Lulu and Self Publishing

I was reminded of this quote from a thread of old long ago as I stumbled across a site called lulu.com. This is a self publishing site that allows prospective authors to have their books published without having to bother with convincing a publisher that it's worth selling. There are a variety of options available and a little searching showed me that the illustrious Haley Brimley actually has a book for sale on site.

So, I'm curious, has anyone else considered publishing their work in book form via this site? Perhaps for the reading public at large, perhaps just for a small circle of friends, perhaps just for your own edification? I've certainly considered the possibility. It'd be fun to have my own work sitting on my bookshelves along side my favorite authors, even if no one else would buy it.

-LK

Lulu apparently can make money whilst printing and delivering single copies of obscure paperback books at a reasonable price. It's really an amazing business/technology model. I have purchased books from a couple authors I know through Lulu and have been pleased and impressed with their product and service.

Guy

Hi All

yes I have published there and have sold into the low 100s of my first novel:


But you have to have a story that is at least 80 words. It is not suitable for many of the works here, but Guy is right if you want a single copy they can oblige - the quality is fairly good.

DJ Black

I would add that the requirements for having a book printed on Lulu are about as simple as having it in the library, they accept manuscripts in Word and PDF format and magically it becomes a book, although you must do your own editing.

I've been seriously considering publishing some of my longer works like LaForge in ebook form through Lulu for some time. I think you can do it through Amazon for Kindle as well.

Kindle is expensive.

(Thread Resurrection)


Really? 80 words? Perhaps you meant 80 pages? Assuming I'm interpreting you correctly, I see your point, though I think that many here have enough short stories that they could put them all together in a collection that would reach the 80-page mark.


I'm curious, have you decided to do so?

-LK

It's a project in motion. I have some decisions to make---pricing, artwork, etc. And which service to use. I'm leaning toward Amazon Kindle because of their search engine and their popularity. Type in "spanking" in the Kindle reader page and you get a huge number of books. I'm trying to reach a readership that knows nothing about this site, but who are spanking erotica fans. I think it's a large market. There is sure a ton of content.

Another option similar to Lulu is Smashwords. Big distributor of indie books. Books in the spanking genre sell in their erotica section.

http://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords

But the issue with any of these self-publishing sites is marketing/promotion. You are not catering to a specific audience for spanking fiction on any of these sites; it will be up to you to self-promote on your personal blogs (and other erotica sites) to get potential readers to find your book and buy it.

I haven't used Lulu myself, but Aunt Carla has and she's now published 3 story collections with no complaints.