My first lulu book- testing the waters

A couple weeks ago I made the decision to start self-publishing and wrote an article here on Gather. The support was wonderful. Mainly, I have a novel with characters screaming to get on in the world that need one last touch up before heading out. As I weighed my options carefullly, I decided that Lulu.com is proably my best choice at the moment, so last night I published a test book.

Since I already had quite a bit of poetry in my files I put together a poetry book entitled The Long and Short of It . It's a fifty page collection, downloadable for less than $2, with the paperback available for less than $7. Many of the poems are also on Gather, but what a nifty sample to have for your very own!

Yes, I still have a lot of marketing practice to do.

Lulu has kits and articles available-- some for free, and those I will check out. I will not buy into the paid marketing packages.  I have gotten much information advising against this. For this book I did not purchase a distribution package (which is more or less the ISBN number), so it is not available on Amazon and can't be sold in stores. This would have been either $100 pulished by Lulu, or $150 published by me. When the novel comes out, I will definitely make that investment.

So far I am satisfied with the experience, but it's up to me to make the next waves.