Self Publishing Made Easy
Victoria Purdie
If your manuscript has been to every publisher in town and you've had
no success but still believe in your project, why not have a go at
self publishing? Or it could be that your chosen topic is a family
history and you only want a few dozen copies. This is made much
easier these days by the operation of web sites such as
www.Lulu.com in America and
www.publishme.co.nz in New Zealand.
Each site works by the author setting up a log in email address and
password to create an account. Then you must have your manuscript
typed and thoroughly edited into shape with page numbers appearing in
your chosen spot. If you have your own cover artwork designed or
plan to use your own photograph, that will work fine or you can use
the set templates available which I did with my first book. I used
one of my photographs for the second cover however and both were easy
to work with and quite attractive.
Once your book is set up and thoroughly checked, go to the site, log in
and if on Lulu click "Publish". You start by choosing your book
dimensions and binding type. Follow the steps to upload your book
from your computer and then check it with the preview. You'll find
that it's pretty quick to upload if it's just text. Make
sure your manuscript has a title page, and on the back of the title
page put details such as 'copyright', 'published by',
etc. Look through some books on your shelf for examples of this. It
can look strange later to open your book and see the first page of
the text. You can include extra blank pages, perhaps one with a
dedication and an index with the correct page numbers at the back if
desired. Make sure chapter 1 will start on a right hand page.
You can choose your options for colour, font style and text for the back
cover, spine and front cover. You can fiddle around with it all until
you are happy and then click 'Save' and continue.
Once your book is ready, you can choose to make it private just for your
own viewing and printing or you can make it public for other's to
buy in print form or download to their home computer. It pays to get
a copy printed and sent to your home address before making your book
public. That way you can check for final errors before it's
launched on the world. It's also very nice to be able to read your
manuscript in book form in bed rather than at your computer. And the
other bonus is that if your book is lying around your house looking
like a book, others might be tempted to read it too. If it's on
the computer or typed in boring manuscript form, others probably
won't be too interested.
Once you've received your book in about a week or so depending on where
you live, you can then do a 'revise' on your book. This will be
called Edition two. You may want to get another copy printed or
change the status to public viewing and put it on your 'Storefront'
so other's can see and buy your book. You can link to this
storefront and put it on your website or attach it in your signature
to emails so your friends and family can see your self published book
with a few mouse clicks. Your "My Lulu" site will record how
many hits you've had on your book and any sales you've had too.
Royalty cheques or payments via Paypal will follow if you make any
sales.
During the set up process, you can set your book price. A price for
download and a price for printing and shipping to a customer. Lulu
will make about $3.00 per book approx and an author can make about
$10 per book. If you price it too high, no one will purchase your
book and if you make it too low you won't stand to make much for
your effort.
My 76 page paperback cost me $6.05 to publish in American dollars.
You can also purchase ISBN numbers and get a package for your book to
appear on sites such as Amazon.com, so there is real growth for your
project and many places it can go. It might even be picked up by a
traditional publisher down the track.
How successful your book is depends on you. It can be searched by others
on the site and may be bought by random strangers, so make sure your
submitted key words are accurate, but you can also do your own
marketing and advertising.
Once you receive sales, you can either fulfill those orders from stock you
keep at home, or go online and order more to fulfill your customer's
needs. This can be done at midnight if you wish and there's a
great Live Chat help service with Lulu. I've used this several
times. Once logged in, you click on Live Chat, type in your question
and a lovely person at the other end will help you within minutes.
If you get sick or too busy to be marketing and selling your book, you
don't have 2987 books sitting in boxes in your garage that are left
over from a print run of 3000. This is the main benefit of Self
Publishing on Demand. You print when you want them. This is great
for small run books such as family histories that the general public
probably isn't going to be interested in or for topics like
fundraising recipe books that might have a limited success.
Allow plenty of time for checking your manuscript, uploading to the site
and designing your cover and other details. It can take a good few
hours so don't rush as you no doubt will make mistakes. Enjoy the whole experience and
then when your book comes in the mail a little while later, savour
the feeling of holding it in your hands.
You can see my self published books at:
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=1096605
One is called "The Writer's Ropes" and is everything you need to
know to begin your writing journey and the other is a teenage young
adult romance novel called "Sleeping with the Sea".
© Copyright Victoria Purdie 2008
