Self publishing resources

I have received so many searches and requests for a fast and cheap way to make one piece book covers and two piece book covers that I have decided to put that information right at the top. So if you need a one-piece book cover or a two-piece book cover right now then read on. This is the fast way and the cheapest way to go. Cost is zero and speed is in the neighborhood of 30 minutes. Let's begin.

On Lulu.com there are online tools which you can use free of charge to make two piece covers and I will describe how to quickly convert them into custom one piece covers. So go register with Lulu, it's free. Once registered, start a project from her menu and then upload the interior of your book. You need to do this because the interior page count determines the covers required size for the POD printing companies. Once the interior of your book has been uploaded to Lulu, the next step in the project is to design a book cover. Here is the fast way to a one piece cover. Start by selecting the two piece cover. Pick the color you want for your cover and then put the title and author's name you want on the spine of the book. Deselect all of Lulu's logos and then submit the cover to be converted into a PDF file.

Once Lulu is finished converting the cover you designed - download the PDF cover to your PC. Then go to Bluebeam.com and download the standard version of their product – free for 30 days. Then open the Bluebeam software and import the cover you designed on Lulu. Once in Bluebeam you may add any write-ups and titles for the front and rear covers along with images you want to embed on the cover. Once you are finished you then save it and WALA – you now have a custom one piece cover for your book for nothing. You can update your project with Lulu and delete your two piece cover and upload the custom one you just made. Or you can take it somewhere else to be published. Two notes – first, I did publish through Lulu and personally think she is the best and second I did buy the Bluebeam software at the end of 30 days as I found the software to be very handy. Ok so for those of you needing either one or two piece covers you now have your answer (if not read more detailed instructions on this site) – and for everyone else let's start at the beginning now.

Self Publishing resources main
Welcome to the website that can provide you the tools, information and step by step instructions to self publish your book for free if you have the right resources and knowledge. I went and researched how to get my own book published and learned a ton about the process. I also found an enormous amount of misinformation on the web about publishing on demand, POD. I was also unable to find any one place that could answer my questions about self publishing either. So I decided to take a little of my own time and attach all of the information and resources here on my personal website in hopes of making it easier for any other person who is looking to publish their own book.

I wanted to publish my book for as little cost as possible. I wanted to use a POD company to quickly and cheaply get my book published. I also want to have it available for purchase on Amazon and Barnes and Noble website book stores. I was pretty confident that I wouldn't produce a best seller my first time out and so I wanted to limit my costs. After I finished my research I found only two POD companies that could get my book to Amazon cheap.

One, which I only recently found is: Createspace.com. They are a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon. Though you can actually get your book published and available for sale on Amazon.com, there is a hitch in their process. In order for you to use their site you must know how to create a one piece book cover. I don't mean know how to upload it to their website but actually how to use a photo editor or Adobe InDesign to make the cover. They currently only have instructions for those types of software. I wrote them and they said they were in process of simplifying their cover making process but until they follow through on that thought, you will either have to pay someone or know how to do it. The cost for getting someone else to make your covers for you starts around $350. Therefore Createspace is not the least expensive option out there. I have found a piece of software which appears to be a pretty straightforward package which could be used to make a cover. The name of company is BlueBeam. Here is a link to the software if you would care to try their product. However till I have found a way around the book cover issue I recommend a different POD publisher.

That POD is Lulu.com. There are others but they charge upfront fees to get your book published. Lulu only charges when the book is sold. With Lulu you also retain the rights and own the entire book that you have written. Some other POD companies will publish cheap but then they own your content as well. The only charge Lulu had was the distribution fee of either $50 or now free! Depending on which type of distribution route you want to go. The $50 fee covers getting an ISBN number for the book, which is required if you want to sell it at places like Amazon. Without the ISBN you can only publish the book and sell it from Lulu's website. The free distribution option is new and allows you to have your book published and for sale at Barnes and Noble and other web based bookstores. I don't know this yet for sure but it appears that with the free option your book won't land on Amazon anymore as they have competing self publishing companies. However if you use the $50 option, your book will be on Amazon as you specify the name of your publishing company and therefore Amazon may accept it. They did with my first book.

I chose the published by you option. I simply had to create a publisher name and answer some other easy questions. The book did land on Amazon and 28 other web bookstores around the world. After I had received my isbn from Lulu, I was able to get a logon from Amazon and upload a cover image for the book for their website and specify how I wanted people to be bale to search inside of my book. If you have your isbn you can go to Amazon's sellers central website at the following link to do these kinds of things for your book: https://sellercentral.amazon.com

There are other POD's which can publish you cheaply but I have found no one that can do it as cheaply as Lulu and get it to Amazon. Continuing on with Lulu, the upside to not buying the distribution package is that then your book will cost you nothing, totally free, to publish. So if you simply seek a book that some family and friends can buy then you can publish it through Lulu for nothing. They provide you a free storefront where anyone can order your book. You could also publish a book on Lulu and then just buy one copy of it to see what the quality looks like. However if you want to do something a little different like start a small self publishing company for yourself then click on the other useful links on the left. There I have provided descriptions for other useful websites for you.

Lulu has a great many resources that she provides you to get your book published. However the resources which weren't laid out very well, though this may have changed, and like me you will have some questions that you will have to dig a little in order to find the answers. The other issue with using Lulu is you have to format the book, design the covers (though they have a pretty simple process online) and a couple of other things that you may not know how to do. But this is your lucky day as I am going to put all of that information together in a nice little bundle for you on this site. The only thing this site won't provide you is the actual editing of your own words for your book. You will have to find someone to do this for you if you don't know an editor yet. If you find this information useful and helpful then you could do me the favor of buying my book when it hits Amazon's shelves. But that's only of you feel guilty for not having to dig through all piles website that I had to.

The process is actually quite simple. 1) Write your book. 2) Put your book into a format that POD publishers can handle. 3) Design your books covers. 4) Upload your formatted book and covers to the POD publisher. That's really all there is to it. I chose Lulu as my POD publisher and so much of this information is a step by step process for publishing with her. However you can use the resources and information here to publish with anyone. If you read it all you will end up with a good understanding of what is involved. It is really much easier than you it sounds. When I learned what it really takes to self publish, I was stunned at how simple and easy it really was to do in the end. This website is structured in a step by step approach in order to enable anyone to self publish even if they have never used any of the tools or never knew anything about publishing before.

This section of my website, dedicated to self publishing resources, is laid out in the following way. In the first room are answers for frequently asked, but not easily answered, questions. The second room is the self publishing tools room. It has all the links and resources to the free tools you will need to get your book into the proper format in order to upload it to Lulu. These are image editors, PDF creation tools and MS Word templates. The next room is the self publishing how to room. It contains the information on how to configure all of the publishing tools. You will need to do this before you use them. The next room is Lulu's process room. It has a description of how the process works with Lulu to get your book published. I will update with more information this if and when I run into any wrinkles or other issues I run into as well. I have put a useful links page in this section as well. There you will find other useful resources on the web for self publishers.

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