Publishing and E-Publishing

Self Publishing: Everything Old Is New Again

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In the last year it seems everyone and their brother is into self-publishing.  Sure, it started with Lulu.com cornering the market, but Amazon got in on the game, Harlequin has their venture, and it seems every month or three there's some new endeavor out there.  With so many self-publishing options it seems like a new age of print material, both electronic and physical.

I'm all for self-publishing; indeed, I am self-published.  However I can't say it's exactly new.  We've had self-publishing for years, we've had unrestricted access to eyeballs for any author for well over a decade.

We called it the World Wide Web.

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Review: Lulu.com

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PROS:
* Helpful wizard-like publishing tools let you get out a book pretty easily.
* Many, many options and extras.
* Print quality is decent to excellent.

CONS:
* Site arrangement is not the most helpful – clearly shows signs of continual growth.
* Help is plentiful, but not always clear.

SUMMARY: Lulu.com lets you create your own books, calendars, CD's, and more – as well as sell them.  What's not to love?

So finally, my review of Lulu.com.  I held off as I was trying out several different features and processes, and wanted to be able to give a comprehensive review of everything.

This is that review.

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On Making eBooks

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(Please note I am holding off on my big review of Lulu.com as I have some special distribution options and services pending, and I want to wait until those are done before doing a full, comprehensive review).

After realizing that eBooks meant I could distribute more of my books to people cheaper, after realizing the geek-fan-otaku readers of this blog probably were big on ebooks, I decided it was time to turn Fan To Pro into an eBook.  Looking back I wonder why I waited so long to do it.

Now I've been predicating for the last year that the complexities of eBook markets were going to be confusing for small publishers, indie writers, and the like.  So, let me state it simply – yes, it's confusing.  Sure, I did it, but it wasn't as easy as I'd thought.

Here's what taking my book to an eBook took:

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