spine problem again!!

[ianruxton]

Hello All

Some people may remember that I posted a while back about the spine of
my hardcover ('Baron Kaneko and the Russo-Japanese War') and how
the authors are on the spine of the book itself where I want the title
to be (max 42 characters).

(Please note - I am talking about the gold letters on the spine of the book itself, NOT
the spine of the dust cover!)

The latest development is that the elderly (80 years plus) Japanese
author has returned three defective books through his son who bought them
on his behalf, with an explanation written by me, and amazon.com have sent
three replacements very quickly... all with exactly the same problem!!

If anybody can tell me what the book's spine looks like on My Lulu
(including anyone from support, whom I have already requested
by raising a ticket) I would be very grateful. Also how big is amazon.com's
stock of defective books likely to be? If amazon don't read people's
complaints and simply send the next books from their stock this
could go on for a while...

I'm sorry that as a Power Poster I don't have time to help out here these
days like I used to, and that now I am the one who needs the help!

Ian

[Keith Dixon]

Hi Ian

I suspect that even folks in Support wouldn't be able to see the spine of the book, as all they have to go on is electronic versions of the dust-jacket. Someone would actually have to go to the printers and inspect the darn things as they came off the printer!

Isn't there an option somewhere on the hardback wizard that allows you to choose what goes on the spine? And an option to 'turn off' any default lettering? If so, maybe this is what Support should be looking at, if you can't fix it. It's a long while since I made my hardback so I can't quite remember the procedure ... which has probably changed now, anyway.

[ianruxton]

Thank you very much for your prompt and helpful reply, Keith.

I believe I have stumbled across a problem in the system.
It should be easy to check what is written on the spine of the book,
in the same way as you can download a pdf of the dust cover
by accessing the page in My Lulu for the hardcover.

I have already attempted to make this point elsewhere,
and requested through Nick Kephalos that the engineers
do something about this apparent systemic fault/issue.

In the meantime I have to pick up the pieces by apologising
to the author who just doesn't understand what is going
on and seems to expect me to sort it out on my own...!!
Not being a magician, nor even a resident of the US, that
is a rather tall order.

Cheers

Ian

[ianruxton]

Aha! I have just spotted a relevant piece of info:

"(Dust Jacket Hardcover only) How do I make both my title and author name(s) fit on the spine?

If your title is shorter than 42 characters, it will display alone, without the author name(s).
If your title is longer than 42 characters and your author name(s) is shorter than 42 characters, the author name(s) will display, without the title.
If each of your title and author name(s) is longer than 42 characters, your title will be truncated to 42 characters and displayed without the author name(s)."

http://www.lulu.com/en/help/book_covers_faq#dust_jacket_limits

I think what happened is that at some point (2nd revision of three?) I tried to include
the sub-title of the book ("A Study in the Public Diplomacy of Japan") on the spine
which would have pushed the title over 42 characters. Then the authors' names
were displayed by default.

I believe I fixed this in the third revision (after Belinda kindly told me about the 42-character limit)
but amazon.com still has stock of the second revision it seems...

[HelenGlennCourt]

Are these 42 characters with or without spaces? My long title is 42 characters unless spaces are counted, in which case it's 47 characters. Anyone know?

[Belinda D'Alessandro]

Only 42 characters including spaces can fit on the spine. So, if your title with spaces is 47 characters with the spaces, then it won't fit.

[HelenGlennCourt]

And if the tile and subtitle total, with spaces, 26 characters, and the name totals, with spaces, 17 characters, the grand total, including the space between the title and the name, comes to 43, does the name get dropped or the subtitle?

[Belinda D'Alessandro]

(Dust Jacket Hardcover only) How do I make both my title and author name(s) fit on the spine? 

In this case, the title should be displayed since it's shorter than 42 characters. The above link is the current location of the Help page Ian referenced above which describes what happens when the character count (including spaces) exceeds 42 characters.

[bayorpig322atyahoodotcom]

ever had problems that after you make a paperback version and try to make a hardcover version - you cannot write any text in the spine? I'm not getting any help from tech on this.