wepod

lulu specs

Here’s a summary of useful tips in preparation to publish with lulu. for further info please refer to lulu’s faq pages.
also, you can find links to a 6×9 (126 pages) book template

1. book layout
How do I lay out my book?
Whether you plan to create your own PDF or have Lulu convert your document to a PDF for you, it is important that your source document is properly formatted.
Manuscript Templates
6″ x 9″
(15.24cm x 22.86cm)
8.5″ x 11″
(21.59cm x 27.94cm)
Comic, 6.625″ x 10.25″
(16.827cm x 26.03cm)
Landscape, 9″ x 7″
(22.86cm x 17.78cm)
Square, 7.5″ x 7.5″
(19.05cm x 19.05cm)
Pocket Size, 4.25″ x 6.875″
(10.8cm x 17.46cm)
Royal, 15.6cm x 23.4cm
(6.14″ x 9.21″)
Crown Quarto, 18.9cm x 24.6cm
(7.44″ x 9.68″)
A4, 21.0cm x 29.7cm
(8.27″ x 11.69″)

How do I make my content stretch all the way to the edge of the page (full bleed)?
0. Upload your book as a single PDF. It has to be one PDF or it will not bypass our converter. Our converters size content to the exact cutting dimension, so there will often be a thin sliver of white if you upload a document that needs conversion.
0. Make the leading edge bleed .25″ (75 pixels at 300dpi). The leading edge is the outside edge — non-bound or loose.
0. Make the top and bottom bleeds .125″ (37 or 38 pixels at 300dpi). Total combined bleed for top and bottom edges will be .25″ (75 pixels at 300dpi).
If your PDF matches an existing trim size within 0.25″ width and height, the publishing wizard will automatically detect that trim size. Selecting a different trim size will cause your PDF to be converted to that trim size without full bleed.
Bear in mind that anything within the bleed area is likely to be cut off, so don’t have any critical text or artwork within a half inch (.5″) of the edges.
Use this chart to figure out dimensions for your final PDF document.

Final PDF Dimensions for Full Bleed
Book Size Size of PDF to Upload Size in Pixels
At 300 DPI
6″ x 9″ 6.25″ x 9.25″
15.9cm x 23.5cm 1875 x 2775
8.5″ x 11″ 8.75″ x 11.25″
22.2cm x 28.6cm 2625 x 3375
Comic, 6.625″ x 10.25″ 6.875″ x 10.5″
17.5cm x 26.7cm 2062 x 3150
Landscape, 9″ x 7″ 9.25″ x 7.25″
23.5cm x 18.4cm 2775 x 2175
Square, 7.5″ x 7.5″ 7.75″ x 7.75″
19.7cm x 19.7cm 2325 x 2325
Square, 8.5″ x 8.5″ 8.75″ x 8.75″
22.2cm x 22.2cm 2625 x 2625
Pocket Size, 4.25″ x 6.875″ 4.5″ x 7.125″
11.4cm x 18.1cm 1350 x 2138
Royal, 15.6cm x 23.4cm 16.2cm x 24cm
6.4″ x 9.4″ 1876 x 2832
Crown Quarto, 18.9cm x 24.6cm 19.5cm x 25.2cm
7.7″ x 9.9″ 2307 x 2979
A4, 21.0cm x 29.7cm 21.6cm x 30.3cm
8.5″ x 11.9″ 2556 x 3582
When you publish a full bleed PDF, the size that shows up on the site will round up, so a 6×9 book using a 6.25″ x 9.25″ source PDF will show as 6.3″ x 9.3″. Don’t worry; it will print as 6×9 and trim the bleeds correctly.

How big should my margins be?
Leave at least .5″ margins on all your pages. Most books will require a gutter of .2″ to .3″. A gutter provides a little bit of extra margin on the spine edge of your pages, making your book easier to read without putting too much stress on the spine. For coil-bound books, the coils bite about 5/16″ (8mm) on the spine edge, but we would suggest a gutter of 3/8″ (9mm).

Follow these directions to set your document (example 6”x9”:
Adobe InDesign: Choose New> Document from the File menu, then use the measurements as below ( to change the units & increments from cm/mm into inches or viceversa, first choose preferences from the Indesign menu). Save the preset as lulu 6×9 (or as appropriate to describe your doc)

What types of binding are available?
* Perfect bound: A paperback book where the title and author’s name are printed on the spine.
Perfect Bound
Your book should have 70-80 pages for text to appear on the spine. If it is less than 32 pages, it will be saddle-stitched. If your book is more than 740 pages, publish it as a multiple-volume set.

* Saddle stitch: A stapled booklet.
Saddle Stitch
Best for very thin books. Your page count should be divisible by 4. If it is not, the printer adds enough blank pages to the back of your book to make its page count divisible by 4.

* PlastiCoil: A spiral bound book (like a spiral notebook).
PlastiCoil

* Dust Jacket Hardcover: A book bound in navy blue linen with a full-color dust jacket.
* Casewrap Hardcover: Full-color, glossy cover. Does not come with a dust jacket.
Settings for image files within the PDF:

# Image compression should be set to ZIP if you want lossless (no artifacts/distortion-free) images. To reduce filesize, use JPEG -> High.
# If you are printing a color book that has black & white images in it, the black & white images should have the colorspace set to grayscale.
# Leave the images’ colorspace in their original profiles. Do not convert CMYK to RGB or vice versa.
# Do not use CCITT or LZW compression. LZW compression creates multi-strip images, which may show white lines when printed.
# Use ZIP encoding for grayscale images.
# The gamma of a grayscale image should be between 2.2 and 2.4.
# DPI should be between 300 and 600 DPI.

What fonts can I use in my document?

If you are planning to upload your own PDF, you may use any fonts you like, but you must embed the fonts in the PDF before uploading to Lulu. If you are planning to have Lulu convert your document to a PDF, be sure to choose fonts from the following list. If you use a font that is not on this list, the Lulu converter will substitute one of these fonts in its place. This may adversely affect your formatting.

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

Follow these general guidelines when choosing your fonts:

* Serif fonts are best for printed documents. Use serif fonts like Garamond, Times New Roman and Palatino for blocks of body text.
* Sans serif fonts are best for online documents and for display text. Use sans serif fonts like Arial and Verdana if you intend your book to be viewed online.
* Use bold sans serif fonts for title text or headings.

Reasons files may not print
If you uploaded a PDF and your document was rejected by Lulu’s printer, you will receive an email notice from Lulu. In this case, it is highly recommended that you allow Lulu to convert your source document to a PDF, as your chance for a successful print experience will be greatly increased. It is also highly recommended that you upload only one source document to Lulu.
If you uploaded your book as a password protected file, the printer cannot access your document to print it. To correct this problem, simply create a new revision of your book, delete the current password protected file, upload a non-password protected file and republish.
One reason that files do not print is that they are created with multiple source documents. If your project consists of multiple source documents, please create a new revision, remove the current source files, merge the separate files into one file, upload the new file and republish the project. Our system accepts different types of documents, but we have the greatest success with .pdf or .doc format.
A second reason that prevents files from printing is font issues. In particular, embedded subset fonts. Our printer may reject files that do not have the complete font embedded into the PDF. We recommend the following fonts: Arial, Book Antiqua, Bookman Old Style, Century, Courier, Garamond, Palatino, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Verdana, Symbol.

How do I set my royalty and the final price of my work?

At Lulu, you set the royalty for your own work. Instead of charging you for publishing services, Lulu earns a 20% commission on each item sold. (For more details, see How is the Lulu commission calculated?)

Pricing is a simple equation: Price = Production Cost + Royalty + Lulu Commission (shipping is extra)

* Downloads have no production costs. Your royalty constitutes 80% of the selling price.
* Print products have production costs. The selling price of the content reflects the production cost, your royalty and the Lulu commission.

You can also publish your title without a royalty. If you do this, we waive the Lulu commission and the selling price of your title is the production cost. For downloads, the content is free.

When you are uploading your file, the Pricing & Royalty section (step 5) will help you work through selling price and royalty combinations in real-time. When you enter a royalty, the calculator fills in the Lulu commission and price fields. When the Pricing & Royalty section is first displayed in Step 5, the amounts shown are the production costs for each distribution format (print or download). You can:

* Enter a royalty amount and let Lulu calculate the selling prices.
* Enter a selling price for one format and Lulu calculates your royalty and the other selling price.
* Enter $0 in the Your Royalty field to reset the amounts back to production costs.

Book Pricing Examples
Lulu commission (20% of total profit)
Price = Production Costs + Royalty (calculated by Lulu) + Lulu Commission (20% of total profit)

Enter your selling price If you know what you want to charge, let Lulu calculate the royalty and fees for you. Enter a price for one format, and Lulu calculates your royalty and the other selling price.

For example, if you want to offer your book for $19.95/£14.65, enter $19.95/£14.65in the print price field. The following equation shows the new royalty and Lulu commission amounts.

$ 4.00/£2.06 Printing cost (2¢/page x 200 pages)

+ 4.53/£2.33 Fixed fee for cover, binding, setup
———
$ 8.53/£4.39 Production costs

+ 9.14/£4.7 Royalty
+ 2.28/£1.17 Lulu commission (20% of total profit)
======
$ 19.95/£14.65 Price

Editing Checklist for Books
When you publish your book, there are a number of things you must do —
• make the table of contents,
• format your manuscript,
• design a cover.
But hidden in these things are a number of elements that are very easy to overlook:
1. Consistency
Subtle differences in fonts, size and spacing can make your book difficult to read and gives it a sloppy look. The best way to prevent this is to maintain your manuscript in a single file. When you make a change, make it to the entire document. This also makes it easier to number the pages.
2. Simplicity
Using the ‘Select All’ features of your editor (MS Word, usually) you should select a common, easy-to-read serif font such as Garamond or Times New Roman. Use this single font across all chapters. You can use a slightly different font for chapter titles and such, but in general, stick to a single font.
3. White Space
Look at your cover and your content. Is there plenty of border (white space) around your text? At the start of each chapter, try pushing your text down to the halfway point on the page and center the chapter title in the middle of the now empty space on the top of the page. Be sure to give yourself at least 1″ borders all around.
4. Initial Caps
When you start a chapter, use initial caps (often called drop caps). That’s when the first letter in a chapter is very large, spanning 2-3 lines. Editing tools such as MS Word have a Drop Caps option under the Format menu. Don’t get too carried away — you don’t want to lose readability. Raised and Adjacent caps are subtle variations on this very distinctive typesetting tool.
5. Headers and Footers
Start your page numbering so that page one is on your right as you look at the book. Headers and footers should be unobtrusive. Traditionally, the left headers (even pages) are the book title and right headers (odd pages) are chapter title. The first page of a chapter should have a blank header. MS Word has its most useful header and footer controls in Page Setup under the File menu.
6. Lines Per Page
Too many lines per page can make a book very difficult to read. For a 6″ x 9″ book, less than 30 lines per page is good. 50 lines or less is good for an 8.5″ x 11″ book. You can set these across your document by using 1.5 line spacing using the Paragraph tools under the Format menu.
7. Paragraph Formatting
It’s easy to forget, since people don’t do it on e-mail, but you should always indent paragraphs. That’s why there’s a tab key! You should also pay close attention to the spacing between paragraphs. There should be no space between paragraphs that take place in the same time and place. Don’t forget to justify your paragraphs!
8. Gutter
Finally, most books lose a little of the readable page to the gutter, the inside margin. Microsoft Word allows you to compensate for this in Page Setup under the File menu. Set your document for Mirror Margins, Whole Document, and make the gutter 0.1 or 0.2, depending on the thickness of your book. Get your text out of the gutter!
NOTE: Be sure to upload only non-password protected documents. The printer cannot access password protected files and will not be able to print your book.

BOOK COVER

Should I include my cover in the same file as the rest of my book?
No. Your cover should be completely separate from your main document. You will upload your cover file(s) in a separate step of the publishing process.

What is the difference between a one-piece cover and separate front and back covers?
One-piece covers allow for complete customization of your book cover. Uploading a one-piece cover is the only way to create a design on the spine of your book. (Standard spines must be a solid color. You may opt to have the book’s title printed on the spine.)
Lulu will not add anything to your one-piece cover, including an ISBN bar code. If you plan to upload a one-piece cover for your ISBN book, you must generate your own bar code and add it to your cover.
One-piece (wrap around) cover files must be PDF. Cover files that are uploaded separately must be JPG, GIF or PNG files of at least 300dpi.

Tips for creating your one-piece cover PDF
Since we have introduced one-piece covers, we have seen a number of covers that have trouble printing. This is because our automated cover creation process created a PDF that was flattened to a single layer. However, it is possible to create a very complex PDF using Adobe Illustrator with many layers, fonts etc. Don’t do this.
The more complex the PDF, the greater chance that the process of rasterizing for print will generate errors. If you’ve created a cover PDF that uses fonts and separate images, your best option is to open the PDF in Photoshop — it will automatically ask for DPI (300 is optimal) and color palette (choose RGB). It will then rasterize the file to a single layer.
Please Note: All printed books — not just Lulu books — can have a slightly offset spine. Some of the spine may spill onto the cover, or some of the cover onto the spine. The difference is minor and won’t be greater than 1/8th of an inch. Still, because of this, we recommend you don’t use sharply contrasting colors for your spine and covers.

What dimensions should my one piece (wraparound) cover have?
Your one piece (wrap around) cover file must be a PDF.
The table below shows the dimensions for one-piece covers for paperback books. If you have already prepared your manuscript and know its size and page count, you can use the spine size calculator to calculate the width of your spine, then add the spine width to the dimensions shown below to determine the dimensions of your one piece cover PDF.
One-Piece Cover Size Requirements
Book Size
Size of PDF to Upload (Width x Height)
Size in Pixels
At 300DPI
Paperback books
6″ x 9″
12.25″ (+ spine) x 9.25″
31.1cm (+ spine) x 23.5cm
3675 (+ spine) x 2775
8.5″ x 11″
17.25″ (+ spine) x 11.25″
43.8cm (+ spine) x 28.6cm
5175 (+ spine) x 3375
Comic, 6.625″ x 10.25″
13.5″ (+ spine) x 10.5″
34.3cm (+ spine) x 26.7cm
4050 (+ spine) x 3150
Landscape, 9″ x 7″
18.25″ (+ spine) x 7.25″
46.4cm (+ spine) x 18.4 cm
5475 (+ spine) x 2175
Square, 7.5″ x 7.5″
15.25″ (+ spine) x 7.75″
38.7cm (+ spine) x 19.7cm
4575 (+ spine) x 2325
Square, 8.5″ x 8.5″
17.25″ (+ spine) x 8.75″
43.8cm (+ spine) x 22.2cm
5175 (+ spine) x 2625
Pocket Size, 4.25″ x 6.875″
8.75″ (+ spine) x 7.125″
22.2cm (+ spine) x 18.1cm
2625 (+ spine) x 2138

How can I make sure my images will print exactly as I want them to?
When you include illustrations, photographs and other images in your book, most times they will print correctly. There are a few things you can do to ensure the picture quality is what you expect.
0.    If you are uploading images inside your own PDF, see How can I be sure my PDF will print correctly?
0.    Before uploading, print your source document and review how the images print.
0.    If you are uploading a PDF, print the PDF and review how the images translated into the PDF.

How can I be sure my PDF will print correctly?
If you are uploading your own PDF, follow these guidelines.
For paperbacks
0.    Settings for exporting to PDF or creating from Distiller:
0.
0.    Fully embed all fonts used in the document. Subsetted fonts over multiple pages can cause problems when your PDF is rasterized for print. Your document may be printed with symbols instead of fonts, garbled text or missing text.
0.    Set compatibility mode to Acrobat 5
0.    Leave the PDF’s colorspace in its original profile. Do not convert CMYK to RGB or vice versa.
0.    Turn off Overprint and Simulate Overprint
0.    The PDF filesize should not exceed 700MB
0.    Do not downsample your images unless they are fully rasterized. If they are fully rasterized and the DPI is greater than 300, downsample to 300 DPI.
0.    Flatten your final PDF to a single layer.
0.
0.    Settings for image files within the PDF:
0.
0.    Image compression should be set to ZIP if you want lossless (no artifacts/distortion-free) images. To reduce filesize, use JPEG -> High.
0.    If you are printing a color book that has black & white images in it, the black & white images should have the colorspace set to grayscale.
0.    Leave the images’ colorspace in their original profiles. Do not convert CMYK to RGB or vice versa.
0.    Do not use CCITT or LZW compression. LZW compression creates multi-strip images, which may show white lines when printed.
0.    Use ZIP encoding for grayscale images.
0.    The gamma of a grayscale image should be between 2.2 and 2.4.
0.    DPI should be between 300 and 600 DPI.

Color casewrap hardcovers
0.    DPI should be between 300 and 600 DPI.
0.    Use an untagged CMYK workflow with CMYK TIFFs whenever possible. If the original workflow was RGB, do not convert to CMYK.
0.    Solid blacks will print solid at 100% with no other colors added. If you do add colors to improve the richness of the black, TAC (total area coverage) should never exceed 270%.
Avoid very light color builds of less than 20%. Below 20% tint variation is very difficult to control on a consistent basis.

PDF CONVERSION

http://athleticaid.com/yaquinapress/other1/PDF-realities.html
Creating compatible PDFs

Image layers and overlays of transparent objects should be “flattened” before exporting to PDF. This can be far more difficult than it seems at first blush. For instance InDesign can uses a variety of different flattening technologies under different circumstances. InDesign also permits user-defined flattening specifications to be set for the whole document or for individual pages. It may be quite difficult to determine a flattening technique that maintains all characteristics of the image.

By far the easier tactic is to make complex images in an image processing program. Flatten that image before saving, make sure its color mode is RGB, and then save it as a PNG or JPG file that you can import into your page design program. In the page design program, avoid using techniques and effects that result in transparent objects. An example is “drop shadow” effects.

Look carefully at the exported PDF to be sure that your image came through as you intended it to look.

5. The proof of the pudding….

If you have an Acrobat 5 compatible PDF (PDF version 1.4), flattened layers and transparent objects before exporting to PDF and made your images in RGB mode, the chances are very good that major printing issues will be avoided. Nevertheless, it is essential that you order a proof and examine it carefully before buying in quantity or making your project available to the public. The only sure way to know that a PDF will print properly is to print it.

6. Additional reading and useful information:

The links below have advice that is targeted at Adobe’s InDesign, but many of the details also apply to other sophisticated graphics and page layout programs.

Lulu author Nathan Carnes has learned a number of important things about making compatible PDFs using InDesign. His tutorial is here.

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/20012.html?origin=story
and this chapter:

Click to access 082003_IDprinttrans.pdf

http://www.nickhodge.com/mne.php?mcid=994
http://www.nickhodge.com/mne.php?mcid=801

Adobe has convinced computer users that PDF documents are totally portable. It is easy to believe that a PDF which looks right will also print correctly. That is not always true. High-speed digital printers such as those used in printing Lulu books present special problems in printing PDFs. These printers have special PDF requirements. Do not assume that printing on your desktop printer is a sufficient test of your PDF.

Some document creation programs, particularly sophisticated image editing programs like Photoshop and publishing programs like InDesign, are capable of making highly complex PDF files that have multiple overlapping image and font elements. These elements can have varying amounts of “transparency,” allowing partial viewing through them to reveal overlapped elements below. Eventually all of the elements must be flattened into a bit map image that is printed. The bit map is made up of a two dimensional array of pixels, one per spot. Each pixel has a color that depends on the order and transparencies of the overlapping elements at that location in the original image.

Do not forget this: Do not order your book in quantity or make it available to the public before you have seen and approved of a printed copy from Lulu.

What resolution (DPI) should my images have to achieve optimum print quality?
We’ve tested print quality at various resolutions and found that 300dpi is the optimum resolution. 600dpi is our limit at this time, but any improvement in print quality over 300dpi is not noticeable, and the file size is huge.

Should I use CMYK, RGB or grayscale images?
Depending on which type of binding you choose for your book, there are different ways to optimize your document for print.
0.    For all black and white books (except comic size), the source document and images should be in greyscale mode.
0.    For full color books, the source document and/or images should be in the original colorspace. If it was created in RGB, DO NOT convert it to CMYK and vice versa.
If your full color book contains black and white images, set each black and white image to grayscale.

Do I have to upload my book in double-page spreads?
No, we use single-page printing, similar to your home printer. Landscape, or horizontal, pages or images that you intend to spread across two pages must be split accordingly to print correctly.

InDesign CS2: Printing and Prepress guide
http://www.nickhodge.com/mn8/section/83/
Manage and inspect entire projects with Adobe Bridge
The new Adobe Bridge component lets you view and modify folder contents with much more •exibility than is currently available through your computer’s •le system. Adobe Bridge is included with Adobe Creative Suite 2 and also with the standalone version of Adobe InDesign CS2.
A key feature of Adobe Bridge is the ability to inspect swatches, fonts, and metadata for an Adobe InDesign CS2 document without having to open the document. Metadata is informa-tion that can be attached to each •le that describes the •le’s contents, and can be generated by applications or entered by hand. Adobe Creative Suite 2 components (including InDesign CS2) automatically embed certain types of metadata in their •les. For example, the fonts and swatches used in an InDesign CS2 document are automatically listed in Adobe Bridge so that you don’t even have to open the document to discover this information—instead, simply take a brief glance at Adobe Bridge. You can also use Adobe Bridge to •nd •les using metadata as search criteria, such as locating all documents that use the Myriad font. You can also use Adobe Bridge to manually tag InDesign CS2 and other Adobe Creative Suite 2 documents with metadata such as keywords.
Production sta• and service providers can use Adobe Bridge to more easily inspect and track the publications and assets that are part of a job. Adobe Bridge is similar in concept to the Adobe Photoshop CS File Browser, but works with all Adobe Creative Suite 2 documents.

Using PDF Optimizer

PDF Optimizer provides many settings for reducing the size of Adobe PDF files. Whether you use all of these settings or only a few depends on how you intend to use the files and on the essential properties a file must have. In most cases, the default settings are appropriate for maximum efficiency–saving space by removing some embedded fonts, compressing images, and removing items from the file that are no longer needed.
Before you optimize a file, it’s a good idea to audit the file’s space usage to get a report of the total number of bytes used for specific document elements, including fonts, images, bookmarks, forms, named destinations, and comments, as well as the total file size. The results are reported both in bytes and as a percentage of the total file size. The space audit results may give you ideas about where best to reduce file size.
Important: Some methods of compression may make images unusable in a print production workflow. You should experiment with various settings before making changes that can’t be discarded.
To audit the space usage of an Adobe PDF file:
1    Do one of the following to open the PDF Optimizer dialog box:
Choose Advanced > PDF Optimizer.
Choose Tools > Print Production > PDF Optimizer.
Click the PDF Optimizer icon in the Print Production toolbar.
2    Click the Audit Space Usage button at the top of the dialog box.
3
Note: Optimizing a digitally signed document invalidates the signature.
To optimize an Adobe PDF file:
1    Do one of the following to open the PDF Optimizer dialog box:
Choose Advanced > PDF Optimizer.
Choose Tools > Print Production > PDF Optimizer.
Click the PDF Optimizer icon in the Print Production toolbar.

2    Note: PDF Optimizer isn’t available when Reflow is selected in the View menu.From the Make Compatible With menu, choose a version of Acrobat that the PDF will be compatible with. (The options available in panels vary depending on this choice.)
3    Select Images on the left, and then select the options you want for color, grayscale, and monochrome images. (See Using Images settings.)
4    Select Scanned Pages on the left to balance compression and image quality and apply filters. (See Using Scanned Pages settings.)
5    Select Fonts on the left, and then unembed any fonts that aren’t needed, such as system fonts or fonts that you know are already installed on users’ computers. (See Using Fonts settings.)
6    Select Transparency on the left to implement transparency flattening and set flattening options. (See Using Transparency settings.)
7    Select Discard Objects on the left to select which objects to discard and whether to convert smooth lines to curves. (See Using Discard Objects settings.)
8    Select Clean Up on the left to set additional compression options, encoding options, items to be removed or discarded from the file, and whether to apply Fast Web View. (See Using Clean Up settings.)
9    Click the Save button to save and name your customized settings. (You can delete any saved settings by selecting the file name and clicking the Delete button.)
10    When you are finished selecting options, click OK.
11    In the Save Optimized As dialog box, click Save to overwrite the original file with the optimized file, or select a new name or location.

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