Using LaTeX with Lulu

I've been looking at book publishing more lately because Amy's looking at making a genealogy book for her family reunion next year. I've done some layout and typesetting before, so I figured I'd write down some of the things I've done in this area.

I've always been a little fascinated with how words get immortalized in a physical artifact like a book. Meaning that I like books, how they feel, how they smell, and what they stand for; accessible knowledge. This is one reason why I've always wanted to start a magazine too; it's something permanent in our current world of digital ether. Don't get me wrong, I love digital books, but I love digital books the same way I love podcasts; they're disposable. I can read them and then delete them and make room for the next book. Digital books are transitory, but if there's a book I really love, I want to be able to hold that baby in my hands and keep it in a known transferable format (printed English) so that it can last. And a bookshelf full of cool books just looks awesome.

In this vein, I've been looking at ways to properly typeset text so that the finished product looks like it's meant to be kept as a momento. I've done a couple NaNoWriMos and while I've never thought anything I've finished is worth putting in ink, I have seen others print their books using Microsoft Word and never quite liked the way it was laid out. Kerning is off, headers look bad, line height doesn't look quite right, and the default fonts are just not pretty. Word always hurts my typography sensibilities, so much so that I even try to avoid it for simple writing projects. So I usually turn to LaTeX.

My current "publisher" of choice is Lulu.com. I've gotten a book from them and I really like how it turned out. I have not yet tried a hardcover, just paperback, but the paper was a decent quality, not as rough as a regular paper back and printed on higher quality paper than the newsprint that you see in the trade paperbacks. The book I got actually had a printing error in it where one of the pages was folded over and poorly cut. I didn't complain though and I'm not sure how often something like that happens. I'll eventually get a hardcover from them to see how that is.

The dimensions of their pages is the big thing that you have to configure in LaTeX. I looks like the hardcover and main paperback books are the same: 6 inches by 9 inches. You can get books in other sizes as well, but I haven't looked into that yet.

I've been using the KOMA-Script (Yes, it's in German) book type since it's more powerful than the built in one.

I can then set the page size.

Since the paperback is glued, the pages don't lay flat and you need a little bit more room on the inside of the page.

That should be all Lulu needs for the LaTeX file. Lulu doesn't actually use LaTeX so you'll need to convert it first. Don't send them a PDF generated from LaTeX. The fonts and formatting will come out wrong. Instead, create a ps file and send that. They will then convert it into a PDF that you will be able to check over. The PDF I got back, with fonts and images intact, looked exactly like my ps file that I generated on Linux using ghostscript. The next hard part is the cover, which I'll save for a future post, if anyone's interested.

For a nice LaTeX primer, take a look at the Wikipedia entry for LaTeX and the LaTeX primer. Just remember that LaTeX is not a word processor, it's a system to help you professionally layout your work for printing or PDFing. That means it uses typography vocabulary way more than word processor or writing vocabulary. If your not interested in typography, you will rip your hair out (you'll actually rip your hair out even if you are).