deal or get you on a best seller list. If the goals for your project include any of those reasons, the self-publish route is not for you (remember Heinlein’s TANSTAAFL—There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch).

None of those were factors when I created “The Three Gifts” as a gift for some family members. When I saw that Lulu would even satisfy my miser’s genes (the whole project was under forty dollars for six copies), I knew they would be ideal for what I had planned.

If you’ve considered all the factors and self-publishing is still something you want to do, here are a few pointers that may help you on your way.

I won’t go into proof-reading techniques, other than to say if the words aren’t right, everything else will be a waste. If your book is for public consumption (mine was not), you may want to consider paying a freelance editor to give it a once over for you (Lulu has an editorial service you could use, but I can’t say how good they are, I haven’t tried them). Either way, once your satisfied with the actual words of the project, it’s time for the formatting.

With Lulu, you are responsible for not only the words themselves, but also exactly how they will look when printed. Lulu does provide a cool “cover wizard” that meets the basic needs for the outside of your book, but everything else is up to you. Using “The Three Gifts”–my forty page booklet of three short stories–as an example, here are the key points in my layout template:

Paragraph Style Templates

• Fonts: I used Times New Roman for everything except for the Title, which was Arial. Note that if I do this again, I’ll be using Palatino Linotype as my primary font face.
• Lulu Title: 16pt title bold, centered, 10 pt author, 8pt copyright
  Lulu Main: 11pt font, 1.5 lines spacing, Justified alignment, Widow and Orphan control 3 lines.
• Lulu Chap. Title: 16pt font, Centered alignment, Capitals font effect, 2″ spacing above.
• Lulu Chap. Begin: 11pt font, 1.5 lines spacing, Justified alignment, Display drop caps first character for two lines

Page Style Templates

• Lulu Title: A5 (5.83″x8.27″), 1″ margins, Right and left layout, No header, No footer.
• Lulu Dedication: A5, 1″ margins, Only right layout, No header, No footer.
• Lulu New Chapter: A5, 1″ margins, Only right layout, No header, Footer centered page number
• Lulu Page: A5, 1″ margins, Right and left layout, Header Turn off “same content left/right”, centered author name left header, centered book title right header), Footer centered page number same content left/right.

I use OpenOffice.org Writer as my word processor, so your mileage may vary, but for me getting the styles just right was the toughest part. Once that was behind me, it was just a matter of making sure that every page and paragraph of the book was assigned the appropriate style.

In order for me to have full control over the formatting, I used OpenOffice to export to PDF rather than allowing Lulu to do the formatting for me. Whether you do it my way or allow Lulu to convert a word document for you, be sure you check every page, particularly the end of each paragraph for any formatting glitches. Also remember that certain pages should always be on the right (see the “New Chapter” style as an example).

Once the print layouts are generated, Lulu will present you with various options for how you want to make your publication available. In my case, I wasn’t worried about the rest of the world seeing it so I didn’t put “The Three Gifts” in the public directory, but that option is available to you for free, should you choose to do so. Lulu allows you to set the price as you see fit, showing you how much the overall price will be, and how much of a cut they get from each. I was impressed at how reasonable Lulu’s pricing was, I’ve bulk printed manuscripts at Kinko’s that cost more.

One last piece of advice: before you order in bulk, be sure you buy a single proof copy to make sure everything looks right to you. After I got the first one, there were a number of changes that I ended up making before I was ready to make my bulk order.

For a fantastic article on the pros and cons of print-on-demand and self-publishing, take a look at The “Writer’s Beware” blog at http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/pod/.