LULU Creating a Full Cover

If you just want to load up a front cover and a back cover for your Lulu book, that is easy. They give you the JPG dimensions and you load them up separately. However, if you want to custom create a spine for your book, then you must load the entire cover into the system as one single piece - i.e. a piece that has the front, middle (spine) and back all connected together.

When I attempted that for my Badge of Honor book, these are the specs I was provided automatically by their system:

Specs: - Your cover file must be a PDF
- Your spine should be 44.16 Postscript points wide (0.61")
- Your entire cover should be 674.16 X 513 Postscript points (9.36" X 7.13")
- Your spine will begin at 315 Postscript points (4.375") from the edge of your cover

Book Size: 4.25" x 6.88"
Page Count: 368
Binding: Perfect

OK, so to start with, I started a blank Photoshop document that was 9.36" by 7.13" in size. I took my existing front and back covers. I pasted the front cover on the far right of that document. I pasted the back cover on the far left of that document. Since the total height is 7.13", and the book height is 6.88", that leaves .25" left of margin for the top and bottom, so .12" on the top and .12" on the bottom. So far, so good. Note that my existing covers were 6.88" high because that is the book size, so there is white space on the top and bottom of my "full set" document.

Now I created a rectangle in the middle which was .61" wide. It had white space on either side of it - i.e. the left and right covers didn't connect fully to it. This means that the left and right covers need a margin on the OUTSIDE of this document. Luckily, they tell me where to place the spine.

OK, I slide my spine rectangle until the left side is right at 4.375". The "info" box in Photoshop will tell you that. Now I slid the left cover right until it met the spine - and the right cover left until it met the other side of the spine.

Note that when you create your own cover like this, you have to include the ISBN bar code on it. Either you get that set up with your own font set, or you can order one "basic" book from Lulu - which they create a barcode for - and then scan that in on your home scanner to use in your custom cover set.

Badge of Honor Take a look at the Badge of Honor sales page in Lulu, to get a sense of what the final product looks like. Badge of Honor at Lulu.com

Publishing On Demand Step By Step - Lulu
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Formatting your Book for Self Publishing
Creating a Lulu Covers

Quality of Lulu Books
Print Copy Sample from Lulu #1
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