(Please note I am in no way “in league” Lulu… I just want to save my fellow artists some stress when it comes to picture book dummies!)

The Problem

In the children’s publishing world, it seems like one of the major stresses for an author/illustrator is putting together the sacred dummy book. The dummy book is what an editor looks through to see pacing, artistic skills, style, design– it’s no surprise that trying to make the perfect dummy could set anyone into a panic! So before I ever set my pencil to paper, I scoured the internet for ever scrap of information I could find on creating a dummy book.

I was surprised to discover that the most stressful part of dummy book creation seemed not to be the actual drawing and placement of perfect text and image, but the construction of the dummy book itself! The steps involved included gluing, cutting, sewing, folding, pagination, not to mention hours spent at places like Kinko’s trying to get everything printed properly. Making a picture book seemed to me to be a time-consuming and expensive ordeal, and when you factor in sending out multiple copies and the recent policy that some publishers don’t return any materials… I felt I would be doomed to a life of never-ending cutting and gluing.

The Solution

During a course I took on Book Illustration, we were required to print a copy of our book to turn in to class. Most of the class turned to Lulu.com, because it was a quick and inexpensive way to have a copy of a book printed.

Thus an idea formed in my head: Why not print dummy books using Lulu? I hadn’t seen this mentioned during the hours I spent scouring the internet, so I decided to ask the wonderfully helpful Blueboarders for their input. The response I received was to stay away from Lulu because publishers would then think my book was “Self-Published.” Considering Lulu’s web page title says “Lulu.com – Self Publishing – Free,” I can definitely understand that response. If a publisher thought the dummy was a published book, they certainly would not want to publish it themselves!

However, I think people misunderstand Lulu. Yes, its main purpose is to help authors self-publish their books, but that is not all it does. Buying an ISBN number and putting the book on Amazon is an option, but not a requirement. It is perfectly possible to print a copy just for yourself with nobody else but the Lulu printer ever seeing it. You can make it private so that it will never go into the marketplace and absolutely nobody will be given an option to buy or even look at it. People print personal photo albums on Lulu this way. It’s the same as if you took it to Kinko’s for printing, just easier. There’s no requirement to place their logo anywhere on the book either, so there is really no way for someone to look at your book and think it was published or even know where you printed it.

Another response I got is that a book printed by Lulu would look “too professional.” This is a really valid fear that again goes back to the book looking “published,” but I don’t think it needs to be a worry:

• First of all, since it is a dummy it will be comprised of black and white sketches. You’re just showing the editor your vision of the book, so there is no need for it to contain finished work. Any finished sample you have can be attached as a tearsheet for the editor to keep.
• Secondly, you don’t need to get fancy with the binding. Yes, the “Perfect” binding does look extremely professional, but there is an option to staple bind the book like a comic, which looks good without looking “published.”

So you’ll have a nicely made black and white (with a color cover if you’d like, since this is included in Lulu’s price) staple-bound dummy with nothing but your lovely sketches in it.

The Kicker

Besides the time-consuming aspects of making your dummy by hand, one extremely good reason to go with Lulu is the price. I ordered seven 7.5″x7.5″ black and white staple bound dummies from Lulu for a total, including shipping, of around $45. That’s only $6.40 per book, (Each book was approx $5.20 before shipping) without any cutting, printing, or sewing from my end. All I had to do was set up the book as a PDF and upload to Lulu. Simple! And if (eek!) your dummy never makes it back to you, the loss is bearable. Though it would be infinitely nicer if the dummy never made it back because of a book deal…

My Dummy

Here are some pictures of my Lulu dummy books for my story “The Three Little Kittens.” They are 7.5″ square, color cover with b&w interior, staple-bound, and approx $5.20 for 32 pages.

Front Cover of Dummy

Inside Spread of Dummy

Back Cover of Dummy

Staple Binding of Dummy

Next I will go over how to make a dummy and submit it to Lulu. Stay Tuned

Related posts:

• More Fun with Lulu – Portfolio

Tags: binding, book dummy, dummies, how-to, lulu, picture book

This entry was posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 8:40 pm and is filed under Process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.