First, let me start off by correcting a common misperception. Lulu is not a Print-On-Demand (POD) company or a vanity press. It is a do-it-yourself publishing service that allows you to publish a variety of media including:

Books (paperback and hardbound)
Ebooks
Comic Books
Photo Books
Cookbooks
Poetry Books
Mini Books
Product Manuals
Calendars
CDs and DVDs
. . . and more

Unlike a vanity press or POD company, Lulu will not charge you any setup fees to publish your book or require you to order a minimum number of books. The only money that Lulu makes is from the commission of your book sales, which is 20% for each copy sold. Neither do they trap your publishing rights with exclusivity clauses. That means that you have total control of how your book’s format, design, price, and where it is sold.

Lulu does require you to purchase a proof copy so that you may check for errors, whether they be your own or theirs. They also expect you to take full responsibility for the self-publishing process of your book. This includes formatting, editing, cover design, marketing, pricing, etc.

Lulu does offer several publishing services packages, which range from $369 to $4,500, depending on which package you want. While I’ve never used their packages, I find myself leery of them because of Lulu’s chronic customer service complaints. For instance, a gentleman contacted me about six months ago for advice after he had bought one of their packages and received nothing in return. Because of that and other complaints about “package deals” with other companies, I would avoid them. Instead, check out the third-party vendors that Lulu has on its community page, as well as Google.

Overall, Lulu offers a great service for writers who want to publish their own books, on their own terms. If you know how to convert files into PDF format and upload them onto a website, using Lulu’s publishing interface should be a straight forward process.

Learning how to format manuscripts correctly so that they will print correctly (or at all) has proven to be a challenge for many writers. That’s what I plan to discuss in the first series of this blog.

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When I first began writing fiction in the Spring of 1997, I had the same dream of all aspiring writers–to see my books on the NY Times bestseller list. Twelve years later, I’ve learned several things. The most important is that I didn’t want to be told what to write. This realization sent me looking for alternative ways to see my book published.

Traditional self-publishing was not an option due to its prohibitive cost. The Print-on-Demand (POD) giants charged way too much for crappy books. So, I waited and kept writing the novel I was working on at the time. I discovered Lulu’s website by accident sometime in 2003, but I didn’t self-publish my first book until 2006. This book wasn’t my novel, but an anthology of essays written by writers that I had met in the blogosphere.

I used this anthology project to get my feet wet with Lulu’s publishing process. It took a considerable amount of planning in both the compilation and the design process. Designing this book was quite a challenge because I had to learn the exact placement of the pages so that the anthology would look like it was published by a traditional publisher.

It took me five attempts to get the result I wanted. My contributors were very happy with the anthology, which I still consider a great compliment. A year later, I self-published a novella, God’s Last Twilight. The following year, I self-published the novel I had been working on for the past decade, Prosperity. Because of the first endeavor, I discovered that I have a passion for designing and publishing books, plus teaching others how to design their own.

The primary focus of this blog is going to concern how to publish books on Lulu. I’ll cover other topics as well, such as photo books in the future. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me.

Deborah Woehr

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