Lulu: Self Publishing For Free
In the first tentative steps of making Spike:The Book happen, I've been investigating various Print On Demand companies over the last few months. At the moment I am very stuck on Lulu.com as the place to publish Spike The Book. Not only is it super cheap to get it up and going, but I like the fact of having complete control over everything - the cover, the font, the spacing, the pictures - everything. This is because Lulu are a technology company, not a publishing company per se. They are a platform, not a provider. They want to make it easy for you to publish your book, whatever it is. And to do it all yourself, just as you want it. Reading the FAQs, I'm impressed with how well-written they are - simple, straightforward, understandable - and how free of bullshit they are. Lulu clearly Get It.
Moreover, once you've done one book through them - and been through the unavoidable pain of learning how to set up page templates etc - doing the next will be far less painless. A thousand small publishers could launch on the back of Lulu. I feel the idea of Spike Publishing emerging Alien-like from my guts at this very moment. Help me.
More on self publishing:
Spike | Google | Amazon UK | Amazon US | Wikipedia
We want to print one book and place the rest on site. Can a children’s book get printed and published without upfront cost? If so how long does this take?
Susan,
I am bleary-eyed going through Lulu’s Website with a fine-toothed comb.
The way I understand it (and I plan to published my first novel through Lulu in the next week or so) is that it is publishing on demand, which means nothing is printed until someone is ready to buy.
Lulu tells you up front what the cost of your book will be to the public, including a $4 per copy profit for you.
They will also sell your book as an e-book which your readers will pay for and download at a cost you set. The e-book also has no up front costs.
You are required to purchase one copy of your book for print so you can proofread it before it is sent out to Amazon and throughout the merry world.
Good luck and search through the Lulu Web site for answers to all your questions. I am still looking, too.