My Experience with Lulu.com

Two weeks ago, I finally finished the third draft revisions on Positive Tension. Once I finished, I used Lulu.com to print a bound copy of my book. I have to say firstly that I was not compensated in any way for this post, and secondly, that I was impressed with the finished product!

I have to admit that I edit in a funny way. I make my edits in Scrivener and then copy everything over to an Open Office document that is one large document, instead of so many separate chapter documents. Before I started the draft, I went to Lulu's site and decided what size book I wanted. I was happy to discover that I didn't have to worry about margins and formatting, all I had to do was download their template. When I was done, I converted my document into a PDF (they have instructions on how to do all of that in their knowledge base and then just used one of their templates to create my cover.

I was really happy how it came out! The formatting was just as it was in the .pdf I uploaded. You can review it before you go to print, so there's no worry about getting a book that differs from what you intended.

I had the book five days after my upload, but that's because I chose faster shipping.

I have to admit that it was a huge thrill to see this novel that I've been toiling away at for eleven months in book form! I know it's nowhere near ready for anyone other than my betas to read it, but I feel about a hundred steps closer to publication than I was earlier this year!

Have you used a direct-print website to make a copy of your book? What was your experience?