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I'm sending you a note via email, but…how close to print-ready are the PDFs that are generated? My wife has been working on a novel (and 90%) of a sequel that w

I'm sending you a note via email, but…how close to print-ready are the PDFs that are generated? My wife has been working on a novel (and 90%) of a sequel that we're getting ready to self-publish through Lulu and KDP and I'm tired from the formatting hoops. We're using Ulysses (similar to Scrivener) and exporting to Word and importing to Pages (because the epub export was somewhat disappointing compared to the Pages epub export, and Pages layout tools are more powerful than Word's) because we need both epub and 6"x9" (US trade) print-ready PDF. She's got a cover and a back cover. She wants to have both ebook and hardcopy, and you guys don't offer hardcopy. I don't have the time to write the software I would need to prepare this stuff myself—and I don't know that I want to learn all the standards that I'd need for it, either. If your PDFs are print-ready or I can somehow specify the size so that it can be print-ready, I'd happily pay to convert her novel—because this is just one of four books that we're going to have to do in the next few months. (Shameless promotion for my wife: If anyone is interested in a late 70s rock and roll novel set in Canada and the UK, let me know—an email is in my profile. I'll send a note out when it's available, regardless of the process we use to produce it.)

dangoor 15y ago
FWIW, I recently wrote a novel in Scrivener and with very little tweaking it did a nice job converting for print and ebooks (and it allows a fair bit of tweaking). All depends on your needs, of course, but I was pleasantly surprised at the output I could get directly from Scrivener (which I really like for its organization and writing capabilities)
- bennesvig 15y ago
  Did you export from Scrivener for CreateSpace formatting? I'm interested in learning how if you did.
spatten 15y ago
The short answer is that they're print ready as-is. Eric Ries printed a Leanpub book of his first year's worth of blog posts (we sold them at the first Startup Lessons Learned conference). They looked pretty good. The slightly longer answer is that we are working on some features for a more print-ready PDF. Right now our PDFs are optimized for on-screen reading. Sone small changes such as gutters and page numbers that alternate sides will make a nicer looking print book.
- jamesbritt 15y ago
  The slightly longer answer is that we are working on some features for a more print-ready PDF. Right now our PDFs are optimized for on-screen reading. Sone small changes such as gutters and page numbers that alternate sides will make a nicer looking print book. So, right now, who or what handles kerning, tracking, and such to ensure that you don't get distracting "rivers" of white space, odd page/paragraph breaks, and the like when printed?
  - alexchamberlain 15y ago
    Software can do this... (La)TeX has been doing it for years, and rarely gets it wrong.
  - DanBC 15y ago
    How does that work on a device like Kindle where people can change page orientation; font size; line spacing; column sizing; from condensed to not condensed; and change from serif to sans serif? I notice lots of rivers on Kindle.
    - jamesbritt 15y ago
      spatten said that Leanpub output is currently "print ready as-is." My question was, when a Leanpub document is printed, what ensures that there aren't distracting bits of extra white space and other annoyances that often require a human eye and manual adjustment to avoid? If you're seeing rivers on a Kindle I'm guessing there'd be the same problem on paper.
  - spatten 15y ago
    We use LaTeX to take care of this in our PDFs. It does a pretty good job. Yes, it won't be 100% as good as if you paid a typesetter to do it, but there is nothing obviously objectionable. For example, one of our books (leanpub.com/battingat10) was written by Chick Dubber, a retired typesetter. He noticed some bad hyphenation and we tweaked a few settings to make it look good. Other than that, he had no complaints. There are lots of book samples that you can get for free from Leanpub. Many are linked to here: http://leanpub.com/bestsellers http://leanpub.com/bestsellers. Take a look and see what you think.

dangoor 15y ago

FWIW, I recently wrote a novel in Scrivener and with very little tweaking it did a nice job converting for print and ebooks (and it allows a fair bit of tweaking). All depends on your needs, of course, but I was pleasantly surprised at the output I could get directly from Scrivener (which I really like for its organization and writing capabilities)

bennesvig 15y ago
Did you export from Scrivener for CreateSpace formatting? I'm interested in learning how if you did.

spatten 15y ago

The short answer is that they're print ready as-is. Eric Ries printed a Leanpub book of his first year's worth of blog posts (we sold them at the first Startup Lessons Learned conference). They looked pretty good. The slightly longer answer is that we are working on some features for a more print-ready PDF. Right now our PDFs are optimized for on-screen reading. Sone small changes such as gutters and page numbers that alternate sides will make a nicer looking print book.

jamesbritt 15y ago
The slightly longer answer is that we are working on some features for a more print-ready PDF. Right now our PDFs are optimized for on-screen reading. Sone small changes such as gutters and page numbers that alternate sides will make a nicer looking print book. So, right now, who or what handles kerning, tracking, and such to ensure that you don't get distracting "rivers" of white space, odd page/paragraph breaks, and the like when printed?
- alexchamberlain 15y ago
  Software can do this... (La)TeX has been doing it for years, and rarely gets it wrong.
- DanBC 15y ago
  How does that work on a device like Kindle where people can change page orientation; font size; line spacing; column sizing; from condensed to not condensed; and change from serif to sans serif? I notice lots of rivers on Kindle.
  - jamesbritt 15y ago
    spatten said that Leanpub output is currently "print ready as-is." My question was, when a Leanpub document is printed, what ensures that there aren't distracting bits of extra white space and other annoyances that often require a human eye and manual adjustment to avoid? If you're seeing rivers on a Kindle I'm guessing there'd be the same problem on paper.
- spatten 15y ago
  We use LaTeX to take care of this in our PDFs. It does a pretty good job. Yes, it won't be 100% as good as if you paid a typesetter to do it, but there is nothing obviously objectionable. For example, one of our books (leanpub.com/battingat10) was written by Chick Dubber, a retired typesetter. He noticed some bad hyphenation and we tweaked a few settings to make it look good. Other than that, he had no complaints. There are lots of book samples that you can get for free from Leanpub. Many are linked to here: http://leanpub.com/bestsellers http://leanpub.com/bestsellers. Take a look and see what you think.