Data Structures

Description

A representation of a book or eBook that is to be published or has already been published. The only difference between unpublished and published projects is that a published project has a content ID. The content ID is a unique value, assigned by the creation API, that allows you to reference the project.

Example

This is a sample JSON-formatted project object.

"project" : {
    "project_type": "hardcover",
    "bibliography": {
        "title": "Books...With Jackets",
        "authors": [{"first_name": "arthur", "last_name": "the author"}],
        "category": 1,
        "description": "read it, you'll like it",
        "keywords": ["cat and dog", "pickle"],
	"edition": "First",
        "copyright_year": 2000,
        "copyright_citation": "by Arthur Author",
        "publisher": "Lulu.com",
        "license": "Public Domain",
        "language": "EN",
        "country_code": "US"
    },
    "file_info": {
        "contents": [{"mimetype": "application/pdf", "file_id": 5320}],
        "cover": [{"mimetype": "application/pdf", "file_id": 5483}]
    },
    "program_code": "",
    "access": "public",
    "distribution": [], 
    "allow_ratings": false,
    "drm": false,
    "isbn": { "intent": "assigned" },
    "physical_attributes": {
        "color": false,
        "trim_size": "US_TRADE",
        "binding_type": "jacket-hardcover",
        "paper_type": "regular"
    },
    "pricing": [
        {"total_price": 39.95, "product": "print", "discount_percent": 10, "currency_code": "EUR"}
    ]
}

Fields

Description

A data structure representing the bibliographic information for this project.

Fields

Description

A data structure representing the a single author for the project. This structure does not create a relationship between the Lulu user account and this project.

Future versions of this data structure will allow you to reference specific Lulu Account Ids.

Fields

Description

A data structure representing the ISBN information for this project.

Note: Some distribution channels require an ISBN, while others forbid one. It is important that your project include an ISBN if you expect it to be treated as a book by any retailer other than Lulu.

Fields

Description

A data structure representing the contact information for the publisher of the project. All fields must be exactly as they are registered with the ISBN agency.

Fields

Description

A data structure representing what the book will look like when it is manufactured. This structure is only specified for physical books. It is essential that all information in this structure be accurate, as it determines which printers can manufacture the book, and the cost of manufacturing.

Due to the nature of the manufacturing process, there are limits to what can be manufactured. For details about the minimum and maximum number of pages for each binding type and paper weight, see this page.

Fields

Description

The pricing information for this project. This allows you to control the details of how your users are billed for this project. The royalty for creators is 80% of net proceeds (difference between the purchase price and the manufacturing cost). However, creators can purchase their own books at manufacturing cost. This is determined by comparing the account ID of the buyer with the account ID that was used to create the book, either through the site or the API. If you publish using your user's accounts, and they buy the book, there will be no royalty paid. To determine the manufacturing cost, use the GetBaseCost API.

Fields

Description

The components of the book.

Fields

Description

A representation of the files used to create the cover and book interior. All files must have been uploaded through the file management APIs or through the site before they can be referenced here.

Fields

Description

Lulu supports a variety of ways to sell your book. When working with projects, you can determine where it will be sold. This is specified with a combination of the access and distribution fields.

The supported values for access are:

• public - The book is available to everybody within the Lulu.com Bookstore
• private - The book is only available to the user who published the book.

The supported values for distribution are:

• lulu_marketplace - Sell the book on the Lulu.com Bookstore
• retail_channels - Sell the book on all external channels that support this book
• empty list - A special value that indicates you don't want the book available on Lulu.com through the bookstore. Projects with this value are still available for sale, but the buyer must know the full URL of the product page to buy the project. This is referred to as direct access on Lulu.com

By combining these values, the user can control where the book is sold.

Note: If you want to specify an empty list for the distribution field, you must include the field in your project data structure. If you leave the field out of the data structure completely, the API will default to "lulu_marketplace".