Ten Steps to Publishing with Lulu.com - Introduction

To follow is the introduction to one of my new projects: Ten Steps to Publishing with Lulu.com. It's part of the Indie Publisher Fast Track that I've been putting together.

Welcome!

You're about to make your publishing dreams come true! In this guide, we'll walk through the 10 steps to publishing your own 6" by 9" perfect-bound trade paperback book (like you find in bookstores) with Lulu.com. By the time you've finished all these steps, you'll be able to publish a real book. You can give this book as a present to friends, family, and co-workers, as a holiday or birthday present. Imagine the look on your family's faces when they open a gift from you... and it's that book you've been telling them you've been working on – for real, right in their hands!

Lulu makes this possible. I should know – I've published 15 different books (and counting... the number will probably be higher than this, by the time you read this, as I'm working on publishing some of my favorite public domain books). And I've gotten the ultimate compliment from national radio hosts who talk to authors all the time. "This book looks just like a commercial paperback," they tell me. With the ISBN and the professional printing that Lulu makes possible, my book is virtually indistinguishable from the mass market paperbacks I grew up with. It's even better quality, in fact.

Personal publishing is really just the start. If you're a business owner who has specialized knowledge, and you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field, you can now publish your own book with Lulu.com for little or no up-front cost. That's right, you can create a professional image in print, which you can offer at your place of business, sell to your existing customers, or use as a promotional tool for your company. You can produce a full-length book for sale, and you can create smaller “sub-versions” to give away as a promotional tool for your business. A book not only establishes you as an expert in your field, but it's also tangible evidence of your expertise that prospects and customers alike can take with them, so your
domain knowledge is always at their fingertips.

If you've got bigger plans than “specialty publishing”, you can also sell your book online at Lulu.com. Once you've published your book, you'll be able to buy an ISBN (the unique bookseller number with the bar code) and have your book listed in Amazon.com and other online booksellers.

One of the great things about Lulu is that it's free to get started, and it doesn't cost you anything to create and publish a book. Money does change hands, when you purchase your review copy (or other copies for your own use, like friends and family), but it costs you nothing to publish with Lulu. Compare that with other online on-demand publishing services, like Xlibris and iUniverse (who can charge between $299 and $5,999 for publishing one book), and you'll certainly see the value of Lulu.

Another great thing about Lulu is that you can publish instantly. If you have your
manuscript, your book cover artwork (or you use an image in their gallery), your promotional text (like for the back of the book and the book description for your storefront), you can publish your book in under an hour. It might sound impossible, since other on-demand self-publishing services can take up to 30 days for your project to be finished. But with Lulu I publish my own 6x9” trade paperback books in 30 minutes or less. Of course, I've been doing this for several years, but in this guide, I'll teach you to publish very quickly. I show you how to do things it's
taken me many trials-and-errors to discover, so you can fast-track your publishing.

Who knows, once you learn what's taken me years to figure out, you may be even faster than me!

Publishing has never been this easy, or this economical. Lulu.com puts an amazing amount of power and control in the hands of people like you and me, so we can realize our dreams of becoming published.

The guide covers:
1. What you Need to Get Started Publishing Your Book with Lulu.com
2. Logging in to Lulu
3. Starting a New Project for your Book
4. Entering Your Book Information
5. Uploading your PDF
6. Choosing Your Printing and Binding
7. Creating Your Cover
8. Setting Your Pricing/Royalties
9. Uploading Your Preview
10. Updating Your Book (In case you need to make changes later)

I'll be covering the screens on Lulu.com in-depth, sharing what I've learned over years of publishing more than 15 different books with them. I'm sure you'll find Lulu's interface quite intuitive, once you know what all the pieces on the page mean.

Copyright © 2006 by Kay Stoner - All Rights Reserved
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