Publish your own book for free

Professional software such as Adobe Indesign or Quark Xpress costs hundreds of pounds, although you can get budget programs such as Serif Page Plus, which is available in editions ranging from a free version to the top-of-the-range X3, which costs £79.99.

One great time-saver with DTP programs is master pages, which let you apply a preset layout to pages, complete with columns, sidebars and so on. You could, for example, have one master page for chapter starts and another for ensuing pages. If you used Word, you’d have to create section breaks and do much of the formatting by hand.

Cover
Although they say you can’t judge a book by its cover, first impressions count. As we’ll see later, some POD services let you design your cover online, but if you are serious about marketing your book, you’ll need to invest a lot more effort ­ your own, or someone else’s. Consider using a professional (see 'Getting expert help' below).

If you decide to go it alone, then you really do need page layout software. Download the cover specifications ­ Amazon’s Createspace and Lulu both provide templates ­ and take your time. There’s no shame in copying layout and design ideas from existing books, but you may only use images you have the rights to, either because they’re your own creations or you’ve licensed them from an image library.

PDF
Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) provides a standard way of describing and printing documents that is independent of the software, operating system and hardware used to produce them. Some POD services, such as Lulu and the World Wide Association of Writers (WWAOW), let you upload DOC files and convert them into ‘print-ready’ PDFs, Others, such as Createspace, insist on PDFs.

The standard way of creating PDFs is to use Adobe Acrobat. The program costs over £300, which may be over the top for a one-off book, but there are alter natives. If you’ve created your book using DTP software, then it should be able to create PDFs. Some word processors, such as Ability Office and Open Office, can also produce PDFs and there’s a free Microsoft add-on for Word 2007.

A solution that works with any application is to install a PDF creator such as the free PrimoPDF, also available from PCW downloads. This installs itself as a ‘printer’, so is accessible from any application, but instead of producing pri nted output it creates a PDF file.

Publishing your work
Some on-demand publishers charge an up-front fee which can be substantial. Xlibris, for example, will want anything from $299 (around £190) to $12,999 depending on the type of book and the services you need. Fortunately, others don’t, as they make their money by selling their authors’ books and other merchandise. Probably the best known is Lulu, which describes itself as a digital marketplace rather than a publisher.

There are others including Blurb, WWAOW and Createspace. Companies such as Cafépress and Qoop don’t just deal with books, but also print on-demand calendars, posters, prints and T-shirts designed by members.

Lulu
Lulu takes a sleekly streamlined approach to creating a book. You choose a book format, binding type and colour options, and get a cost estimate once you’ve entered the number of pages. You then upload your file, and Lulu makes a print-ready PDF, which you can download and review. Next, you concentrate on cover design, and Lulu offers helpful advice on the size and file format required should you want to do this online, or you can download templates to do it offline.

Having got the production side over, it’s down to business. You fill in a description and other details and are given a final manufacturing cost for your book; our sample 356-page black-and-white A5 paperback worked out at £8.80 per copy. To this, you add whatever you want to make as a royalty on each copy sold. Lulu adds a further 20 per cent of your royalty as its commission, and that sets the retail price of the book. You get a last chance to review everything, then your book is published and available for purchase.