Dear Book Writing Friends,

I have been making my entire living for fourteen y ears solely on self-publishing my books on brain and behavior science, on my music CDs, on my films, and recently on my book on automotive painting-- a happy accident that came from a hobby of restoring my 1965 Lotus Elan (see Adventures In Lotus Land, and Fun With Body Putty
 

Here's the method I used for publishing my very popular book on Car Painting

"Easy Paint A Car Pro Yourself"

1)  I wrote the book.

2)  I created a very detailed and content rich web site (above link)

3)  I then publish as follows:

 

AS  2011 all of my printing needs are being met by a local company, at better prices, with far better customer service: Qualimage Printing

Qualimage cannot get me a listing for a new book on Amazon, but that is of little concern at a practical standpoint- and if I feel like I need an Amazon page, I can go through the Lightning Source process, then actually have production done by Qualimage- exactly my process now.

1) Follow the Lulu instructions for embedding fonts and making a robust PDF file.
 

(The instructions are also on my page http://www.neilslade.com/myown3.html  i.e.,
create your book, then convert to PDF using Adobe DISTILLER)
 

2) Submit your book to Lulu. I do NOT recommend choosing the LULU Distribution where THEY own the ISBN, even though it's "free".

Nothing is "free".  Getting your ISBN through LULU has all kinds of "Gotcha's". 

You can buy 10 of your own ISBN's for $275 here:

http://isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/us/isbn-fees.asp

and use them whenever you need them. You DON'T need an ISBN to self publish in general. If you think you need an ISBN to publish on Amazon- and again, heck, you DON'T need to be on Amazon. And again, they will do virtually nothing for your sales alone. They will NOT promote your book. They will virtually have no impact on your sales without you doing all of the promo work in the first place.

I hope you understand the above paragraph. If not, read till you do get it.

3) You can create your cover art easily with any program, and submit separate front and back covers. Lulu will then create a SPINE for you. You can also use the Lulu generic cover designs if you are incapable of doing cover graphics.
 

ONCE YOU'VE SUBMITTED YOUR COVER ART TO LULU- then DOWNLOAD THE ONE-PIECE COVER FILE from LULU.  You can use this PDF and supply this to anyone printing your book. The Spine will be the correct thickness for your number of pages.  Remember, if you ever change or update the page count, you will have to remake your one-piece cover so it matches the thickness of your book. This is done automatically at Lulu. Just re-download the changed cover.

This is a bit easier than making a "one piece cover" (front, back, and spine together). LULU will actually place your ISBN on the back cover- nice! After they do this, they create a one piece cover with spine lettering that you can then download to your own computer, then upload to Qualifmage, LightningSource or any other printer for that matter. NEAT!


4) After Lulu Makes the one piece cover and book insides, and formats, etc, you can leave the book on Lulu for sale on their "Marketplace". But then get in touch with Lightning Source to have multiple copies of the book printed by them at roughly HALF THE COST of printing the exact same book by Lulu. It will cost you about $75 for the set-up fee.

If you want to be on Amazon- agree to DISTRIBUTION of your title.

This will get you a page on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You will then be able to sell DIRECTLY on Amazon yourself with an Amazon Seller Account (free to set up).

If AFTER your Amazon page appears and you want no one else to low-ball your own price, in which case you'll only end up selling your books wholesale to another reseller who is beating your own retail price, simply contact Lightning Source and ask that your book be removed from distribution. That will take about 2 or 3 days- then, only your listing and sale of the book will remain- no one else will be permitted to undercut your price- AND your Amazon book page will remain on Amazon provided you have already begun to sell your book on Amazon AS A SELLER.

To clarify- do NOT sign up with Amazon Advantage- a total ripoff program. Get an Amazon page by setting up your book with Lightning Source ($75 fee). Do an online "proof" for free. (Do not pay for a proof). Agree to distribution to get an Amazon and B&N page for your book. Then, continue to let Amazon and B&N distribute your book (and you'll be paid the wholesale price for it) or set up a free Amazon SELLER ACCOUNT (not the same thing as Advantage), in which you can sell any book on Amazon provided there's already a page for that book (including your own title) on Amazon.  After the page is up, and you've begun to sell your own Seller copies, cancel distribution if you want to revert to being the only seller of your book. If you cancel distribution, your book will be removed from B&N, and you cannot sell your own there except for ePub digital copies of your book. (See www.EasyMakeAKindle.com  for making Kindle and Nook ebooks)

ALSO:

You can use the printer I do- Qualimage in Denver-- better books, better service, half the price of LULU books and will match any other POD or better price, no set-up fees once you've set up your book with Lightning Source to sell on Amazon.  You can order from one or the other at any time to stock your inventory and continue to sell via Amazon or any other place for that matter.

If you do not intend to sell on Amazon, simply bypass Lightning Source and use Qualimage.

5) You may save all the information, and then republish a new revision on LULU using the files already uploaded on your LULU account, but ONLY sell on Lulu Marketplace, and get more royalties if you sell there, and also get more web coverage and another search engine result by also being on LULU.  I do okay on LULU, and I sell a fair amount of extra books there each month that adds to my income. No crime there.
 

6) Start promoting the book any way you can, get a buzz online, on radio, on TV, in public appearances, make a great CONTENT-FULL website with tons of free stuff,  sell your book, and keep all the profit after your minimized costs instead of giving 95% away to distributors, publishers, and "professionals". Be an actual author who makes money selling his book.

Have Fun!
 

MyOwnPublishing.com Back to the Home page

 

Other pages of Interest- Your support is appreciated- thanks- Neil