Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:38:34 -0600 From: Russ Hanson <russhanson@grantsburgtelcom.net> Subject: Print your local history book for $5 each in small quantities Message-ID: <c45aaf515a91032adb77be570fa2f284@mail.airstreamcomm.net>
A lengthy discussion of getting your local history book into print for $5
each with my experiences.
This is a wonderful option if you are at all computer literate!
Russ Hanson
President Sterling Eureka and Laketown Historical Society
Cushing, WI (NW WI)
Creating an Inexpensive Local History Book by Russ Hanson
Are you looking for an inexpensive way to publish your own book—local
history or other without having to go into debt to order several hundred
copies? Then Amazon’s Createspace service is an easy and inexpensive way
to do it. I have used it for several books and am amazed at the ease and
cost! The whole process after you have prepared your own book file to
printed copies in hand is about 2-weeks!
First go to www.createspace.com and create your free account. You will
need that to look at the choices that are available for things like book
size (which range from 5x9 to 8.5 to 11.5 with some extra odd sizes as well
as a less flexible custom size of your choice). I personally prefer the
8.5x11 if the book has lots of pictures as I can completely proof the book
with my own print out on regular paper.
Start your book on Createspace before you actually do any writing. Enter
a title and then go to the physical properties and pick a layout. That
will determine your margins. You should have at least .25 inches of margin
all the way around—more is probably better. However, remember, you will be
charged by the page, so tight margins and smaller fonts will save you
money.
The cheapest way to build a book is to completely create it yourself with
your word process. I use an older version of Word. Open Office will work
or any other one that lets you do a few basic things.
You need to set margins based on the size your book should be. So, that
means pick a book size and set the word processor margins for your book
file.
Prepare you photos. You will need to scan them. Even if you plan a black
and white book, scan the photos in color as you may change your mind later.
Scan them to at least 200 dpi (dots per inch). Use your photo fix program
to crop, repair, and prepare the photos for inclusion in the book.
Captions will be added later as they are inserted into the book.
Photos used to be expensive to put into a book. If you scan, prepare and
insert them yourself into the page, they do not add any extra cost to the
book—just another printed page.
I like to write the text in pieces then add them to my book as I build it.
Then I work with just a small piece at a time and get the pages all laid
out easily. Word is a bother sometimes when you mix photos and text as
things tend to jump around as you try to place the photo where you want it.
The biggest help is to put a new page at the top of each new page. It
tends to stabilize each page rather than having things always shifting.
You can do that in Word by going to the end of each page and Ctrl-Enter
(holding the Ctrl key down while hitting an enter or return key).
To add a photo to a page, you do an insert picture from file. You should
have all of your photos in a single location where they are easily found.
You can set the “insert” function to insert photos so text wraps around
them or not – choices are in the Tools-Options-Edit-Picture editor setup.
I like tight as the text flows tightly around my photos and I can move them
around anywhere on the page.
Photos should have a caption. I do this by Inserting a text box, filling
it with my caption text, and then moving it under the photo and then, using
the shift-mouse click on each grouping them together so the text and photo
are locked in a single unit.
You need to get comfortable with your word processor, inserting photos,
and adding captions and working on the layout. After that you just keep
adding more pages.
When it is all done and looks OK, you should print it out and see how each
page looks. You should have added page numbers in the Word processor and
created a table of contents. Word processors can do this automatically
(you need to read the help on it) or you can just make one. Word
processors can do an index too-you need to again read the how to.
Printing shops including Createspace want your book in a file type called
PDF. I downloaded a free pdf creator called dopdf version 7 that shows up
as a printer. I chose to print the document to this “printer” and out
comes a wonderfully accurate pdf file ready for the printer. Newer word
processors have this built in.
You need to create your own cover. The cover is the same size as your
book plus the width of the spine (something like .25 inches extra – can
calculate it on createspace). You create a new word processor document
with the double size – i.e. for my 8.5 by 11, I go with an 17.3x11 so it
wraps around the whole stack of pages. I then put the front image and text
on the left half of the page, the back cover on the right, and centered
exactly a .2 inch wide vertical text box of the spine text.
After you have your pdf, you go through the rest of the Createspace steps
which include uploading the interior book file in pdf form, the cover in
pdf form and filling out more information. The folks at Createspace will
spend a day or so reviewing your book for physical layout problems and then
email you and let you know if it is OK or what needs fixing.
If all is OK, you can order a proof copy (or several). After you get the
proof—usually about a week, you then either OK it for completion or fix it
and go through another upload and approval. A typical book will cost you
$6 plus $3.50 shipping for one book. I ordered 5 proofs and the shipping
dropped to about $5 for all of them—total cost of $36 for the 5. I knew
they were likely perfect already!
If you think you will sell more than 25 books, you should pay the extra
$39 to get the 70% royalty pro-plan option. This lets you buy your own
books cheaper as well as get almost double the royalty of the free option.
If you think you might sell only a few and not buy many then don’t bother.
It costs $39 for each book with a renewal of $5 for each year in the
future.
So what are the costs of getting a book into print? It can be free! I
aim our books to sell for $15. The reader buys one for that price plus the
$3.50 postage. I get about 30% royalty unless I have paid the extra $39,
then I get it cheaper.
Book: “History of Cushing Wisconsin” size 8x10, 200 pages, hundreds of
photos, costs me $3.34 to purchase copies for me to sell as I paid the $39
for the pro-plan option. I can buy 25 for $83.50. The shipping for the
box of 25 is $15.50 with an estimated delivery date of two weeks from my
order. The books are printed-on-demand and shipped directly to me for a
total cost of just under $100, a real cost of about $4 each—for books we
sell for $15!
This is about the cheapest, slickest, and easiest way to get anywhere from
a few books into print up to 1000s.
Happy New Year!