Only Bad News on the Print Version of CCC

I’ve retired the print version of Create A Character Clinic from Lulu, and everyone who purchased a copy should receive a full refund.

I cannot get Lulu to use my PDF file, or to upload my Word document. I don’t know what its problem is with Word–it won’t give me an error message, though it claims one is there. As for Acrobat … the problem there seems to be that I work on a Mac, and purchased my version of Adobe Acrobat for the Mac. Mac users pay the same price, but get half the program. Embedding fonts is a nightmare, and evidently I don’t have the right ones, and even if I purchased the right ones from Adobe, there’s no guarantee that I could get them to embed using the crippled version of Acrobat Mac users have available. And if I could get them to embed, there’s still no guarantee that I could get Lulu to accept the file.

I’m bitterly disappointed by this, and apologize deeply to those of you who purchased the book.

I’ll explore other printing options, but Cafe Press is ridiculously expensive compared to Lulu, and I’d hoped to keep the books reasonably priced. There may be other options, as well. None of them will be quick. I won’t assume again that the process will work simply because the store was willing to take my money for a copy.

This link will put you in touch with the people who should be automatically refunding your money. http://www.lulu.com/support/

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By Holly

Novelist, writing teacher, on a mission to reprint my out-of-print books and indie-publish my new ones.

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kalbzayn
17 years ago

You should try open office before you fork over for other options. It is free and can save files in word and PDF format. It can run on windows, mac, and linux. And it is free.

The link is here:
http://www.openoffice.org/

klharrds21
klharrds21
17 years ago

I hope this helps. I really wanted a copy of this book.

BTW, when I got my refund from LULU the exchange rate had changed so, not getting the book cost me £1.57. Boohoo- wipes tear.

Damn LULU and their lack of quality control before accepting MS’s.

Nick.Popio
Nick.Popio
17 years ago

Holly,
My name’s Nick Popio and I work for Lulu. I just ran across your post and wanted to try and help if possible. You may have already resolved the issue yourself, but if not, you may find some help here: http://yaquinapress.com/PDF-FAQ.html

One of our Community Leaders, who specializes in PDF creation wrote the FAQ, and it has some advice for Mac users.

ejoy
17 years ago

I’m sorry you’ve had trouble with it. I was going to order it, too! When you first said you were going to do this, I had visions of you going to Office Max to have a couple dozen copies printed and bound. Should have known better!

EJ

arrvee
17 years ago

That really does suck! I guess the positive is that now you know who NOT to use.

You might also want to look at ThinkFree Office Online. As long as you can run the Java Runtime Environment and have a high-speed connection, it works great. You can save your Word files directly to PDF. I’ve been using it for about a month with only occasional very minor problems (it’s still in Beta).

TinaK
17 years ago

That sucks Holly! I’m sorry it didn’t work out. Something that might help in the future – PDF Online – a free online service that creates PDF’s. I’ve used it several times without a problem to convert some Publisher files to PDF’s for friends. It might work for something like LuLu that does not like Mac stuff. Good luck to you.

writingnerd
writingnerd
17 years ago

That stinks. Isn’t it funny how the world seems to hate Mac users? Good luck trying to find another option for CCC. I can’t honestly think of anything other than Lulu. :/

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