Lack of Progress Report
May. 26th, 2007 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
As it turns out, I didn't lock my ISBN to Hilltown as I thought I had. Lulu.com tells me I have to buy yet another proof copy.
That, as it turns out, is OK. There are a number of things I was supposed to do to the document but didn't. If my book doesn't meet the ISBN standards, Lulu will reject it (or, as they say, their "distribution partner" will, which whether true or not is rather convenient for them). Then I'll have to revise it and buy yet another proof copy, and so on ad infinitum. Pretty good scam, whatever else it may be.
Writing geekery ensues.
Today I went through the manuscript itself and set it to ISBN standards. All this really needed to involve was putting the ISBN on the copyright page. I checked everything else I could think of against the ISBN standards and didn't find anything wrong. It appears that the book template I snagged from Lulu.com is already compliant with those standards, for those things a template can control. I'm pleased and take this as evidence that they're not completely out to get me. I still don't quite trust their motives, but of course I also have no idea what I'm doing here. So, to be fair, I must admit a lot of the difficulty is my own doing. And to be even more fair, there are probably a lot of these picky little rules that are very important-- I just don't know why yet.
I made fixing and checking a four-hour job by taking the opportunity to fix a few other things that had been bugging me.
Dolly-- and I know you're out there, Dolly-- had commented that the line spacing at the bottoms of the pages was funky. I found out this was because Open Office uses something called "Orphan Control" for both pages and windows. It will not put a paragraph so that only the first line of that paragraph appears at the bottom of one page. Instead, it will move the whole paragraph down so it starts at the top of the next.
That feature was in the paragraph format menus somewhere or other. I turned it off, because to me the pages look better that way.
I also added two blank pages (i.e. one blank sheet) at the beginning of the book and a few more at the end. The one at the beginning was just because a book looks better with a flyleaf before the title page than without. That one made a lot of work for me. I had to go through the complete manuscript again and reset the offset on all my page numbers. With the flyleaf, title and copyright pages, dedication, and one more blank page, my first text page is the sixth in. So I had to go through and change the page numbers to actual page number minus six for each chapter. And I had to do it twice in each chapter, since I defined the footers for even and odd pages separately.
There's surely some easier way to do this, but I don't know it.
The pages at the end were because another ISBN requirement is that the number of pages must be divisible by four, and the very last page must be blank. Done. I added a little note from the author which is useless but makes the sheaf of blank pages at the end of the book not quite so blank.
Now all I have to do is arrange a .pdf file to send to Lulu.. or something. And now I run into problems.
My book so far used a .pdf file produced by Open Office. The ability to produce .pdfs is one of OO's cool features. But Lulu won't accept a .pdf unless an Adobe program made it. No Open Office .pdfs need apply.
This requirement strikes me as particularly stupid. And now I'm faced with another problem; how to get a .pdf of an Open Office word processing document without using Open Office's own .pdf function.
There is an out, which an advanced helpstaffer at Lulu told me about. Lulu will also accept PostScript files and convert those to .pdfs for free in house. (They would also accept Word, but I'm not using Word.) The means of printing out a PostScript file is kind of complex, apparently. It can be done with freeware, but I have to go through a few tutorials to get it done.
Once that's done, I submit the file, order my proof copy, and finalize the book. I hope. Unless I end up pushing the wrong button and get caught in a Proof Copy Infinite Loop again.
I had thought approval was instantaneous once I'd approved the book, but no. They will inspect it to make sure it suits. This will take a couple of weeks and THEN it will appear in book catalogs and you will be able to order it in your local bookstore-- assuming very many of you (or anybody else) want to.
I am not so angry at Lulu's stupid pricing policy any more. I can use it to my advantage. Since they offer deep discounts to bookstores, I can order my own copies through the local bookstore. Or, actually, have them sell copies to my friends once I have gotten together the local order. If they'll do this for only a relatively small markup over cost, say three dollars, the price comes out to about what it would cost me to buy from Lulu directly. I get my two bucks, the bookstore gets some, and Lulu loses five bucks they wouldn't if they'd just do things my way. But oh well, not my problem.
I'll be sure to tell what the actual dealer cost is, in case any of you want to do the same thing at your own local bookstores.
I'm also going to put together a paperback edition and sell that from the Lulu site only. That one should be very reasonable in price.
Lulu charges $150 for ISBN and marketing agreement, and won't market your book if you buy your own ISBNs directly from Bowker. They're the US agent for ISBNS and sell them ten for $500, or something like that. I presume there's some other way to get ISBNs into book catalogs myself. I'll have to investigate that.
There's also another print on demand company I'm looking toward. According to their pricing structure, a hardcover book from them of the size of Hilltown would go for $10 or $11. I don't know if their quality of production is as good as Lulu's. Lulu's is pretty good. But I might go to the trouble of setting up my book on their site just so I can order a book there and make a comparison.
That, as it turns out, is OK. There are a number of things I was supposed to do to the document but didn't. If my book doesn't meet the ISBN standards, Lulu will reject it (or, as they say, their "distribution partner" will, which whether true or not is rather convenient for them). Then I'll have to revise it and buy yet another proof copy, and so on ad infinitum. Pretty good scam, whatever else it may be.
Writing geekery ensues.
Today I went through the manuscript itself and set it to ISBN standards. All this really needed to involve was putting the ISBN on the copyright page. I checked everything else I could think of against the ISBN standards and didn't find anything wrong. It appears that the book template I snagged from Lulu.com is already compliant with those standards, for those things a template can control. I'm pleased and take this as evidence that they're not completely out to get me. I still don't quite trust their motives, but of course I also have no idea what I'm doing here. So, to be fair, I must admit a lot of the difficulty is my own doing. And to be even more fair, there are probably a lot of these picky little rules that are very important-- I just don't know why yet.
I made fixing and checking a four-hour job by taking the opportunity to fix a few other things that had been bugging me.
Dolly-- and I know you're out there, Dolly-- had commented that the line spacing at the bottoms of the pages was funky. I found out this was because Open Office uses something called "Orphan Control" for both pages and windows. It will not put a paragraph so that only the first line of that paragraph appears at the bottom of one page. Instead, it will move the whole paragraph down so it starts at the top of the next.
That feature was in the paragraph format menus somewhere or other. I turned it off, because to me the pages look better that way.
I also added two blank pages (i.e. one blank sheet) at the beginning of the book and a few more at the end. The one at the beginning was just because a book looks better with a flyleaf before the title page than without. That one made a lot of work for me. I had to go through the complete manuscript again and reset the offset on all my page numbers. With the flyleaf, title and copyright pages, dedication, and one more blank page, my first text page is the sixth in. So I had to go through and change the page numbers to actual page number minus six for each chapter. And I had to do it twice in each chapter, since I defined the footers for even and odd pages separately.
There's surely some easier way to do this, but I don't know it.
The pages at the end were because another ISBN requirement is that the number of pages must be divisible by four, and the very last page must be blank. Done. I added a little note from the author which is useless but makes the sheaf of blank pages at the end of the book not quite so blank.
Now all I have to do is arrange a .pdf file to send to Lulu.. or something. And now I run into problems.
My book so far used a .pdf file produced by Open Office. The ability to produce .pdfs is one of OO's cool features. But Lulu won't accept a .pdf unless an Adobe program made it. No Open Office .pdfs need apply.
This requirement strikes me as particularly stupid. And now I'm faced with another problem; how to get a .pdf of an Open Office word processing document without using Open Office's own .pdf function.
There is an out, which an advanced helpstaffer at Lulu told me about. Lulu will also accept PostScript files and convert those to .pdfs for free in house. (They would also accept Word, but I'm not using Word.) The means of printing out a PostScript file is kind of complex, apparently. It can be done with freeware, but I have to go through a few tutorials to get it done.
Once that's done, I submit the file, order my proof copy, and finalize the book. I hope. Unless I end up pushing the wrong button and get caught in a Proof Copy Infinite Loop again.
I had thought approval was instantaneous once I'd approved the book, but no. They will inspect it to make sure it suits. This will take a couple of weeks and THEN it will appear in book catalogs and you will be able to order it in your local bookstore-- assuming very many of you (or anybody else) want to.
I am not so angry at Lulu's stupid pricing policy any more. I can use it to my advantage. Since they offer deep discounts to bookstores, I can order my own copies through the local bookstore. Or, actually, have them sell copies to my friends once I have gotten together the local order. If they'll do this for only a relatively small markup over cost, say three dollars, the price comes out to about what it would cost me to buy from Lulu directly. I get my two bucks, the bookstore gets some, and Lulu loses five bucks they wouldn't if they'd just do things my way. But oh well, not my problem.
I'll be sure to tell what the actual dealer cost is, in case any of you want to do the same thing at your own local bookstores.
I'm also going to put together a paperback edition and sell that from the Lulu site only. That one should be very reasonable in price.
Lulu charges $150 for ISBN and marketing agreement, and won't market your book if you buy your own ISBNs directly from Bowker. They're the US agent for ISBNS and sell them ten for $500, or something like that. I presume there's some other way to get ISBNs into book catalogs myself. I'll have to investigate that.
There's also another print on demand company I'm looking toward. According to their pricing structure, a hardcover book from them of the size of Hilltown would go for $10 or $11. I don't know if their quality of production is as good as Lulu's. Lulu's is pretty good. But I might go to the trouble of setting up my book on their site just so I can order a book there and make a comparison.
