Young Writers Society

You guys, I just found the craziest site ever. http://lulu.com is apparently a free website where you can publish your OWN books. The only money that they'll take from you is on the actual profits of the books themselves.

I can hardly believe this; it's like a freakin' dream come true. Of course, I have no personal experience with the site, but VOID uses the site to publish their periodic collective comic book, and they're the kind of website that knows what they're doing, so it's gotta be pretty good. You get to design the cover, the layout, and everything. I'd give you more details, but that's all I know. If I ever get any sort of book or anything done, I'll use the site and tell you more.

Happy publishing and selling!

There are a number of self publishing websites out there. Treat them with caution though, as many take advantage of new writers, charging you lots of money for a shoddy product.

And remember, you have to sell the books yourself, the companies don't do it for you.


This one looks better than most though, and they even sell your book on their site.

Yes, but self-publishing has its own set of problems, and is rarely as effective (or lucrative) as publishing via established publishers.

It's pretty weird, and I agree that they will probably take advantage of you.
I bet (not really, since i'm broke ) that there's a catch.

Karma >> No, I'm pretty sure they don't (take advantage of you, that is) — I've actually never used it, but from the tons of people on the Nanowrimo boards who've used it successfully, I'd say it's pretty catch-free.

The problem with self-publishing is that you're basically a one-person publishing team. You don't have the marketing team, the editors, the network of contacts, the established wholesalers and distributors. You have to everything on your own — organize book launches at local bookstores, try to interesting libraries in purchasing your books, try to get the same amount of exposure to the media, etc. Heck, I'm pretty sure (in Canada, anyway) you're not even allowed getting a CIP entry if you're self-published.

There are writers who've been able to self-publish successfully, or least moderately successfully. But it may not be as heaven-sent as you think it is, that's all.

Yeah, I wouldn't use it for something really big, but if you've got some little thing that you don't think will get published by a big publisher and want to sell it anyway, like to friends or whatever, this would be a sweet site to use. Heck, it would be cool just to buy your own stuff so that you have a hard copy or whatever.

Yeah, that would be awesome!

I should use this site one day. Maybe when I finish something good.

Yeah, I wouldn't use it for something really big, but if you've got some little thing that you don't think will get published by a big publisher and want to sell it anyway, like to friends or whatever, this would be a sweet site to use. Heck, it would be cool just to buy your own stuff so that you have a hard copy or whatever.

That would be really cool If I actually finished one of my stories I might get it made into a hard cover for display in my room as a trophy of my achievement.

Or maybe YWS could use it to gather a collection of our wonderful stories...

just a thought

You're right Dono!

That would be wonderful.

Or maybe YWS could use it to gather a collection of our wonderful stories...

just a thought

Now theres an idea!

The stuff that dreams are made of...

Doesn't Nate already have something like that planned?

Anyway, I've been looking around the Lulu site - and it actually looks really good. One thing that really caught my eye was that you could (for a price) have Lulu distribute your book at larger booksellers (such as Amazon) - something I've never seen a self-publishing organisation do. If you choose not to buy a distribution service, then your book will still be sold on Lulu.com.

This could really be worth doing. And let's not forget that a literary agent will be more likely to take you on if you already have a book or two out there - this could help lead you on to mainstream publishers. And even if they don't, it could still fetch you a bit of extra money.

I may well end up using this one day (either for a novel or for a collection of short stories... possibly both). I urge you all to have a good look around the site.

Ohhhh that looks like a good site that you could really trust. WHen somebody finally uses it I would love to find out how it went.