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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Just using lulu for the first time. Do I need to have a blank page in my pdf so the right two pages of content are on the double spread?
The preview calls the cover page page 1 which confuses me.
help
cheers
I printed out the manuscript before I converted it into a pdf, too see what it would look like and where I needed to insert pages so that everything was positioned correctly. The cover page is considered page one of the book, in the physical sense.
Hi Deborah – i’m trying to find the place on your blog where you discuss formatting pages for Lulu but can’t seem to locate.
Hi, Jeri – It’s not there yet. I apologize for that. I got sidetracked by some major projects, but I plan to start catching up soon.
I want to take a try at self-publishing a coloring book witn Lulu – I have read negative things about Lulu on the net, but I have also heard from my editor that she has used Lulu and had no trouble.
What is your opinion.
I now have a ISBN from Lulu for the coloring book, and she says to add the ISBN to my copyright page. Does a coloring book need a copyright page and if so, how do I design that – I have never needed one before. I just had the ISBN and bar code put on the back cover page of a devotional book I had done by a friend.
Hi, Gail – The only thing I had problems with was Lulu’s customer service when I had a question about setting up another account. Other than that, I’ve had good experiences with Lulu. Many others haven’t, due to a variety of reasons.
Yes, your coloring book will need an ISBN number if you want to sell it on Amazon. The copyright page looks different from one of a paperback or textbook. Here is the link to a coloring book I found on Amazon. You’ll have to zoom in to see the wording clearer.