Lulu's poetry book design wizard

While putting together the short story for my storycard venture, I also tinkered around with Lulu. They have a new design wizard that can be used to create tiny poetry notebooks.

The bad: You don't have a lot of control over the text, and none over the line spacing. This really should have been spaced at 1 1/2. Some indents are slightly off.




It seems when something starts going screwy, it's hard to change or correct. Another bad is the cost. 7.00 each, and you have to buy in a pack of 3. If I'd purchased 20 packs of three and used a 20% off coupon, each tiny book would have cost me around 4.70. Not quite as bad, but that would have been a total of 60 books. Doubt I'd ever need 60. And because they come in packs of 3, how do you sell them through Lulu or anywhere else? Or give them an ISBN? Don't think you can unless I'm missing something.

The good: Well, it's pretty easy to upload material and images to the poetry template, and very cool that every page can include an image. So I could see this being a simple, handy tool if you wanted to create a story with images or artwork.

The poetry book feels good, and I think the tactile element is important when talking about print material. Nice cover. Nice paper. Nice size. Thinner than my iPod Touch, and it will fit in a small envelope.

cost and ease of mailing: one 44-cent stamp




please note: The poetry book can be formatted in several different sizes; I chose the smallest.


It has a real binding, not staples. But IMO, it just cost too much for anything more than something you might give as a gift. Could definitely make an interesting Christmas newsletter.

But if I had young kids -- OMG. They could write a story and illustrate it. I think that would be the coolest, coolest thing.