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Self-publish your book

January 31, 2010

My self-published book on blurb.com

As the Internet eliminates traditionally held jobs and creates new ones in a not so old online world, the role of a book publisher is no longer a necessity.  The large percentage of profits that were enjoyed by the publisher in exchange for printing and publicity can belong to the author of the book.  In addition, since 40% of the books printed are discarded, these days books can be printed on demand when an order is placed, so there is no wastage.  As social media takes over traditional print advertising, promoting has changed from full-page glossy ads to Facebook and viral videos.

Two great websites that have delivered this change are lulu.com and blurb.com.  With the help of these sites, you can upload your book in pdf format, set a price and have it printed when someone places an order.  After the book is shipped, you get the profit generated from the sale and the website keeps a small percentage of it, a lot less than a publisher would.  Your book can even be distributed through the site as an eBook or sold internationally.  Apple’s iPad was recently announced which is claimed to be an all encompassing book reader device.  If you publish an eBook on lulu it will be fully compatible with iPad’s or iPhone’s ePub file format.  You can even upload your book, not put it on the market if you wish and just get just one beautifully bound copy mailed to you for yourself.

Some types of books that you might consider publishing are novel, photo book, calendar, cookbook, poetry book and even CD or a DVD!  I published a few personal books on blurb.  The picture below shows my cat, Pepper, who passed away last year.  To see the first few pages, click on the images.

PRICING

Pricing calculation below is from the Lulu’s website.

PROMOTING

Lulu has a Market Reach package for $25, which makes your book available on Amazon.com as a marketplace listing and on Ebay.com, without a retail markup.  Lulu can even provide you with an ISBN, which lists your title in major bibliographical databases and makes your work available as a regular listing on Amazon.com.  The Global Reach package makes your book available to Barnes and Noble and other brick and mortar bookstores.

Personally for me publishing my picture book on Pepper gave me so much satisfaction and was a great to way cherish his memory.  I now own a beautiful, hardbound cover copy which I often look at and smile.

-Noerah

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9 Comments leave one →
  1. JPR permalink
    January 31, 2010 8:45 pm

    I too have used blurb. It was fantastic. Very user friendly and the results look truly professional. I made a book of my son’s first year and gave to my family for Christmas. They love it!

  2. February 1, 2010 8:56 am

    Cool… Have to check this out! I’ve made bound photograph books on snapfish, and also played around on Tastebook for recipe compilation books, but the formats (especially Tastebook) were a bit clumsy, and the finished book is binder sized.

    • February 1, 2010 9:41 am

      My blurb book was very easy to do and they offer many different formats. Also the software that you download to do this is also very easy to use and very versatile. For picture intensive books I would definitely recommend blurb. – Noerah

  3. February 3, 2010 9:04 pm

    I’ve been watching Blurb and heard a lot of good things about it. Got to look back at it!

    • February 3, 2010 9:28 pm

      My Blurb book was a joy to work on. The free software you have to download called BookSmart is very easy to use and has great layout templates.

    • February 4, 2010 6:54 am

      Julia:
      I just looked at your blog: its lovely. Sure looks like you’d have plenty to put in a book!
      Talia

  4. February 4, 2010 11:21 am

    Talia- Thank you so much! Blurb is now officially on the front burner. And I must say, Pepper looks like he was such a sweet boy. It must be nice to have this keepsake of him.

    • February 4, 2010 1:54 pm

      Great! Please let us know when you get your first book up on Blurb by clicking on ‘idea or tip’ in our side bar . Maybe we can do a follow up to this post with your experiences. And yes, Pepper was an amazing cat and that is why this book is very precious to me.

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