Lulu and Self Publishing

You could end up making some spanking new friends... Or is that new spanking friends?

In any case, there are authors who proudly appear at signings for erotic books - and being carried in the local section is one of the few ways the average self published author's work makes it into bookstores.

If you've got a thing about privacy... well you have to give Lulu your real information (they need to know where to send your share of the money) so even if you use a pen name there will be a paper trail linking you to the book... Then again, if you use a pen name and get in the local section you might drive people wild as they wonder who you really are...

Goodgulf

Not only that, they probably have to report your earnings on an IRS form 1099 or equivalent so you'll have to make an entry on your tax return. All of this will greatly increase the risk of being outed.

As both an issuer and recipient of 1099's I can state with some certainty there is no identification on it of the reason for the payment, only the kind, "misc. income." While it is possible that the schedule for "self-employment income" may ask for the nature of the business, I am certain that no detail beyond "author" or "writing" is requested. I have never heard of any spanking writer being outed thru a tax form.

There are more than enough things in this world to be paranoid about, without adding.

Is the privacy thing any worse than when you purchase a book on-line? They have your name, address, credit card number.

I have absolutely no publishing experience. I do read a lot and have two different e readers. I have also downloaded quite a few books by independent authors, so for what it is worth (and my apologies if this is all common information, just thought I would offer a frequent reader's perspective):

What you see a lot is that an author offers one of their books free or really cheap. Then, they hope you come back and purchase more of their work, or better yet, the next in a series. Some authors try to "trick" people, by listing their book as free or really cheap, but it is just the first chapter or two. I would not recommend doing that in a "sneaky way"..because people get annoyed, and give your book a bad rating, and many people may not take the time to read why you got the bad rating, they just might see a low number of "stars" move on to the next selection. If you want to do that out in the open, that is fine, though I personally would be less likely to download that as opposed to a full work.

The artwork is normally pretty bad on independent books.. I have seen author's on their blogs talk about how it costs a lot of money for a good cover and it does make a difference. For me, personally, I really could not care less about the artwork. For one thing, I am reading it as an e book, and two, I am not buying it for the picture. The summary of the book is what gets me, or fails to get me.

The editing is all over the place. Some people, who thank friends for editing, have very professional looking work product. Other people, who apparently paid for editing services, did not get their money's worth, IMHO.

Final thought, if I discover a author I like, cheap or free, the first thing I am going to do is do a search for them on-line, and the topic I am interested in, to try find more work at the best price. I am sure others do this, so if you have a book you want people to buy, but the same work is out there on sites like this for free, that may impact your sales.

Again, my apologies if this is all obvious!

Some of the work here is really, really good, so best of luck to anyone here that self publishes!