How To Format Your Manuscript Using Lulu Publishing. 

Hey @Brian Hayes, thanks for the comment! I have made a video on how to format your manuscript into an eBook and you basically do the same think of uploading your manuscript on Lulu as I demonstrate in this video. But, if this something that viewers are looking for I will definitely make a video specifically for this. Thanks again!

@@SLMichaels OK thanks. The required file types for EBook uploading are obviously EPUB, DOCX, RTF & ODT. I have no idea what these file types are (except DOCX, which I know is a Word file ) let a lone how to convert to one of them from PDF, which is what I'm starting with. Do you have something in this video that discusses how to convert PDF to one of these required file types? With Amazon KDP, it easy. You convert to a MOBI file using Kindle Kids Book Creator and your done. The Lulu documentation is entirely useless. I'd have to open up a support ticket with them just to get an answer to such a basic question.

Yes, never give up!

You're very welcome! I'm so glad it was helpful. Thank you for commenting and stay tuned, I'm going to be doing a whole series on lulu. Good luck in your self publishing journey!

Thank you so much for the comment! Yes, Lulu is pretty cool! I have used them to order proofs and was very impressed with their services.

@@SLMichaelsI heard of them they really cool

I’m not sure. I used to have a horrible time with the pdf margins every time I put in the Lulu template, and had to fix it in Adobe PDF to keep it from overriding it. I will say as of now 2024, I’m Atticus formatting tool. It has made formatting my books SO much easier. I hope that answers your question thanks for watching!

Thank you SO much for your comment! This was an old video, and since then I have found something that is SO much easier, and that is Atticus. Atticus is so easy, less stressful. I cannot sing it’s praises enough. You don’t have to worry about page sizes for PDF none of that. Atticus is $147 but it only a one time price, and it has been SO worth it! Congratulations on your new book, and thank you for watching my channel!

Thank you so much the comment and visiting my channel! Yes, formatting can be scary if you don't know how to do it, but after a bunch of practice it's not as scary. I'm SO glad that this video could help you! 💙🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@@SLMichaels I was looking to get it formatted in Fiverr maybe. I got a template from lulu so hopefully that is all set up. Do you do formatting as a business ? That’s would be awesome. It’s only a 100 page ebook I want to get printed.

@@krisdouglas6536 Yes, I do! For a hundred page book, I charge $100 ($1 a page) USD. $50 up front and the other after the job is finished and approved by the customer. If this is something you are interested in, you can get in touch with me, look at the business inquiry on the About page, for my email address.

Thank you for the comment! I'm sorry that everything was flopped. Hope you were able to get want you needed from my video.

Thank you for the comment! Unfortunately, for A7 paper, all I can find a 4.25X6.875.

@@SLMichaels Thank you for taking the time to reply

My advice would be to go to either Canva or Book Brush and use the eBook template that should help you with normalizing the photo to a PDF file since that is what all the publishing companies are requiring now. Thanks for the comment!

On your tablet! Wow! Um-well, my advice is to send it to your computer through either Google Drive or Dropbox. I have a video that will show you step-by-step on how to convert it to a PDF through Adobe Acrobat. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lra-3QPkGr4.html&ab_channel=S.L.Michaels

Thank you for the comment! Yes, you should have your manuscript formatted before publishing. In the video, I show how you can write your story in Lulu's templates and how to convert your manuscript into a PDF file to upload it to Lulu. For more in detail, I have a video on how you can format your story in Word, and I got a request on how to convert a docx file into different file formats-EPUB, MOBI etc that I'll be posting soon.

@@SLMichaels Thank You!

I also purchased Adobe Acrobat Professional DC and I also purchased Adobe InDesign….. but not sure where to start. For instance do a create manuscript first and then insert the jpeg illustrations? Do I take the story that I have in word format and convert to PDF and then insert the illustrations? I am not sure

Yzavela Narvaez, yes I can. I just printed my novel in hardback on Lulu, and you are right, you can't choose what size you want. You have to have your document's margins set to the size you want your book. I will definitly do that for you.

@@SLMichaels thank you so much! My problem unfortunately, seems to be page count limit for book 2 which is 1142 and they want 800 minimum but I would appreciate that greatly!

Hey @Lotus Podcast To answer your question-No, it is not right. That's one of the many reasons I didn't publish through lulu. In fact, I actually didn't want to publish through Amazon because of so many reasons, but alas I did, because this being my first book, I needed more exposure than just at my website, which is what I'm suggesting everyone to buy from. They get it sooner, and cheaper because since it is on my website I get more royalties and I don't have to set things as high to make a mere $3 per eBook or audiobook(that cost me $3000 to produce) Thank you for the comment and for watching!

Thank you so much for the comment. I don't know anything about Macs but I found this online. Go to /System/Library/Filters or /System/Library/PDF Services where you can edit the XML files. If you didn’t know, the XML files are the ones controlling what causes or resolves these issues. Look for the file named “Reduce File Size.qfilter” and copy. Paste this file on your desktop. If you want multiple compression options, you can paste this file in other folders as well so they’re accessible whenever you need them. Once it’s pasted on your desktop, right-click on the file and select “Open With>TextEdit” from the options. Other text editors are fine if you wish to use a different one. Find the “Compression Quality” field and you should see that the default is 0. You can change this value depending on how compressed you want your PDF document to be when you reduce its size. The value ranges from 1 (least compressed) to -1 (most compressed). You can opt for 0.50 for medium-quality files and 0.75 for high-quality files. Next, find the “ImageSizeMax” field and you should see that the default is 512. You can change this value depending on what final size you want the document to be. You can set it to 1684 for medium-quality compression and 3508 for high-quality compression. At 1684, the result would be in A4 at 144 DPI while at 3508, the result would be in A4 at 300 DPI. Lastly, go to the “Name” field and change it to make it distinct. Whatever you name this file is what will appear in the Quartz Filter field when you’re resizing your PDF documents. Rename this file corresponding to the name that you put in the “Name” field. After making all the necessary edits, copy and paste this file back to the /System/Library/Filters or /System/Library/PDF Services directory. You might be prompted for administrator authentication. Once this file has been pasted back in the original folder, this new option will be added to your compression options in your PDF “Export” menu. Once you’ve tried it out and find that the quality is not up to your standards, you can simply adjust the values in the file again to suit your needs. And that’s it! Hopefully, these methods helped you in resizing your PDF documents on Mac with ease.

@Desmond Lewis Aww thank you so much! I'm glad that my video could help. I know Lulu can be a little frustrating. Unfortunatly, being a very small RU-vidr I can't take any donations all I can ask is that you Subscribe to my channel so I can get to the 1000 goal. Thank you, again! 🤘💙