I'm writing this because of a request from a friend here on Steemit who is also an aspiring writer. I publish on Lulu.com, a self-publishing site and I have to admit I was more than just a little bit intimidated, not being what you would call technologically inclined. My first book, the Night Gods, I had the help of @marty-art who handled the artwork (which was magnificent), the layout and helped with the editing. For my second book I was determined to go it alone... and it was much easier than I thought.
First, naturally, you have to start an account. Then there's a toolbar of sorts where you choose "My Projects." Then you choose whether or not you want a hardcover, paperback or ebook. There are a variety of sizes to choose from. Then it's pretty much follow the directions... "it's so easy a caveman can do it," to quote the old commercial. They'll ask you to upload the chapters, or if you have the whole thing laid out you can upload it all at once. If need be, they will convert your text to pdf for you.
Then it's time for your cover design. It basically works the same way as creating the text- you choose a style and upload whatever cover art you wish to use. I was able to complete the uploads and set up the entire book in an hour or two. There is also a professional service where you can hire them to take you through the process and they will also market the book for you- BUT- it's pretty expensive. The lowest price for their service is $999.00, which for me was out of the question.
I hope this has been useful for any budding authors out there who are interested in publishing their own material. Once again, the way Lulu is set up makes it very simple- even for those of us that are intimidated by advance technology. This is a link to their site...
Do they support having images on the pages as well, or is it just text?
I'm certain there's a way to do that. I'm working on publishing some of my essays from here, so I'll let you know. By the way, there's a great old speed metal video on YT with some of the 80's bands like Exciter, Impaler, SDI, Vectom...
I published some files with them years ago. But not books.
Does Lulu get you onto Amazon or Apple?
If you publish an ebook it does as long as the text isn't pdf (it has to be e-pub or something like that) you have that option.
This is so awesome! I've never heard of lulu.com, but I'm checking them out now. You know, I thought I'd done a good amount of research when I did Grimmest Things, but there you go, I just found something new, so I bet this is helpful to a lot of people. I hate those people who want you to pay to "take you through the process" -scammers, mostly. And most of the processes aren't even that hard, you know?
Anyway, I'm glad you wrote this. (and the two books! :D)
Thank you my dear friend! I think the biggest advantage in getting their help is in marketing... I hope so because the rest is easy.
I hope and pray that your sales go through the roof, Rich. It's well deserved. Love your humorous yet educational writing style.
Well, outside of 4 sales on here, I'm flatlining lol! Maybe I need an agent
Hmm - marketing yeah. Can you put it up on Amazon?
In order to publish the ebook on Amazon or any of the others I have to change the text from pdf to e-pub or some other.
One of the tools:
https://ebook.online-convert.com/convert-to-epub
WOW!!! Thanks that is so cool!
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Thanks for the info. I've been thinking about writing and maybe selling some book online, I'll take a look at the site.
It's really easy to use and you can upload your stuff a little at a time, they save it for you.
I'll have to check that site out. I wonder do people do graphic novels on there? I'll hop over and see.
Probably.. as long as the graphics are compatible... they have a wide range of options. I'm pretty stupid when it comes to tech, so I'm probably not the right guy to ask.
Thanks for the information!, excellent tutorial
Thank you... I was surprised at how easy it was!
Love that monkey!
Reminds me of this guy a little.
Ha he looks almost like Marty Feldman!
I love Marty!
Me too! Young Frankenstein will always be one of my favorite movies. We went to see it at the theater and we were literally rolling in the aisles!
I did a Kindle book through Amazon years ago and it worked well.
I'm getting the feeling that they just don't like dealing with Lulu.com. This is the second book they refused to publish. At first they said it was because it was a pdf file so I switched to e-pub and now they don't like that.