Some Pros and Cons

Okay so let's talk about LuLu and some other options for producing our books.

As a group we need to consider a couple of options before making the final decision on which way to go with this. What I'm going to try and do, is lay out a list of pros and cons to each of the possible methods for getting some jobs printed. 

I went to LuLu's site to plug in some figures and see what kind of return we'd get based on our needs. Out of all the products the site offers, the portfolio would be the best option for us for a few reasons. 

• Desired dimension of 9" x 7"
• Saddle stitched up to 56 pages
• Perfect bound up to and beyond a 56 page count
• Upload of PDF file type
• Not limited to any design template
• Inexpensive cost

Using the cost calculator at the bottom right hand corner of the Portfolio product page, I plugged in the following criteria.

• Standard paper
• Soft cover
• Full color
• Landscape 9" x 7"
• Saddle stitch
• 50 pages
• Quantity 1

Those options returned a price of $14.50 u.s. When a few changes were made to produce a perfect bound addition, the price remained the same. However, here is the difference when going with perfect bound instead of a saddle stitch. The perfect bound has a page range of 32—500, and the saddle stitch can not go beyond a page count of 56. 

There are many things that this group needs to work out with regards to universal formatting. Before getting into that can of worms, it might be a good idea if everyone had a rough estimate on how many pages minimum and maximum their project might produce. 

This all seems pretty good eh, but what are the downsides? Well as far as I've come up with, there's only a few and here they are.

• No personal "hand done" feel
• Limitation on methods for unifying the volumes
• No options for interesting folds, cuts etc.
• Up to approximately a week to ten days to recieve

With regards to that last item, there is a fast production method available from LuLu, starting at $25.00 to get your book printed and shipped out the following day. That is providing your order is uploaded before 4 p.m. EST. This does not include the shipping costs either. I do not have a line on specific shipping costs as I haven't gone that far in any creation steps with their website. They do appear to ship through multiple carriers so I imagine the rates are reasonable.

Given all that, what do you think about LuLu? If you'd like to look over some specifics and some frequently asked questions about the PDF requirements, you can review the Book FAQs page on LuLu's website.

Thanks for looking over the pros and cons to the LuLu option. My next post will be discussing considerations with doing this ourselves locally and at home, in the "Homestyle" post.

—sean