So I’m not super happy with the Diaspora softcover and now understand why I was resisting it for a long time. Part of it is Lulu’s quality control on softcovers is not great — I just did a bunch of back and forth tweaking my source data only to discover that the variation at the printer’s side is greater than the variations I was submitting. This is very frustrating. So the cutting is inconsistent and because the cover is also cut, the cover positioning is also inconsistent. It’s not ghastly but it’s not up to the standards of the hardcover.

On the upside, the blacks are generally better because the cream paper colour is very forgiving. The reduced contrast is easier on the eyes and so it’s actually more pleasant to read. That’s nice to know, because softcover is the preferred format for our future work, so now I have an idea of its strengths and weaknesses at Lulu.

This opens up a lot of opportunities for us for various reasons — the margin we make on a softcover is about the same in absolute terms as the hardcover, but as a percentage of the cover price it’s quite a bit higher, which lets us make more attractive deals to vendors. That also lets us place in IPR and still hope to make a dollar or two  (though not much more than two in many cases) which is probably a win, though I still haven’t heard a really convincing argument for it. The numbers look like less overall profit for an elevated risk and I’m just not hearing anyone shout the upside. Please, shout the upside. I guess it’s supposed to be obvious. It’s not.

The big actual advantage to getting this thing out the door, though, is that I can get on with the next priority item, which is the PDF. That at least is not controversial in terms of profit as it has no production costs after it’s released, so it’s intrinsically risk-free. I’d still like to make good on my promise that it will be useful, though, and so there is some layout work to get done to make it what I need it to be. Once that’s done there is another possibility which opens up that I can’t really talk about.

So that’s where we’re at. I’m probably still a little depressed from being sick and so I’m not as enthusiastic as I could be about the softcover, but honestly it feels like whoring. It just makes me want to get on with the next product where I can again pursue an artistic vision instead of fill an order. That probably means, as it will be softcover, it won’t be through Lulu.

–BMurray