http://www.lulu.com?

Question

Have you used http://www.lulu.com before?
Do you know anyone that has?
What was your or their outcome?
Would you use it? Why or why not?
If you want to publish your book who would be your favorite publisher? Why?

Among the most famous self-published authors are:

Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass

Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn

JohnGrisham:A Time to Kill

Richard Bolles: What Color Is Your Parachute?

L. Ron Hubbard: Dianetics

Irma Rombauer: The Joy of Cooking

Richard Nixon: Real Peace

James Redfield: The Celestine Prophecy

Deepak Chopra

Gertrude Stein

Zane Grey

Upton Sinclair

Carl Sandburg

Ezra Pound

Mark Twain

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Stephen Crane

Bernard Shaw

Anais Nin

Thomas Paine

Virginia Wolff

e.e. Cummings

Edgar Allen Poe

Rudyard Kipling

Henry David Thoreau

Benjamin Franklin

Walt Whitman

Alexandre Dumas

William E.B. DuBois

Answer 1

Self publishing does not make you an published author. It makes you a self published author. If you told a traditional publisher or agent you were self published, they would laugh you out of their office. Anyone with the money can self publish anything they want. Self publishiing - or let's call it what it really is - vanity publishing - exists for people who write terrible books but think they are the next Shakespeare. As long as their check cashes, Lulu doesnt care what you publish. All you are buying from them is a box of books with your name on them.

The outcome is simple. Your books are NOT available in bookstores. The self publishing company does NOTHING to promote your book. In addition to the money you must pay to print, you must also pay to advertise and promote your book otherwise nobody knows it is there. See?? Books sell when they are in stores. Self publishing is a financial black hole. It is throwing good money after bad money. If you want to sell your books, the money just keeps flowing - out of your pocket.

In addition, the quality of most self published books is horrible. I have read self published books that were missing pages and some that fell apart in my hands. They are junk. Cheaply made and produced trash.

The average self publisher sells less than 100 books. It is a losing proposition. One good way to judge a publisher here is to watch the responses. Self publishers have a habit of sending people called sock puppets to forums to brag about their success. However, if you can manage to get these people to give you the title and ISBN number of their book you can check with the automated system at Ingram, a large distributor and find out what that person's sales are. Often it is less than 50 books.

I would never use any self publisher. I strongly believe in the world of traditional publishing. There are many small publishers you can go to directly and have a fair chance at being accepted, but remember that the A List publishers out there don't accept unsolicited submissions. They deal with A List agents only. Getting an A List agent is no easy task.

Whoever you decide to try, make sure you check them out first. Absolute Write Water Cooler's Bewares and Background Checks, Preditors and Editors, Writers Weekly.com and Writers Wall are all great free sources to check out the credibility of a publisher or agent. They are free, but if you can, contribute some money to them. It costs a lot to run these sites. If you don't find the name you're looking for, check with them personally. They will answer your letters. There are scams, frauds, publishers on the verge of bankruptcy, publishers with hundreds of lawsuits against them and so on ...

Stay away from self publishing. It is not worth the money or the effort. Pax - C

Answer 2

no self respecting author who is setting out to make a name for themselves self-publishes. To be blunt...it would kind of make a joke out of your career if you tell people you are published when you are self-published. A self-published book might sell at most, 100 copies and that is with the best marketing you can do. Without marketing, none. So I don't go that route, no offense to anyone who does. Finding an agent might be a big headache, but if I one day pull it off...it will be much more satisfying in the end.

Answer 3

I'll stay away from self publishing. It's risky and it scares me. If I want my books published, I want their quality very good and not rubbish. Who wants to have their book published badly anyway? And sell them no more than 100? That would be a disgrace to my dreams, a very great downfall when I dreamed of selling millions or at least thousands for how many years and end up just like that. That is dying.