Design and publish your book

The old adage reckons everyone has a book inside them. Whether or not that’s true, what is certain is that it’s now easier than ever to get your literary gem out into the real world, thanks to print-on-demand services. In essence, these make it affordable for anyone to publish a book, newspaper or just a comic.

In this article we are going to explore the many options available to modern self-publishers. We will show how to handle every aspect of the process, from choosing a paper size to creating layouts and making sure the finished product looks its best.

Self-publishing might seem like a daunting task, especially if you have never tried to design a book cover or lay out a page before, but it’s all a lot simpler than you’d think. No specialist knowledge is required to get started and it isn’t necessarily very expensive, either – prices for publishing a paperback novel start at around £5.

The advent of printing on demand
Self-publishing has become more widely available and affordable due to changes in printing technology. Traditional printing methods require the creation of physical printing plates before pages can be printed, so it is cost-effective only to print large numbers of copies of books or magazines.

Digital printing technology, on the other hand, doesn’t require these expensive plates. As well as speeding up the publishing process, this also makes the overall cost for small print runs much lower – even though the cost per page tends to be slightly higher. While professional printing companies can achieve crisper printing than your home or office inkjet printer produces, the principle is the same.

The availability of digital printing technology led to the creation of numerous businesses that specialise in printing small numbers of copies – even, in the case of many print-on-demand services, one copy at a time.

Add in the popularity of online retailers and it’s now much easier to create and distribute a self-published book than it would have been 20 years or even just 10 years ago.

Online self-publishing company Lulu, for example, allows users to sell books through its own website, through the likes of Amazon and even through traditional bricks-and-mortar bookshops.

Lulu is perhaps the most well-known print-on-demand publisher but it certainly isn’t the only company to offer such services. Amazon’s Create Space, for instance, sells a variety of self-publishing packages, from simple print-on-demand services to editing, design and marketing packages, while Blurb specialises in books containing photography, and has a directory of book designers available if you want to hire in some expert help.

 

Beyond books, Magcloud is a print-on-demand magazine publisher owned by HP, while Newspaper Club is a good service to use to create a full-colour newspaper.

Choosing the right kind of project
Before starting work on any project, think about exactly what the expectations for the finished product are. How many copies need to be printed? Do you simply want a book that can be put on a shelf to show to friends, or is cracking the best-seller list your plan?

Remember that by choosing to publish your own work, you’re taking on all the roles a publisher would play. If you want to make money from your work, you’ll need to think about getting a professionally designed cover created, and maybe hiring an editor to ensure your writing is as good as it can be.

Marketing and accounts will need to be considered and, depending on which package or service is used, possibly distribution channels, too. Including all those things adds to costs – but don’t be put off if your needs are simpler.

Using Lulu, you can print a single copy of a 200-page paperback book for just over £6. If you want a hardback copy of that same book, it’ll cost £14.40, and demanding a dust jacket will raise the price to £15.60 – about the same as you might expect to pay for a commercial hardback book these days.

Incidentally, for help with some of the terms you will encounter when considering the options, see the self-publishing glossary box at the end of this article.

Ordering in bulk is the way to reduce the cost per unit. Ordering one 12-page newspaper from Newspaper Club, for example, will cost £14, but 100 copies of the same publication comes to £169 – bringing the cost price down to £1.69 per copy.

Most print-on-demand sites offer price calculators to help choose the right project type and print run.

Self-publishing is often dismissively called ‘vanity’ publishing and, while these new print-on-demand services are different from the traditional vanity presses that preyed upon the egos of would-be authors, it’s important to retain realistic expectations.

Some self-published authors have been commercially and critically successful – Jane Rogers’ self-published novel, The Testament of Jessie Lamb, was long-listed for the Man Booker prize this year, while Amanda Hocking’s self-published series of paranormal romance books have reportedly earned her large sums of money – but these are exceptional cases.

Getting the publication ready
Depending on what exactly the project is, putting together a print-ready publication will involve different steps. If publishing a novel, for example, the main concerns are choosing a font, getting the chapter breaks in the right place, and sorting out the page numbers.

A cookbook, meanwhile, demands lots of high-quality photographs. For a newspaper or magazine, there will be a series of short articles rather than one long narrative, and each article will need to fit specific spaces, probably with an accompanying image.

If you’re confident using image-editing and layout software, then it’s possible to upload finished projects just for printing but the mentioned services can help with much of this.

To demonstrate, we’ll explore the process behind printing a novel, using Lulu, as an example. Begin with the content: the words typed into a word processor such as Microsoft Word and saved as a Word document.

Visit the Lulu website and click Start Publishing to begin the process. The first choice is between making a hardback or paperback book. Next, Lulu asks for a working title (this can be changed later) and the author’s first and last names.

 

Then it asks, ‘What do you want to do with this project?’. The choices are to create a private project, to create a public book that can be sold in the Lulu Marketplace, or to make a public book with an ISBN code that can be sold in any bookshop. (ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number, and is a unique number assigned to all professionally published books to help bookshops handle their stock.)

Next, choose the paper stock, book size, binding type (again, see the glossary at the end for help with publishing terminology), and whether you want to print in black and white or colour. Information on each option is available on the site so you can make the best choice for you.

Upload your content
The next step is to upload the files that make up the book. Lulu will show the dimensions that pages need to be to fit the chosen book size. A downloadable template is available, or you can set the document’s page dimensions to the sizes given: in Microsoft Word, this option is under Page Setup from the File menu.

If all this sounds like too much trouble, Lulu offers a paid-for formatting service – prices depend on the size of the project.

Once the pages have been set to the right size, check for any other page elements to be included, such as headers and footers (many books include the title of the book in a header, and page numbers can be inserted in the footer), chapter headings and page breaks.

Check the chosen font will be legible at the size it will be printed, and, if illustrations are to be included, ensure the images are at a high enough resolution and that they fit on the pages.

Lulu accepts files in various formats, including Word documents (either .doc or .docx is fine), some images formats (including JPG, GIF, and PNG) and Rich Text Format (.rtf) but its preferred format is PDF (.pdf).

Most layout programs, and Microsoft Word 2007 or later, include an option to export to PDF – typically under the File menu, either as ‘Export as’ or ‘Save as’. By saving the project as a PDF, you’ll be able to see exactly how it will appear on the page, so this is another opportunity to ensure everything is as it should be.

Once the file is formatted to the correct size, upload it to Lulu by clicking on the Choose File button, navigating to where your file is saved, and clicking Upload. Then click Make Print-Ready File at the bottom of the page.

You will need to sign up for a Lulu account in order to save the project, so fill out the short registration form and click through to the next stage. Lulu will now process the file. This may take a few minutes and Lulu will send an email when it is ready.

When it has been processed, download the print-ready file and check it. If changes need to be made, alter your original file and repeat the above process.

Design and review
Next, create a cover. Either upload an existing image file or use Lulu’s drag-and-drop cover-builder tool. Once the cover is finished, Lulu will process it and create a print-ready cover (again, you’ll need to wait while Lulu processes the file).

Then, it’s the review stage: this is the final opportunity to check the print-ready files for your book’s cover and interior before sending the book to print. When everything is exactly as it should be, click Save and Finish.

The book is now published; all that’s left is to order a copy for yourself. If planning to sell the book to other people, it’s probably best to order a proof copy for yourself first so you can check all is well before promoting it.

 

Although we have used Lulu here, other services may offer more suitable options for your particular project. Most will have downloadable templates and information on what kinds of files should be uploaded to make the project look its best.

Magcloud, for instance, recommends that images should be at a resolution of at least 300dpi, and should use a CMYK colour profile, while Blurb requires images in RGB, at between 150dpi and 300dpi (but not above). Supplying images or files in formats other than those recommended could lead to disappointing results, so check beforehand.

Second editions
Publishing a first edition isn’t necessarily the end of it. On Lulu, for example, it’s possible to go back later and print a second edition, adding or altering the book only slightly.

To do this, log in and open the My Projects folder. Click the Revise link next to your project and then click the Create New Revision button. Make the required alterations by clicking the relevant Change buttons.

Finally, regardless of which print-on-demand service you decide to use, it’s a good idea to keep a backup copy of the original files somewhere else.

Electronic publishing
Another alternative publishing method to consider is e-publishing. Ebooks are becoming increasingly popular, especially since the launch of Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader: they come in a variety of formats, but the most common are the standard open-format Epub (files with the extension .epub) and the proprietary Kindle format (with the file extension .azw).

Sites such as Amazon and Feedbooks that sell ebooks usually convert files into the appropriate format when the publisher uploads them.

The obvious advantage to publishing an ebook over a traditional book is that printing and distribution costs are essentially eliminated. However, ebooks tend to attract lower cover prices, because a higher percentage of the revenue can become profit.

For more thoughts on strategies for succeeding in the burgeoning e-publishing world, visit the Audacious Author blog.

Do it yourself
There is a DIY element to all kinds of self-publishing, but if the project is small enough, consider printing it on your own inkjet printer. Most layout programs allow print options to be set so the pages appear in the correct order, though beyond around 20 pages a guillotine or other cutting tool would be needed to trim the pages tidily.

Realistically, though, printing and binding a book is a time-consuming and complicated process – which is one reason professional print-on-demand services are proving so popular.

Read all about it
With services tailored to publishing all kinds of projects, from commemorative newspapers celebrating a special occasion to children’s books or that novel you had languishing in a drawer for years, it’s now easy to create the publication you’ve always wanted. So what are you waiting for?

SELF-PUBLISHING GLOSSARY
Perfect bound: pages are printed in sections and glued together at the spine.

Saddle stitched: pages are folded and stapled through the centre, like comic books.

Coil bound: pages have holes punched through the side or top, and a spiral wire binds them together.

Dust jacketed: hardback books are perfect bound with board covers, with detachable paper jackets over them.

Case wrapped: another kind of hardcover book, with a printed paper cover glued to the outer boards.

Mass-market paperback: a small, non-illustrated paperback; most novels come in this form.

Trade paperback: a larger, more expensive book format.