The Trials and Tribulations of Georg and Lulu · 3:15am Mar 7th, 2019
For those of you who don't know, Lulu is the self-publishing company that many of us are doing our Bronycon Bookstore books on. It's a bit arcane with some fiddley bits, which I'll whine about below the break (with a sneak peek at drafts of the printed version)
Anyway, in Lulu if you go straight into Create Your Book, it requires a formatted PDF file, but if you go into projects, make a new one (and specify "make available only to me") you can import a Word file and it will format it to PDF for you. Since I'm lazy, that's how I've been making my 'How Is This Going To Look... No, Better Fix That First' digital copies to look over, wince at things I should have caught a year ago, fix, and repeat. So I'm messing around with the Lulu 6x9 templates for The One Who Got Away/Drifting Down the Lazy River, produce a draft of the combined set, fix about a hundred things over two weeks, then produce another draft... that looks totally different.
First draft with indented paragraphs and very book-like appearance
Second cleaner draft with un-indented paragraphs and very web-like appearance... oops?
Sigh. Still working on it. Looking better all the time.
(Wonder if I missed getting the template formatting carried along on the second one. Hm....)
UPDATE: Version 3, where I got both the template formatting and the alignment set up
It's still not perfect, because I have some spacing issues I have to manually clear on One's letters, and the Quotes are supposed to be Garamond 11 instead of Garamond 12, but maybe Lulu up-scales all the fonts to 12 points??
I wish I had the space for more paper books, I really do. But if I had paper for half the books I would like to.... I'd have to annex the neighbours apartment for a library. 2.5 bookshelves (.25 movies and .25 pony swag) and a closet full of books I barely read means I have to stick to my e-reader... e-ink is going to have to be close enough.
Hey, brother. How many copies are you printing? I originally planned on bringing 20 copies of Under A Luminous Sky, but now I think that might be a bit... ambitious.
I so want to participate, but "The Iron Horse" is so huge that making a print copy just intimidates me. But you folks braving it are making me think about rolling up my sleeves and giving it a shot.
5024369 You haven't seen my basement. We're repainting, so all the books have to be moved. Asimov, Heinlein, Drake, Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, stories of Valdemar, Pern, Foundation, Bujold, et al...
5024370 I'm going to take inventory of everybody who says they want to buy a copy before I order, go for maybe 20 more, and hope I don't have a bunch of Christmas presents at the end. The Lazy Dragon of Dragonvale is a gimmie, because I've got nieces and nephews out the wazoo, so I can overshoot on that no prob.
5024377
Any battletech? I tried to get into those books but it was too hard to find even a small portion of the series. I had to settle for a few stand alone novels
I would buy this. Maybe even twice to send one to a friend.
5024404 Or an enemy. (snerk)
5024379 Maybe one or two that snuck in by happenstance. They're fun, but I always had issues keeping the characters separated.
5024373 Sure, it's only... um.. four times larger than this one. To be honest, most of the work is prettyfying the end result. Putting these two into PDF files made some of my mistakes stand out and strobe. I fixed spacing, alignment, phrasing, and a misspelled title of all things. My best wild guess is about ten bucks a copy for printing/shipping costs, and since fanfiction can only be sold at actual cost to avoid having Hasbro lawyers at your throat, all that is a labor of love. Or insanity.
Ok, everybody. I've got a *third* version up now that seems workable, once I clean up a dozen or two spacing issues. Now to work with Iisaw on the cover...
Oh, boy, fun times. I'm working on formatting a book for the BronyCon Bookstore, too. It's been "fun" formatting things, so I really hope I don't run into any issues like that when trying to convert to PDF for the final printing... but I probably will. And I'm mostly expecting it to be font issues (Like "sorry, that's the wrong Garamond").
I don't think Lulu upscales to 12 point. I was reading some discussions from other people who had supposedly printed much smaller than that. Usually in the context of "I really should have printed in 12 point instead."
Good luck with the printing. I hope it goes well!
I would totally snag myself a copy of The Lazy Dragon.
What I want to know: Is there any possibility that those of us who cannot make it to Bronycon can still buy a copy of your book? I love the idea of the bookstore, but until you announced I hadn't seen any potential books that I just HAD to have.
5024566 Yep. Postage will run up the delivery a bit, but shouldn't be too bad. Seriously, if I wind up printing more than thirty, I'll be shocked.
5024561 My next project. It's going to be a little more difficult since it will be a Draw Your Own Dragon book, and I'll have to put in boxes for the children to draw in.
5024469 Printing a PDF from Lulu may not (and probably can't) change typeface sizes, but their Word->PDF converter may. I'm still dinking with it.
Ah yes, the joys of Lulu's oddity
It may be too much to ask..... "The traveling tutor trilogy " with the addition of "Diplomacy by other means " at the end for a Lulu selection (it's not like your plate is not overflowing at this point). I know I would purchase that in a New York minute! (I'll go away and be quiet now.........🤐)........
5024571
i.imgur.com/eFfmdb3_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium
I feel it's cruel, appropriate, and hilarious to point out that you've misspelled "Gabardine".
...oh, wait. "Gaberdine" is also a word. Just a different one.
5027720 Ironically, that spelling relates to an outfit used mostly by Jewish moneycounters. Also, ironically since he is engaged in a journey of discovery...
Origin
Early 16th century: from Old French gauvardine, earlier gallevardine, perhaps from Middle High German wallevart ‘pilgrimage’ and originally ‘a garment worn by a pilgrim’. The textile sense is first recorded in the early 20th century.