Several people have mentioned Lulu.com to me as a publishing option, so I’ve been checking into it in more detail today. This FAQ page was especially helpful to me in understanding how the process works. In a nutshell, Lulu makes it “free” to publish your book through them and then they assume all the costs of printing, binding and shipping it. In some ways, they are kind of like a print broker in that they partner with several Print-On-Demand (POD) vendors, so you are paying them to handle all the printing details for you. For an additional $99.95 you can purchase either their Published By You or Published By Lulu packages. Then they also take care of purchasing an ISBN and EAN Barcode and making your book available through their distribution channels, which feed into several major on-line booksellers.

Lulu gives a book pricing example that helped me better understand the setup. Basically, out of the cover price that you set for the book, Lulu subtracts the production costs ($.02/page for printing and a fixed cost of $4.53 for the cover (paperback), binding and setup) and a 20% commission off of the remaining profit margin.

In my opinion, one of the big downsides to this is the high cost the author has to pay for their own copies of the book. According to the Lulu Cost Calculator, if I wanted to purchase 25 copies of my book (at 250 pages per book), it would cost me $238.25 (or $9.53 per book). I think this is typical in the publishing world, but if I’m self-publishing, it would be nice to produce and purchase my own books for less. It could be that the trade-off in the other services they provide (distribution, shipping, marketing, etc.) are worth it, though. I guess I’ll find out as I continue my research.

In response to an e-mail I sent out announcing my forthcoming book and this blog, I received lots of encouraging and helpful responses. One especially helpful piece of advice came from Mike Cox, father of my good friend, Myklin, who has self-published the course, What Every Girl Should Know. He suggested that I join the Christian Self-Publishing Yahoo Group. I joined right away and am eager to begin looking through their archives and participating in the discussion.

On top of that, after introducing myself to the group, I received a very insightful e-mail from Marc Carrier, another member of the group. He and his wife have authored and self-published several books and sell them through their website, Values Driven Family. Marc included some links in his e-mail that eventually led me to this Author Resources page that is chock-full of informative articles and helpful tools. In particular, I found this article on Creating a Children’s Book from Concept to Illustrations. I have a friend who has just started working on a children’s book series that I am thrilled about, so I sent the link on to him.

Oh, and be sure to request the Free Self-Publishing Guide from Author House as well. If their website is any indication, the guide will be a treasure trove of helpful ideas!

Today I started going through the Free Publishing Kit I received a couple of weeks ago from Morris Publishing. They are a printing company that specializes in short-run book publishing. The kit includes a Publishing Guide, a book order form and a sample book.
The Publishing Guide gives a 6-Step “Getting Started” overview and then goes into further detail about each of the steps. These are the 6 steps:
1. Choose a Binding Style
2. Prepare Interior Pages
3. Prepare the Cover
4. File for Book Identification Information
5. Send Your Order
6. Review Proofs

So far it has proved very informative and I’m doing lots of underlining as I work my way through the 84-page guide.