Broken Kode | Season One - The First Copy
Guess what I received in the post this morning?
Needless to say I couldn’t actually get much work done for a little bit until I calmed down my giddiness and concentrated to finish off this day. So here’s some initial thoughts:
- The internal paper stock is top notch. Lulu scores loads of points with me in terms of the quality of the paper in there. It’s thick, it’s absorbed the ink very nicely. In effect they’ve done a completely pro job here.
- The cover as you can see is of the shiney variety. It’s got a good feel to it (which is very important) and the edges come across very nicely. I’d have liked to be able to choose a different kind of cover stock (maybe a matt finish) but what they’ve got here is done very well indeed so no concerns here. The colours have also come out very well indeed.
- The binding however is what worries me. Looking at the binding it seems to conform with the normal quality however there are airholes between the cover and the rest of the actual pages. Now I’m not sure if it’s just the copy that I got, but that’s one of the things I’ll be investigating in the coming couple of days.
- Even though I followed instructions to the t, I still feel that the inside borders should be beefed up a bit for larger books. This is something that should be conveyed to Lulu so that they can have a look at in more detail. I don’t mind it now as this is effectively why I’ve got a draft copy to completely tear apart and make sure I’m happy with every single aspect of it before making it all live.
How you ask? Basically I’m going to test the books rigidity by breaking the spine (something I consider sacrilige to any book, but it’s important that I test this). What I don’t want is for the book to break down straight away because I will choose another printers. Make no mistake, I’m not bound to Lulu in any way. There are many other print on demand services on the internet. Some have actually been doing it longer than Lulu. So far I’m generally impressed with what I’ve got and yes it’s because I’ve finally got something in my hands that I’ve spent so damn long on.
Wow, that’s fantastic. I’d never have thought it so easy to make your own book. (Easy in the sense that you don’t need a publishing contract or thousands of dollars to make your own books)
When I first heard the idea, I thought it’d just be a PDF but this is much cooler. :)
↓ Quote | 7/2/2006
Congrats! This is probably a stupid question, but it’s a book of strictly illustrations, or does it have some of your more insightful blog entries in there as well? Either way, that cover looks very slick.
↓ Quote | 7/2/2006
Jonathan - you disappoint me Mr.Bond :) Of course it was going to be a print copy, why else would I be talking about Lulu?
Nathan - Season One, is just that, the first season of blogging. It’s got 12 illustrations I did during that time, and 12 pages of sketchbook material in the back. I’ve also written an afterword and gotten Mike to write my introduction. There will be a season 2; the problem there is that I don’t actually know how I’m going to include any of the comments because it’ll bloat the book considerably (without any comments I clocked close to 300 pages, and I only got more verbose in my second year).
↓ Quote | 7/2/2006
Congratulations, that must be an incredible high point!
Good Luck on getting all of the fixes implemented.
↓ Quote | 8/2/2006
Looking good mate!
One thing about other pod’s; keep me informed. I have used most of them and I haven’t found anyone who can beat LuLu for all around experience.
I am very excited to get one of these in my hands. Sometime this month?
↓ Quote | 8/2/2006
Sweet. How much will one of these bad boys cost?
↓ Quote | 8/2/2006
Chris - I’ve still got to put this book through the test. If it passes I’m game with lulu. There is another service I’m currently eying up (not cafepress, I can’t remember the name but I’ve got a book on my desk at work from another pod, and that’s pretty top notch quality to be honest).
As for an ETA, there is LOADS to be done, mainly formatting and cleaning up certain things. Hopefully I’ll have the editing done in a week and a couple of weeks to finish cleaning it up. So yeah end of the month :).
Novice pop - That is an interesting question. See I’m not looking at it as a cost per book basis but rather how much it will cost you in general to get a copy in your hands. In that respect that depends on whether you buy it from Lulu direct or go through amazon. What I still need to check and see is whether they allow you to sell the book via amazon.co.uk or other local amazon shops. The cost of the book however will probably be $12 to $16 dollars (again a lulu versus amazon mark up thing, I’ll explain in more detail once I’m ready to put it on the market completely).
↓ Quote | 9/2/2006
Bravo re!!
It looks really good! It is alot thicker than I imagined it!
I cant wait to flick through it!
↓ Quote | 9/2/2006
Why can’t we buy your book from Lulu?
↓ Quote | 11/2/2006
Hey Ledlauzis, I’ve not put it on LULU just yet because I need to edit it and make sure all the stupid mistakes have been taken care of. It’s the copy I have to make sure that I’m happy with the quality etc. Once it’s all ready to go out I’ll be sure to share the link.
↓ Quote | 11/2/2006
Hey dude, that looks awesome. I’ll definitely want to get a copy when it comes out. On top of that, you’ll really need to teach me how to make one of these, if not to sell - for my own use. :D
↓ Quote | 12/2/2006
If you make one I’m definitely buying one, so you’ve got one sell guaranteed right there :). I’m going to be writing a couple of tutorials regarding what to look out for, how I went about it etc, but I’ve been talking about this for a while now, there’s time for all that :).
↓ Quote | 12/2/2006
Wow, nice finish.
↓ Quote | 15/2/2006
Hi Khaled,
found your site via a wordpress support string and someone recommended I check out what you’re doing. Excellent I must say - looks like a real nice job.
I’m considering LuLu for my own stuff so will be interested to see how you progress. My prob, is that I have 365 posts to export somehow (hence the WP support forum). Have you found any way of exporting posts to .doc or similar or are you just cut ‘n pasting?
Many thanks,
stone.
↓ Quote | 20/2/2006
Well what I did, was wait for Chris Davis to try and sort me out with an actual plugin that would export the stuff. However he was having some problems, so I just made a simple theme with all the elements I wanted, and then using the customizable post listing plugin (from
scott ) I set it up to show all my posts starting with the very first one. 10 seconds quickly copy pasted everything from Firefox and I was off and running.
↓ Quote | 20/2/2006
Thanks K. Looks good - will have a play.
↓ Quote | 26/2/2006
I’d be interested to hear a review of how the selling rights and all work with Lulu. Looking at their terms I’m a little turned off. Let em know though.
↓ Quote | 12/6/2006