Articles tagged "how to create an eBook"

The State of Self-Publishing

Recently, Bowker issued a report on the state of self-publishing, analyzing ISBN data year over year to identify changes in the number of print and eBooks published by the top self-publishing platforms. And guess what? Self-publishing isn’t going anywhere.

“Our general conclusion is that self-publishing is beginning to mature. While it continues to be a force to reckon with, it is evolving from a frantic, wild-west style space to a more serious business,” said Beat Barblan, Bowker Director of Identifier Services. “The market is stabilizing as the trend of self-publisher as business-owner, rather than writer only, continues.”

A few key takeaways from the report:

  • Screen Shot 2014-11-06 at 11.09.33 AM

    Bowker Report

    Self-published titles jumped to more than 458,564 in 2013, increasing by 17 percent over 2012 and 437 percent over 2008.

  • Printed titles were up, as well. Specifically, increasing by 29 percent over 2012, indicating the format remains popular amongst authors and readers, alike.
  • The industry continues to be led by a handful of self-publishing service companies, with over 75 percent of self-published titles being brought to market with support from just three companies: Lulu.com, Smashwords and CreateSpace.

Plus, not to toot our own horn, but Lulu.com was the only self-publishing company to remain ranked in the top three when you compare ISBN output from 2008-2013 across total print and eBooks, just print books and just eBooks. Alright, maybe we’re tooting our own horn just a little bit.

The picture this data paints is very exciting for the future of the self-publishing industry and the team at Lulu.com is thrilled to be on the leading edge of the direction the industry is moving.

Download Day is Coming. Create an eBook, Win a Barnes and Noble NOOK

eBooks are the hot topic these days and with good reason.  Industry analysts are estimating 24.5 million lucky folks will be unwrapping shiny new e-readers this holiday season, which is expected to double overall eBook sales over last year’s whopping $263 million.

eBooks provide both a speed to market and potential for a higher revenue share that are just too beneficial to ignore. With Lulu’s direct-live status an author can create an eBook and have it available for sale almost immediately and keep up to 90% of the profit.  Each day, we see more and more traditionally published authors like Stephen Stark and Kevin Powell self-publish eBooks of their own.

“Suddenly all these people are publishing their content on their own because they don’t feel they’ll get the same money or value elsewhere and they are right,” says Stark.  “We’ve reached a point where authors can make a much higher royalty by self-publishing and are free to experiment in ways big publishers can’t.”

It’s true; eBooks provide opportunities to reach huge numbers of new readers, and we want to make sure all of our authors are set to take full advantage of those opportunities.  So this year, we’re proclaiming December 26th the first annual Download Day.

Much like Black Friday in November, the day after Christmas is the highest traffic shopping day for people buying eBooks.  Think about it, you just got this cool new gadget; you’re gonna want to play with it and start filling it up with apps, games, and…(say it with me) eBooks!  Will your work be one of them?  It should be.

To sweeten the deal, we’ll give the Lulu author who sells the most eBooks on December 26th, 2011 (even if you’re selling for free) a brand new Barnes and Noble NOOK, and a $100 off coupon – good for anything on Lulu.  Hit up your friends, your family, heck, even your mailman, and send them a link to your eBook.  The bonus here is with more sales, you’ll gain more visibility for you and your work by moving up in bestseller lists in places like the iBookstore℠ and NOOK Bookstore™ so even more readers will discover your titles.

Want to create an eBook but don’t know where to start?  Fret not, would-be digital author, with our Word to EPUB Converter, you can upload .doc, .docx, .txt, and .rtf files and have them made into an EPUB within about two – five minutes.  You can also visit our eBook landing page for more information – your source for all things in eBook publishing.

Once you’ve published, be sure to read our helpful eBook marketing blogs for tips on how to create an eBook and make sure all these new eBook reading customers will see yours.  You might learn something you didn’t think of – like how selling your eBook for free can actually make you more money.  Pretty soon, you’ll have readers all over the world flipping the digital pages of your remarkable work.

Happy Download Day!

 

The iBookstore is a service mark of Apple Inc.

The winner of Download Day will be notified in mid-January 2012.  Contest is open to all Lulu authors that have titles available in EPUB format.  Total sales will be calculated from lulu.com and our distribution partners.

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