gHacks technology news » publish http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:38:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Self-publish for free with Lulu http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/04/self-publish-for-free-with-lulu/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/04/self-publish-for-free-with-lulu/#comments Mon, 04 May 2009 20:53:40 +0000 Daniel Pataki http://www.ghacks.net/2009/05/04/self-publish-for-free-with-lulu/ luluIf you think you’ve got what it takes, why not write a book? Oh yeah, it’s takes a load of time, a huge load of marketing effort, and even more money to get enough published to start selling. It’s also risky, since you could be throwing money out the window if people don’t buy your book. Lulu gives you extremely good tools to publish your own book, and since they offer printing on demand, you won’t have to pay a dime until someone buys your book, even then, you only pay for printing, plus a little bit. All in all it’s the solution for bloggers, aspiring writers who want to show off their skills in the “real world”.

The model behind Lulu is that you write the book, upload it in a suitable format, select lots of options and then save it as a book. You can create commercial grade hardcover illustrated books, the tech behind it is really flexible, your imagination is the limit. There are no costs involved anywhere. The “catch” is that it will cost you more to print a book than it would if you would take it to a publisher to print 10,000 copies. The reason is purely economic (economies of scale), printing a few copies of a book is relatively more expensive than doing a large amount.

These costs are deducted from the sale of your book, so it’s all good, since you don’t actually see the cost, after one successful sale you still get money. You can set your own price for the book, Lulu will deduct its own costs, and you get the rest. They also offer lots of tutorials on creating the document for the finished version of the book, and for once they really are helpful, even for people who’ve dabbled in this before.

Overall, I love Lulu, I used it to create a book, and I will be sending myself a copy soon. If for nothing else, you can create a really great gift for your friends & family!

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