Jabber Lulu (new posts)

Tips & Trickes: Re: Tips & Tricks

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:57:17 +0000

Having published books and magazines for a number of years I'm quite used to creating Prepress PDFs. This allows traditional printers to take these and create the printing press plates with the miminum of intervention and produce final copy exactly as I designed it and would view in the Prepress PDF.
Having tried the same aproach with Lulu I noticed on a number of occassions that my PDFs were being processed and not always ending up as my original.
I now believe that the reason for this is that by creating a PDF with the exact dimensions for the finished product that the PDF is passed through the 'Lulu Converter'.
To avoid this the trick is to make the complete source document and subsequent Prepress PDF the full bleed size. For example rather using 6"x9" for a Royal document use 6.25"x9.25". This then bypasses the converter and the file goes straight to the printers who use it and then trim down to 9"x6".

Tips & Trickes: Re: Tips & Trickes

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:39:06 +0000

At the foot of each Lulu webpage are two boxes where one can select Country and Language.
These can be used for seeing book costs/prices in other currencies than those normally displayed to you.
Another way that they can be used is create Calendars in different languages. For example by setting the Country to Spain and then creating a calendar both the months and days would be displayed in the Spanish language.
Olé.

E-Books Mobipocket: Re: E-Books Mobipocket

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:39:51 +0000

The text to speech element is an integral part of the Reader I downloaded for Word 2000 some time ago. It is elements like this that might prove to be a selling point for those with poor eyesight. Because a peropsn can't see so wlel doesn't mean their imagination has gone. Trouble is, the accent drags and the prounciation of irregular proper nouns is, of course, a bit odd.

Peter

E-Books Mobipocket: Re: E-Books Mobipocket

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:48:46 +0000

You could take a look at Word Differences

Also the Microsoft Reader creator at Reader Creator seems to be work with many different versions of Word not just 2002.

I've just downloaded and created a small book with it. The to have a bit oif fun I also downloaded and installed the Microsoft Text-to-Speech Package to go with the Reader. It's quite nice to hear ones book being spoken - even in computer speak!!
Has anyone else tried the Text-to-Speech Package yet?

E-Books Mobipocket: Re: E-Books Mobipocket

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:17:39 +0000

I'd love to know the difference between Word 2000 (in my eyes the "new" version of the program in that it vastly differed from previous incarnations) and subsequent versions, that look superficially the same. It's an expensive job keeping up. I'm way out of date with Word 2000, and, by God, so are you with Word 2003, Taff!

Peter

Tips & Trickes: Re: Tips & Trickes

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:00:15 +0000

A question commonly seem in the Lulu helpf forums is to how to correctly number pages when using MS Word.
I've created a short tutorial which folks can obtain for free at Page Numbering

Tips & Trickes: Tips & Trickes

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:57:01 +0000

Here is a handy tip on the subject of mock-ups and dummy page there is something known as the Lorem Ipsum Generator.
It can be found on the Web at http://www.lipsum.com
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
The Generator enables one to create as many characters, words or paragraphs of real looking but dummy text that can be used to test page layouts and/or create dummy pages.

He did - the Welshman did it!: Re: He did - the Welshman did it!

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 08:06:35 +0000

There's an option right at the start to take a pdf copy from Lulu, and their system seems very reliable to me. However, and this cross-references to a query I've put on a different thread, right at the beginning of my time with Lulu I downloaded a copy of one of my books, the first one I believe - The Gentleman of the Road - because for some reason I couldn't find the original Lulu copy on my computer, and I think that download is at the heart of my confusion regarding sold downloads, and has been included on the list wheras a genuine sold title has been dropped off. It makes sense to me, but I will pursue it in my usual dilitary way - some time in 2012, no doubt.

Peter

Products for Sale: Re: Products for Sale

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 19:38:39 +0000

«It's not going to be quiet at the Fairs - surely not!!»

Generally no, especially for one day events, but at the recent week long Stamford Literary festival it was so quiet during the week at times that I proof read a friend's novel for them!!

Taff

He did - the Welshman did it!: Re: He did - the Welshman did it!

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:37:25 +0000

I've never had any problems downloading the Lulu PDFs of my books, though as I upload them as PDFs I generally only do this to check that they're the same. It is though very handy for books which are uploaded in parts as the Lulu PDF will be a single file.

I have, though, had quite a few problems downloading the PDFs for calendars, but this was resolved after a few days.

Products for Sale: Re: Products for Sale

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:29:34 +0000

I'm deeply moved, Taff. And I think I've worked out what has happened. One of the titles mentioned on the View Details page is one that shouldn't be there (which is a shame, because it's one of my best), and one that should be there has somehow vanished. I believe the actual totals (revenue) are correct.

Peter

Products for Sale: Re: Products for Sale

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:34:08 +0000

It's not going to be quiet at the Fairs - surely not!!

He did - the Welshman did it!: He did - the Welshman did it!

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 22:44:26 +0000

Well as I've been a moderator on Lulu for a few months now and have almost 300 posts I thought I'd better finally try out their tools!! Lol

I uploaded a small short story (2800 words) just to test it out. Results were quite good, better than I expected.
Its over on my store front if youw ant to download (its free). Its a nine page tongue in cheek insight into PoD publishing.

One thing I noticed (and I can't remember who told me) but two Lulu authors both said that they do not have access to the PDF of their work when it is modified. That's incorrect. When the document is converted you have the option of saving it locally to your hard drive. As such there is NOTHING to stop you taking this PDF to a local printer if you so choose.

Taff

Products for Sale: Re: Products for Sale

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 22:40:37 +0000

Peter,

I downloaded "Love's Deadly Dawning" earlier today so that was the sale.
I'll tranfer it to my laptop and it will be my reading when things are quiet atcraft/book fairs and such like.

Taff

E-Books Mobipocket: Re: E-Books Mobipocket

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 22:37:54 +0000

and I have Word 2003 LOL
No worries - I was just being lazy. I browse over to MS and see if I can find the addon.

Taff

Products for Sale: Re: Products for Sale

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:20:33 +0000

Roger

I thought that this might have been something to do with how Lulu displays sales, with older sales vanishing into the 'total sold to date area'. My settings shows the sales since March 22, those since February 27, and the total since I joined. But I cannot see anyway of changing those settings. It might be that, like with storefronts, you have different settings depending on when you joined.

The only odd thing I have noticed is with free downloads - these showed as sales, but no revenue, and then vanished at the end of the month.

One other oddity - my last payment was in sterling, but my account shows the same figures but in US dollars!!

Best wishes

Susan

Products for Sale: Re: Products for Sale

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:57:13 +0000

I've put a note about this, with a request to Lulu staff, on our Lulu forum, but it's niggling at my mind. I haven't sold any books for ages directly from Lulu - all that I've sold have been the few I've dealt with personally. But I check my account once a day and sometimes more often than that. For most of this year so far I've had one download title as paid for, "Oficer Gentry and the Ghost of Mavis Adder", and I had a generous review of it from the purchaser. When I checked today I found, to my joy, another sale had been made so I checked on the details to find that the original download had disappeared altogether and two of my other books were there as downloads.
I'm pretty sure that "Officer" sold because I took note of the generous review whish must have been by someone who's read the book, but why have two more replaced it on the details list? Which is the one that sold ("The Gentleman of the Road" or "Love's Deadly Dawning") or did they both and has something gone wrong with calculating download sales?
In short, has anyone else had problems or noticed any inconsistencies on the Lulu sales front?

Peter

E-Books Mobipocket: Re: E-Books Mobipocket

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:10:57 +0000

Taff,
I downloaded it free from Microsoft. It's an add-on for Microsoft Word. I can't tell you more than that because I've actually forgotten exactly what I had to do, but it must have been very obvious for me to have got to grips with it. It puts a little tree icon on-screen on Word. I'll take a peek now and if I find something that reminds me I'll add an addendum to this comment.

Peter

I've looked. The following link seems to be it, but it specifies Word 2002 and I use Word 2000, so maybe there's an older version lurking about somewhere http://thesource.ofallevil.com/reader/developers/info/rmr.asp

I've looked further into this and the following link might help: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=A9D2B0D4-A29E-4954-9641-8B079220D16C&displaylang=EN

E-Books Mobipocket: Re: E-Books Mobipocket

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:35:44 +0000

Peter,
I can do a similar compare . Where did you get the MS Reader converter?

Taff

E-Books Mobipocket: Re: E-Books Mobipocket

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 11:27:18 +0000

I know this isn't relevant to commercially produce e-titles, but my observations may have some validity. I have converted the same title to Microsoft Reader and Mobipocket use. For mobipocket I converted both a text file and a pdf file. Judging from the qualities of these self-converted titles I prefer Microsoft Reader. The Mobipocket text is clearer being larger and with a clear font, but paragraphing is indistinct, the titles merge on the same line as the start of the text and the whole thing looks muddled. I haven't looked at any settings that might improve things because I haven't found any!! On the other hand Microsoft Reader looks more like a book albeit on screen, has settings for font size and will read the book to you if that's the kind of thing that works for you. If nothing else it would help the partially sighted or blind even though the pronunciation, being phonetic, has fun with some proper nouns! If anyone out there could complete this brief analysis of protected readers I think it would be helpful.

Peter