Illustration by Leif Parsons

Check out this article by Isia Jasiewicz from The Books Issue of Newsweek (first posted only July 30th, 2010):

Boyd Morrison was finishing a Ph.D. in industrial engineering when he wrote his first novel. Five agents rejected it. Nine years later he tried again, and this time he did get an agent—after nearly three years and three novels. But that turned out to be some kind of cosmic tease, because 25 publishers turned down The Ark. With nothing left to lose, Morrison uploaded The Ark and his two other unpublished novels to Amazon’s Kindle store in March 2009. Within three months, he was selling books at a rate of 4,000 a month—a number that attracted the attention of the same publishers who had rejected him. This May, when The Ark was released in hardcover from Simon & Schuster, it became the first self-published Kindle book to be picked up by a Big Six publisher. Morrison says that the phone call from his agent telling him he’d finally see his book in print was “one of the most amazing moments of my life.”

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This program gives authors the chance to create and upload a query letter, a short synopsis, a manuscript sample, and a brief biography. By choosing a genre, you are then given a list of agents who currently represent that type of work. You then choose which agents you want your letter and work sent to. It’s basically another glorified technique and attempt at getting to the top of the infamous slush pile.

I decided to give the program a test run mainly so I could report it to our readers here who might be contemplating the traditional publication route.

First, I was a little disappointed with the questions that are asked in the personal bio:

• Education
• Professional/Personal Overview
• Published Work
• Work History/Expertise
• Awards/Honors/Associations
• Other
• Additional Marketing Expertise/Platform

While you can choose to skip some of these sections and leave them blank, I felt most of these questions were a bit too much and not subjects that most agents ask you to include about yourself in a regular query letter. Sure, most want to know who you think your target audience is or what makes you qualified to write such work.  Awards and previous published work always help when you are tooting your horn.  But marketing expertise?  For me, it just goes to show that most traditional publishers these days are relying on the authors to invest in the marketing of their own books.  Something self-published authors already know about all too well.

Most agents tell you specifically what they expect in a query letter, and we are told to follow those specifications to a tee. So, it seems odd that the Agent InBox bio kind of forces more information onto the agents, and gives authors more space to sell themselves than a traditional one page query allows. While this program is automated, and you the author can choose what you want to answer, it still makes me think the program might be a turn off because the agents will receive either too much or too little information.

My next problem with the program came from the upload of the query and sample. The copy and paste option for authors who are using Microsoft Word is meant to limit unnecessary html problems, but still created odd spacing issues that someone like me with limited coding experience couldn’t fix.  So, I was a bit worried with how the overall presentation would turn out.  You have to upload a query letter for each agent you choose from your list.  The system puts in an automatic “Dear ______” for you, and assumes you’ll adapt your query letter to the specifications of each agent.

There’s a bio for each agent where you hope to learn what they are looking for, or at least to find tips about honing your letter for them. However, just as you would expect from a busy agent, most haven’t taken the time to fill out the information for you.  Instead, there are links to redirect you to their own websites where you are encouraged to go to learn more. Here, I found links that didn’t work, agents who were closed to submissions, and agents that didn’t accept genres that they were listed for on Agent InBox. So, you are suddenly back to searching agent sites and doing the homework for yourself, which you can do without the WEBook program anyway, and might as well since you’ve gone this far.

So, after uploading your information, you have to wait for WEBook to approve it.  I expected the absolute worst but received approval the following day and notification that my submission had been sent to the agents I chose. Supposedly, agents receive notification and have to sign into the InBox program to check their submissions as if they were emails.  They can pick and choose which parts of the submission they want to read, and they can also choose whether or not to reply.  Each time an agent opens the submission, WEBook sends you a notification that the status of the submission has changed.  Here’s a screen snapshot of the information I received.  I have removed the names of the agents:

I thought this part of the program was pretty nifty since you can actually see the date they opened the submission and what parts they read.  Like traditional querying, sometimes you get replies and sometimes you don’t.  The second from the top opened it but didn’t reject it. Sometimes agents don’t read past the first sentence, as seen in the second from the bottom who didn’t get past the short synopsis (My synopsis was three sentences and less than 40 words). I appreciated those who gave explanations, even though they are pretty cookie cutter. But so is the traditional querying route, isn’t it?

So, in the end, I wasn’t overly impressed with the program, but didn’t find it to be any different from the traditional query letter/email process.  I still sweated bullets over trying to cater my uploads to each specific agent, and still cursed at the lack of information provided and worried over if I was providing too much information or not. And when it was all said and done, I sighed with relief and still found myself lost and blind in a query snowstorm.

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The first time I submitted my work, I did receive a reply within 24 hours which advised me to remove the title and my name from the spine.  My project was only around 120 pages and they suggested the words on the spine might bleed over onto the front or back cover at printing.  They also told me the cover art might appear blurry because of its pixel count.  While I didn’t change the cover art, I did take their advice and removed the words from the spine.

After making these changes to my book and redoing Step 2 of the publication process, I was allowed to order a PROOF copy which is Step 3.  Here you enter you billing and shipping information and your credit card number.  The cost of my book was $4.02 and $6.00 shipping.  Yes, the shipping was more than the book, but a price check at Lulu for a 6 x 9, 123 page paperback book was $6.96 for the book and $5.85 for media mail shipping.  For the first copy of my book plus shipping, CreateSpace had already beat Lulu by almost $3.00.

After ordering my proof copy, I received an automated email that states the following: “Thank you for ordering a proof copy. This is to notify you your order has been received and is currently being processed. Your proof copy will ship to you within five days. If you are completely satisfied with your proof copy when you receive it and are ready to make your book available for sale, log in to your CreateSpace member account and click the edit icon corresponding to your book. Review your books information for accuracy and click Approve Proof to make your book available for sale. If you are not completely satisfied with your proof copy when you receive it, you may make any necessary changes to your files, upload them again and order another proof after those files have been reviewed.”

Notice the email says it will ship within 5 days.  Online at CreateSpace it also gave a very broad estimate for delivery which was about three weeks away. I ordered the proof at about 7am in the morning.  When I got home that afternoon from work, there was an email in my box saying my proof copy had already shipped.  That’s right!  My proof copy was printed, bound, packed and shipped the exact same day I ordered it.  The book arrived at my house four days later.

I was immediately impressed with the overall quality of the book and the way it was packaged for shipping. I’d also like to point out that CreateSpace adds a blank page to the back of the book with the word PROOF printed across it. There’s also a tiny bar code and number on this page in the bottom left corner.  I’ve learned from other authors that this bar code helps CreateSpace identify which system and printer your book came from in case you report problems with it later.

While “proofing my own proof,” I received a review copy of another CS book which was also around 123 pages but the size of the book was 5 x 8.  I was so impressed with the smaller size, I decided to change my own CS project to this smaller size.  This required a full revamp of both the cover and the body of the work, and a few minor changes to the format information online at CreateSpace.

I had a bit of trouble “unlocking” the ability to change the size of my book.  I emailed CS for assistance and got a reply back from them about two days later.  While waiting for the reply, I almost thought about deleting the project and just starting over, but I discovered in their community forums that this is not possible without their assistance.  So, authors who enjoy the immediacy of Lulu’s systems will require a bit more patience when it comes to creating with CreateSpace.

After making the necessary adjustments and uploading new files, I received the email again saying they’d check my files and alert me within48 hours if everything was okay.  I received the email the following day telling me my files were good and that I could now order a new proof of my work. At this time, I started reading information about something CS calls Pro Plan. I had noticed it when I ordered my first proof, but I did not look into it at that time.

Here’s how Pro Plan works. For a $39.00 fee per project (and $5 renewal fee each year after), CreateSpace will lower the cost of your author copies and also increase the royalty you earn per sale.  So, basically this is kind of  like buying  a warranty.  If you look at it in comparison to Lulu’s sales figures, it’s a pretty good deal for them.  A few years ago, Lulu reported the average sale run of a book was 1.5.  That meant that outside of one or two copies sold to the author, no more copies ever sold.  If at least 2 out of every 10 of these Lulu authors signed up for Pro Plan if Lulu offered such a thing, Lulu stands to be quite profitable if those authors’ books don’t ever sell. But that’s Lulu.  For CreateSpace authors who do take advantage of Pro Plan, it means big savings.  Here’s how…

After signing up for Pro Plan, my second proof cost me just $2.41 and $3.58 shipping.  That’s a total of $5.99,  a savings of $6.82 over the cost at Lulu.  The second proof copy was ordered on June 1st, and also shipped that same day.  It arrived today, June 5th.  I love the pocket book size and think it is definitely perfect for work under 200 pages.  It arrived in a thick bubblewrap envelope with no damage.  The glue used in the spine looked a little thick at the top and bottom, but it may have swelled due to the heat while in transit.

In Part 3, I’ll wrap up my discussion about creating with CreateSpace by exploring the final step 4 (Print Ready) step which is basically finalizing my project.  I’ll also take a look at the CreateSpace Community Forums, the Showcase, and the Preview Gallery.  We’ll also hear from some other Createspace authors and learn about their creations.

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The first major disadvantage I discovered is that CreateSpace books are only available through the CreateSpace website and through Amazon.com, but the more I thought about this, the more I thought about it not being so bad.  After all, self-published books are often frowned upon in chain bookstores because of their big price, small discount, and non-returnable stipulation.  For an author who doesn’t mind eliminating the capability for bookstores to be able to order your books through wholesale, it’s not such a bad thing.  I’ve noticed this limitation also keeps pricing low, but we’ll talk more about pricing later.  For now, just know that it allows your books to be affordable enough to invest in enough of your own stock to sell to indie bookshops, at conventions, book fairs, signings, etc. on your own.

CreateSpace allows creative individuals to make their own DVDs, CDs, videos, audio downloads, and of course, paperback books.  For the sake of the blog and being an author, I’ll be discussing the book option. After creating a free account, an author follows four simple steps to publication. The first step is Title Setup.

Title Setup is where you enter all the basic information about your book: title, subtitle, volume number, description, and imprint name.  Here, you can also enter your own ISBN number if you already have one or you can choose to have CreateSpace assign one to you.  There is no additional fee for their ISBN. You also choose what category you want your book listed under; you are only allowed to choose one so pick carefully. Next, you choose a reading level which starts with preschool and goes up to college graduate student.  I would have liked to have seen at least a few more levels beyond the graduate student range such as adult male, adult female, parent, single parent, senior citizen, etc.  Otherwise, college graduate student becomes quite broad.

There’s also a section where you choose where your book might have been previously published.  Although this is probably there just to help CreateSpace capture where their customers are coming from, it’s interesting to note that there are only four choices to pick from: Not Previously Published, LSI, Lulu, and Other. Publication date, country, language, keywords, authors and contributors, and an author biography are the final steps in Title Setup.

Step 2 is File Review where you will upload your book’s cover and your manuscript, both of which have to be in PDF format.  You’ll also choose what size your book will be.   There are 13 sizes to choose from ranging from basic 6 x 9 to magazine size 8 x 10. Learn more about Trim Sizes on the Get Started page.   I’d also like to point out the information on the Trim Sizes & Artwork tab which thoroughly explains how to create your own cover file.  From minimum cover width and height, safe zones, cover bleeds, spine width and variance, and ISBN barcodes there is a lot of information on this one page which can be applied to any DIY Publishing model where you would be responsible for your own book’s cover (including Lulu).

So, authors needing a good reference on this should definitely bookmark this page even if you aren’t using CreateSpace.  It contains very valuable information! For those authors who might want some easy and free assistance with creating a book cover, CreateSpace offers that too. Just click on Create a Cover when you are on the Upload File page. Now, be warned there is a lot of free artwork available here, so someone else’s book having a similar cover to yours is bound to happen.

In Part 2 of this article, I’ll be discussing Step 3 of the publication process, pricing, CreateSpace’s Pro Plan, shipping, and more.

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If Lulu publishes your book, they have the rights to your book. For most people this isn’t a big deal, but for a growing minority of us we still prefer to have our fate in our own hands. Yes, my book is fully available on Lulu as a download and as a book, but I’ve also gone the extra step of buying my own ISBN numbers and putting my book on Amazon myself.

In going through the exercise, I can tell you a few of the things to watch for and might be able to ease the process for you. I call this option “Truly Self- Publishing” because my book is published under my imprint, Marvcorp Publishing.

The advantages are, I control how my book is handled on Amazon and with other retailers. I can allow for returns, for instance which Lulu does not. This is more attractive to brick and mortar retailers who have to buy books to have them in stock. Lulu will let older titles go out of stock on Amazon and there isn’t much you can do about it. I also found a cheaper way of printing my books that got the unit cost down to $3 each instead of $7.

First, a word about ISBN numbers. Every book that is sold commercially needs one of these numbers, they tell the world who published the book and what its number is. Unfortunately, they’re kind of annoying to get. I did a lot of research and didn’t find a good way to buy just one, they usually come bundled as a 10-pack. By buying ten, I’m pretty much covered until I’m 90 at my current pace of book production, but I may decide to publish a few books for friends, you never know. You can’t sell them, once they’re yours you are the publisher for any book that uses that number. 10 ISBN numbers cost about $250 and are available in the US through Bowker (www.bowker.com)

To get set up on Bowker, you need to decide what you want to call your new publishing business and give them an idea of how many and what kind of books you are planning to publish. Then, you need to give them your money and wait about 10 days, it’s not instant (although they did send me mine in about 3 days by email.) Be careful to print out and record everything you get from Bowker, if you need them to send it again it costs more money. Also, have Bowker add your books to Bowkerlink, a free service that lets distributors search for your book. Bowker also provides other fairly costly services like giving you your ISBN in a barcode (other software does this cheaper including Lulu that does it for free) and a SAN number which some retailers require (but I haven’t had any ask me for yet.) One ISBN number is available for $99, but I went ahead and got 10 because it dropped the cost per number by 75% and I had multiple books already that I wanted to publish.

OK, so now you have your 10 ISBN numbers, have set your new book up on Bowker link and figure Amazon will soon be knocking, right? Unfortunately, no. Amazon does want to carry your book, but Bowker doesn’t do that for you, as the publisher you have to do that yourself. I’ll tell you how I did it, and then tell you how I re-did it and you can pick for yourself.

The first option on Amazon is setting up for an Amazon Advantage account. (http://advantage.amazon.com) and set yourself up as a publisher. You will have to fill out a lot of information about your address, contact information, and bank accounts so they can pay you. Then, you have to tell them about your book, the price (be prepared to be disappointed with either your slice or theirs, or both) add some marketing text, some reviews if you have them, and submit the whole thing. Check back often because soon you will have a purchase order from Amazon requesting your book. The Purchase Order will include a shipping label and a piece of paper to include with the book.

With purchase order in hand, you have to mail your book to Amazon’s Kentucky distribution center. I live here and I couldn’t just drop it off, you have to mail it. The day I sent mine in, it cost $2.20 by media mail which is a pretty big hit on your profit margin. In a few days, your book listing will go from “out of stock” to “in stock” and there, NOW you are on Amazon. One thing I didn’t realize I needed to do was to add the cover picture so it would appear on the page. Hunt around for awhile, there’s a link for adding the cover picture through your advantage account, it’s just hard to find.

Barnes and Noble had a 10 page application which I downloaded but have not yet submitted because I decided to go in a different (and I think, easier) direction. In addition to publishing on Lulu, I now have my books set up on LightningSource. This is basically like taking out the middle-man, the same book costs $3 instead of $7. There are others out there, but the nice thing about LightningSource (www.lightningsource.com) is that they also can act as the distributor through Ingram (for an additional $12 per year), one of the biggest book distributors. This is a huge advantage when you are trying to get in your local bookstore or any chain. They also will automatically set your book up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and 8 other places.

As of this writing, I’m still waiting for my book to show up there, but the wheels are turning. The down side to LightningSource is more cost, to get a book set up there cost me $105. Still, if I factor this into the per book cost of the first 50 books I ordered, it still was cheaper than ordering 50 books from Lulu. Also, LightningSource is a little fussier about file formats than Lulu and any changes you make there cost $40 so you have to make sure everything is perfect. Lulu was handy for this, I could make the 17 revisions to get it how I wanted it without paying $40 17 times. Once I got the cover and the inside how I wanted it, uploading it to LightningSource was easy.

So, my advice is this. Definitely still use Lulu for their online bookstore and ebook feature and to refine your book. If you want to get onto the online book sale sites and make more than a few pennies per book, set up your own publishing company. Buy 10 ISBN numbers from Bowker for $250. Use one of them for your new book and publish and distribute it through LightningSource for around $150. Good luck!

Dan Marvin is a writer and reviewer living in Kentucky.  He is the author of two books, Briefs for the Reading Room and Thomas Granger, both available on Lulu.  He also writes for Bluegrass Dog Magazine and for the LLBR.

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Jeremy’s writing style is simple, comical, and to the point. The book is filled with information Jeremy calls “Stigma Busters” which are tips to help set your book apart from the rest and to break the POD stigma. The organization of the book makes it an excellent reference for any POD author. There are tips on marketing, formatting, and even a section on how to get reviews and author blurbs for your book.

Speaking of reviews, there are already a ton out there on this book, so I don’t want to write a full review of it here. Instead, I highly recommend you pick up a copy, whether you are a seasoned POD author or considering it for your next work. You can download it on Lulu for $7.34 or buy a paperback copy for $15.00. This is a critical investment you will not regret!

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Although my Success tab at the top of this page has been extremely slow (hint…hint), it’s been nice to hear from some of you personally about the success of your Lulu books. When asked for advice, I seem to be saying the same thing over and over again…If you haven’t done so already, buy an ISBN for your book! It is the easiest way to improve circulation of your book through all major channels (Amazon.com, B&N.com, Abebooks.com, Books in Print, etc), and it’s the quickest way to get your foot in the door of bookstores. And for those of you shying away in the corner because you may not know what an ISBN is, listen up…

ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. It’s basically your book’s social security number. It’s also the key to getting your book in the system in most bookstore databases. B&N uses a system called Bookmaster. If your book has an ISBN, then it’s listed in Books in Print. This gets your book into the Ingram database which then gets your book into the Bookmaster system, which means a B&N store could order your book. I work for a medical book wholesaler by day, and the ISBN is the first thing we ask for when people call us looking for a book, next to author and title. Now that doesn’t mean you have to memorize and know it. Bookstores can definitely find you by author and title, but they won’t find your Lulu book in their system without the ISBN.

Recently, you’ve probably noticed two ISBNs listed under the product details of a book online or possibly even on the back of a book. There is an ISBN 10- and an ISBN 13-. The 10 and 13 are not part of your ISBN. Those numbers only tell you how many digits are in that ISBN that follows. ISBNs were once only 10 digits. Last year, the ISBN 13- went into effect because publishers were running out of 10 digit numbers. A quick fix was to just put 978- in the front of the old number. By doing this, it changed the last digit of the ISBN which is known as a check digit. But the middle numbers are the same. This has caused some confusion in the industry because people think you can just drop the 978 and the number will still work. It won’t…unless your system’s search features are that good at finding half a number. Here’s an example of the two ISBNs for one book with the like digits highlighted in red…

• ISBN-10: 1413401031
• ISBN-13: 9781413401035

Here’s how to get started with your ISBN. Sign into Lulu and go to the My Projects tab. Click on the Promote star next to your project. You’ll be taken to a great page that offers all kinds of fun stuff including “Buy” buttons which you can post on your own blogs and websites, bookmarkers, postcards, business cards, etc. But look in the menu down the left side. Under “Marketing & Distribution,” you’ll see a link called ISBNs. Lulu offers two packages, both for $99.95. One is called “Published by You” and one is “Published by Lulu.” But both offer ISBN assignment to your book. Lulu even formats the barcode and ISBN number onto the back of your book for you.

It does take a few weeks for your book to become ISBN ready. There are some steps for you to follow to editing your manuscript for approval (nothing too serious). And overall, it will take a few weeks for the book to start showing up on sites like B&N.com and Amazon.com, but it is truly the best investment you could make in getting your book out there to readers!

But you don’t have to take my advice! After all, I have NOT purchased an ISBN for my own book on Lulu. Why, you ask? Because I mainly used Lulu to publish a 2nd edition of my book which would be more affordable than the 1st edition which I published with a different POD publisher. The first edition already has an ISBN, for both a hardcover and paperback copy. And besides, that book has been out since 2003. I am getting ready to publish a 2nd book with Lulu though, and I will definitely be purchasing an ISBN for it. Here is a link to a website I found which also offers some other great advice about Lulu set-up, especially with creating your own book cover:

Self Publishing with Lulu

Also, Mick Rooney, a UK Lulu author, has a great post on his author site about his adventures with Lulu.

So, that’s about it. I have four reviews already lined up for the month of May. Thanks to all who have continued to support this site on a regular basis, and thanks to the Lulu authors who have posted their books on the “Pick Me!” page. Keep them coming!

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Read the complete results here!

But here is a rundown…

• Lulu was represented in the survey, although 39% of the authors had used iUniverse.
• 58% thought the cost of service was reasonable.
• 53% were satisfied with layout and printing.
• 36% were very satisfied with customer service from the POD company.
• 89% did NOT purchase a marketing package.
• 19% reported sales of over 500 copies.  1 person reported says over 12,000 (WHAT BOOK WAS THIS?).
• 74% had received at least 1 book review.
• 56.6% had their book offered in physical bookstores.
• 44% said they would use POD service again.
• Only 22% had made a profit from their book.

Conclusions. The authors who responded to this survey paint neither a rosy nor an ugly picture of subsidy publishing. While many were dissatisfied with some aspects of their experience, overall more were satisfied than dissatisfied. The majority thought the costs were reasonable, were satisfied with the layout and printing of their book, and with the customer service they received. The majority also said that the level of promotional support they received from the publishing company met their expectations. The majority did get their book reviewed and were able to get it into a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. However, the majority have sold 200 or fewer copies of their book, and fewer than half have recovered their costs.Although a few authors’ comments indicated that they were naïve going in to the process, this survey does not support the belief that most unwittingly sign on with predatory companies and later regret their choices. Overall, they appear to have a realistic, if mixed, view of subsidy publishing. Only about a third of the authors said they definitely would not use the same subsidy publisher again, and only a fifth said they would definitely not recommend the company to another author. The authors who responded to this survey seem to see this method of publishing as a more complex and varied option than its critics describe.

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