Has anyone used Lulu.com for publishing services and are they any good?

Question

Is it better to go with a traditional publishing service or do you really need a publishing agent first?

Answer 1

You go Maryn!! Way to post!! Keep it up! Fifty stars for that answer!!

There are many starred answers to the self publishing issue on my profile. You should read and study them.

Self publishing is a financial black hole. It will end up costing you literally thousands of dollars to print and promote the book and you will be lucky if you sell books to all of your friends and family. The average self published book sells under 100 copies. Is that what you want for your book?

I read a story recently of a woman who refinanced her house and dumped over 60 thousand dollars into the publishing of a children's book. She has earned back less than 10@ of her investment and is about to lose her house. Still interested in self publishing? I am not. Your books will never make it to the shelves of stores and that, my friend, is where the action is for selling books. You will have to pay for advertising and a marketing plan and even then, expect to sell very few books. I have contacted Ingram - America's largest book distributor - and checked on self published books sales quite often. I have seen books that sold as little as THREE copies. How is that for a return on your investment of your time and talent? Pathetic just about covers it.

As for the agent issue - the answer is a simple one. If you want to reach major publishers, you need an A List agent. A list publishers only deal with A list agents. If you want to deal with smaller publishers, get a copy of Writers Market and search for some in your genre. Just make sure you check out any publisher, editor or agent through the standard channels - Absolute Write Water Cooler's Bewares and Background Checks, Preditors and Editors, Anne Crispin's site, Writers Wall etc. There are many who are scams, and many who are simply not legit and many who are near bankruptcy or in litigation with angry authors. Be careful.

My best advice is this. If you believe in yourself and in your book you owe it to yourself to spend at least twice as long trying to publish traditionally as you did writing. If you self publish, do not plan on using that as a reference and referring to yourself as a "published author" because agents and publishers will laugh and consider you amateur. You can self publish anything you want as long as your check clears. You could publish the Chinatown phone book if you could afford to.

Go to my profile and skim through the starred answers. Many here print out the ones that have good information so they can study it. It is a good place to start. Pax - C

Answer 2

Lulu is a vanity press, where the author pays to publish. This is not what the authors whose books you see in stores do.

For fiction, paying to publish is not the way to go. You'll sell less than 100 copies, often less than 50, no matter what you do. Isn't the effort you put into writing a book worth more sales than that?

Not every legitimate sale requires an agent. Many small publishers still deal directly with the author. Once you have a completed, polished manuscript, you can figure out if you should seek a big "name brand" publisher, in which case you need an agent, or if a small publisher will do just fine.

You can find publishers in the most recent edition of Writer’s Market (US) or Writers and Artists Yearbook (UK). Each listing will indicate “agented submissions only” or not.

Remember, reputable agents charge the author NOTHING up-front. Some agents may deduct the costs of doing business (copies, mail, phone) from your first check, but nobody legitimate needs that in order to get started.

You can determine whether an agent is reputable at sites like Preditors and Editors (http://www.invirtuo.cc/prededitors/) and the AAR (http://www.aar-online.org/mc/page.do). Besides being a real agent and not a scammer preying on writers’ dreams, you also want to research an agent’s recent sales of books in your genre before sending a query letter.

Researching whether a publisher is the real deal is easier. Go to a bookstore. See any of their books? Good. No? If it’s a small press, it might still be legitimate. The biggie is that no publisher needs money from the author. None at all. Any publisher who does is cause to run the other way.

Answer 3

You can self-publish now without a 'Vanity Publisher.' You can use LuLu but it will cost you a lot. If you want to try to publish your book on your own, you can do it much cheaper. You should read a book 'Book On Demand Book Publishing' by Rosenthal. And you should read another book 'Perfect Pages' which tells you how to format your MS in Wordperfect so you can take the files and use them as the 'proofs' for your book. This doesn't mean you will make any money or sell any books, but it will save you a lot of money. Any company who gives you a 'package deal' like offering P.R. and bookstore delivery or anything like that are just ripping you off unless you have something exceptional, and I'd say you should show your work to some publishing professionals to see if they think it's in that category. Don't take the advice of family or friends.

Answer 4

Your points are valid, except that you do need to differentiate 'traditional' (I can't believe I'm saying this!) vanity publishers with Print on Demand publishers. The basic difference is that one is likely to lose less money, and also that no one has to warehouse printed books, which is where the charges pile up with the vanity presses.

I've spent over a thousand dollars (over many years, of course) on mailing query letters, including SASEs, and sample packets. Even though it isn't the profitable way to do it, I'd rather have spent that money at one time and have something to show for it other than a collection of failures to communiocate. If I ever have a windfall, I may --MAY -- try PoD for the personal satisfaction.

But I won't be doing it to make money, not that I'd cry if that accidentally happened.

My point is just don't confuse the two types of vanity publishing. PoD is a teensy bit different.

Thank you for your patience.

Answer 5

Lulu is not a good place to get published. i can tell you iv looked at them many times. i am a published author my publishing company is www.publishamerica.com um they pay you for the book but they dont publish everyone your book must be good for them to publish so i suggest you look at them