DIY Life

More elusive than writing the great American novel might be trying to publish your novel these days. Many home-grown authors find it difficult to get their written works of literary genius into the hands of at least a few friends and family, much less a giant publishing house.

Well, I haven't read it, but I know your work deserves to get to those who will love it, enjoy it, and give your novel a permanent spot on their bookshelf for years, and maybe generations to come. There is a way, a fairly easy one at that.

Allow me to introduce to you lulu.com.

Lulu is the only place I have seen that will let you DIY your own book, novel or otherwise. They also help you make a myriad of other things besides books, like music downloads (of your own music of course), calendars, brochures, dissertations, e-books, file downloads and more.

Lulu believes in self-publishing, but they realize that you may not know all about publishing, paper, glues, printing, inks, mass production, or have the resources to produce a book on a grand scale yourself. They provide easy to follow and very precise instructions on how to get your book ready for their unique publishing process. They give you exact dimensions you can choose from, what software will help you get the best results, and many other technical descriptions to list here. They have it all figured out for you. They even have a calulator that will help you price your book, decide what type of book, (color, black and white) and know exactly how much you will pay wholesale for their materials, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised with what you find.

Best of all Lulu does not charge you setup fees or require any minimum order, so everything is free to setup and use. When your book sells, they take their fee and you keep the profits, all while maintaining your intellectual property rights. If anyone has found a better deal in being able to self-publish a book with this level of wide appeal, please tell me, but I haven't found it yet. If you haven't found it either, I suggest you check out Lulu for yourself.