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Blackclaw · 26 October 2009, 12:52 PM

Lulu works fine if you want to be your own publisher. And if you buy into their distribution package, your books go on Amazon where they may actually get seen by someone looking for World War One books.

However, Amazon has so many books, it's hard for an individual book to stand out.

If you can find a distributor that can get your book to actually sit on book shelves in stores, you might have better sales. But getting a distributor to be interested in a self published book is difficult. And if you do succeed in that, you end up paying for the initial book run. That can be good if you get a lot of orders, but expensive since you have to pay the printing cost up front and then wait a few months for the distributor to pay for the books they've distributed. The store gets a huge discount, the distributor gets a cut, and what's left goes to you, so you have to do the math right or you can end up losing money for every book sold. Lulu's pricing is unlikely to be competitive enough for this.

Though frustrating to try and sell your book to a publisher, that's the traditional method for authors. You get paid from the publisher and they handle the costs of printing and shipping and getting the book on shelves. If you think your book is good enough, you might try that route first. It can take a year or more to find a publisher and there's a big "if" there.

If finding a publisher isn't going anywhere or you don't want to wade through rejections, self-publishing through Lulu isn't a bad idea. However once you do this, other publishers are extremely unlikely to ever pick up the book. But they aren't that likely to pick it up in the first place anyway. If you go through Lulu and buy a distribution package, odds are you will sell less than 100 books. But you will have sold some books! If you are lucky, you'll cover the cost of Lulu's distribution package. You can save some money and not get the distribution package, but you'll have to do some self-promotion. And with the distribution package, it's always nice to be able to tell folks to just look your book up on Amazon, although you earn a lot more when folks buy your book directly through Lulu. And there's always the chance that it can grab enough people's interest to spread and become a major seller. The top Lulu books have sold in the tens of thousands. But don't count on that happening.

Oh, and you should note that the Publishing world is its own unique universe. It's a universe that will sooner or later piss you off. And occassionally it will make you go WTF? For example, there was a special edition of my book on sale at Amazon for a while. That was interesting as I never wrote a special edition...

Anyway, it sounds like you just want to get the book to family and friends and for that I'd say Lulu is the way to go.

Sorry about being long winded with stuff that probably doesn't concern you. Publishing flashbacks...

26 October 2009, 12:52 PM	#6 (permalink)
Blackclaw Observer Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Dayton Ohio Posts: 39	Lulu works fine if you want to be your own publisher. And if you buy into their distribution package, your books go on Amazon where they may actually get seen by someone looking for World War One books. However, Amazon has so many books, it's hard for an individual book to stand out. If you can find a distributor that can get your book to actually sit on book shelves in stores, you might have better sales. But getting a distributor to be interested in a self published book is difficult. And if you do succeed in that, you end up paying for the initial book run. That can be good if you get a lot of orders, but expensive since you have to pay the printing cost up front and then wait a few months for the distributor to pay for the books they've distributed. The store gets a huge discount, the distributor gets a cut, and what's left goes to you, so you have to do the math right or you can end up losing money for every book sold. Lulu's pricing is unlikely to be competitive enough for this. Though frustrating to try and sell your book to a publisher, that's the traditional method for authors. You get paid from the publisher and they handle the costs of printing and shipping and getting the book on shelves. If you think your book is good enough, you might try that route first. It can take a year or more to find a publisher and there's a big "if" there. If finding a publisher isn't going anywhere or you don't want to wade through rejections, self-publishing through Lulu isn't a bad idea. However once you do this, other publishers are extremely unlikely to ever pick up the book. But they aren't that likely to pick it up in the first place anyway. If you go through Lulu and buy a distribution package, odds are you will sell less than 100 books. But you will have sold some books! If you are lucky, you'll cover the cost of Lulu's distribution package. You can save some money and not get the distribution package, but you'll have to do some self-promotion. And with the distribution package, it's always nice to be able to tell folks to just look your book up on Amazon, although you earn a lot more when folks buy your book directly through Lulu. And there's always the chance that it can grab enough people's interest to spread and become a major seller. The top Lulu books have sold in the tens of thousands. But don't count on that happening. Oh, and you should note that the Publishing world is its own unique universe. It's a universe that will sooner or later piss you off. And occassionally it will make you go WTF? For example, there was a special edition of my book on sale at Amazon for a while. That was interesting as I never wrote a special edition... Anyway, it sounds like you just want to get the book to family and friends and for that I'd say Lulu is the way to go. Sorry about being long winded with stuff that probably doesn't concern you. Publishing flashbacks...