It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that I first heard about lulu.com on the podcast TWiT(this week in tech). For a time I even forgot the name of the place. How you forget a name like Lulu, I don’t know, but I did. Recently I was reminded about it when Heather over at Dooce used their services for a calender of her dog, so I made another return visit to Lulu. And to my surprise, Lulu has blossomed. It hasn’t really changed much, but it does seem to have taken off a little.
The biggest area still seems to be the books, with several of the categories in the thousands of books. Lulu is a true on-demand publisher, meaning that if you publish a book, calendar, cd, etc… with them they only print what gets ordered. No costly print runs. What this does is make it extremely easy and cheap to self publish any creative work. And Lulu seems to have done it right. Now if they would just implement an Amazon like associates program…
So, if you have that finished novel sitting in your “out” box, consider dropping in and checking out Lulu before you send it off to Random House.
Technorati Tags: Lulu, Dooce, Heather, Twit, Leo, Self-Publish, On-demand
About Shane Ede
I’ve tried lulu and I’ve got to say they’re getting their act together.
I uploaded and ordered my first book November 8th and had a couple copies drop-shipped to a friend. The friend got her copies on Nov. 12 and I got mine a day later.
Amazing if you think about it and almost as fast as Amazon for ordering books. And to think – I not only ordered but also had PRINTED said book.
They are now offering the option that if you buy their ISBN (not the best way to go if you plan on doing more than one book – might as well buy your own block of ISBN numbers and run your POD book thru Ingram’s Lightinsource) they also will put your book thru Google Print.
This all means they really do take the hassle out of publishing and semi-promoting books.
I’d recommend them highly although it does take considerable time to get things just right so they print properly.
God Lulu rocks. I only wish they did software as I don’t know about you but I definately see I use for something like this…