Monthly Archives: January 2009

by Nick
January 27, 2009
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Resolve To Write A Book

In How To — Tagged:

It’s a new year, and many of us have already made our New Year’s resolutions. My list of resolutions this year include losing 5 pounds by the first weekend of February, taking more trips, and finishing the role-playing game I have been writing. Losing the weight is a bit daunting, but I have a good exercise regimen, and I am eating pretty well, so I’m not as worried about that one. Writing, on the other hand, is a very daunting task. Carol wrote an excellent blog entry in early December entitled “My Epic Battle With ‘The Nothing’”, which described one of the problems most of us run into…the blank page. In her post, Carol gives us some good tips for winning the battle against “The Nothing”, and I wanted to touch on how you can turn a New Year’s resolution into a creation you can share with your friends and family.

One of the problems with New Year’s resolutions is that we often set goals for ourselves that are either too easily ignored or too difficult to achieve. One way to avoid these concerns is to have a long-term goal that requires regular, but not overwhelming work. See where I’m going with this? If you decide to write a book as one of your resolutions this year, pick a milestone for each week, and meet that milestone. For our example, let’s say it’s 500 words. 500 words isn’t much, but if you wrote 500 words every week of the month, you would have a total of 26,000 words by the end of the year. If we use the standard 250 words per page, then you’ll have 104 pages written. You can set the bar wherever you feel comfortable, and don’t stress out if you miss a milestone. If you haven’t finished your book by the end of the year, then your resolution for next year can be to finish it, or to get it edited.

Happy 2009, and get started writing!

by admin
January 22, 2009
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Buy Now Buttons for Lulu Products

In Marketing Tips — Tagged: ,

One of the great features that often goes unnoticed on Lulu is our pre-made Buy Now Buttons.

Scatter customized buttons and banner ads on pertinent websites and link them directly to your product on Lulu. People who are browsing see them, click on them and, in many cases, become buyers.

All you have to do to make it happen is to go to the “My Lulu” page and click on the “Promote” icon (a star) next to one of the available products. Customized code is created and can then be placed on other websites to generate a button or banner ad.

Visit this page to learn more about how to add these great buttons to your blog or website. For best results, add them below a picture of your cover or description of your content.

For more great ideas on how Lulu can help you sell, visit our Writer Marketing Services page.

by Carol
January 20, 2009
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Being Social in 2K9

In News —

If your New Year’s resolutions include gaining more exposure and meeting interesting people, then social networking is a no-brainer

Every day, more and more people and businesses are realizing that social networking sites like weRead and Facebook are a necessity for increasing sales and traffic. While most people are aware that social networking sites allow you to keep in touch with your friends and family, they are also an invaluable tool for communicating with your current and potential customers.

Lulu’s Top Pick:

weRead: enables you to connect with well over two million readers across a variety of social networks. Create your own author page and interact with your fans! weRead has the complete catalog of all books in print so readers will be able to rate your mystery and adventure book against “The Da Vinci Code,” and your period romantic comedy can be easily compared with “Pride and Prejudice.” weRead’s discovery and recommendation engine allows users to find the types of books they will be interested in quickly and easily.  Who doesn’t want more people finding, reading, and sharing your book? Read more about it on the Lulu blog.

Consider these other communities in 2009:
Twitter: a must for quick and simple communication with your friends, fans, and family. It’s micro-blogging at it’s best. Check out the Lulu Blog for some marketing ideas.

Facebook: upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people you meet. Find Facebook tips on the Lulu blog.

LiveJournal: a private journal, a blog, a discussion forum or a social network; this free blog site is loved dearly by writers and creative types. Ideas on using a blog to promote your work can be found on the Lulu blog.

by Jay
January 16, 2009
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Lulu Author Interview: Greg Prato

In Author Success Stories, Marketing Tips — Tagged: , , , , ,

Greg Prato has published two books through Lulu, A Devil on One Shoulder and an Angel on the Other: The Story of Shannon Hoon and Blind Melon and Touched by Magic: The Tommy Bolin Story. Both of Greg’s books document the lives of musicians entirely through interviews given by the people who knew them best. The author himself agreed to an interview with me, and here it is:

You conducted interviews with people who knew the musicians best, people like parents, siblings, girlfriends, former bandmates and other famous musicians.  How did you convince these people to talk with you?

I was lucky because in both cases, I had done pretty long feature articles on each artist, for Classic Rock Magazine (a UK publication). So I had a pretty good head start for both books with the interviews I conducted for the articles. Once I got permission from the main subjects in each book (in Blind Melon’s case, the 4 surviving band members, and in Tommy Bolin’s case, Tommy’s brother Johnnie), they each submitted suggestions of who I should get in touch with and interview for the books (and in many cases, provided contact info). And since I was very familiar with each beforehand (I’m a long-time fan of each), I did some research and got in touch with other people that were friends or acquaintances to see about setting up interviews. During the writing of the Blind Melon book, I was also working on a book about grunge bands (see the more books in the works), so I was able to ask Blind Melon-related questions to some grunge bands that they were friends with.

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by Adam
January 15, 2009
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Lulu Marketplace Tips 101

In Marketing Tips, News — Tagged: , ,

One of the perks of my job here at Lulu is that I get to spend a lot of time browsing through thousands of published titles available in our marketplace. Believe it or not, with that many books, there are a surprisingly large number, I believe, that show the kind of potential to be the next great undiscovered work within their niche. Unfortunately, many of these great books will most likely remain undiscovered in their author’s lifetime, largely because they lack some of the basic marketing elements necessary to initially capture and hold the interest of a potential reader, convincing them that your book is worth reading.

 

Now admittedly, seriously marketing your book can be a full time job in itself as many of you can attest, but there are some quick, easy and, in most cases, free things you can do, right now, to get your book out there and dramatically increase its visibility to potential readers. Here are a few tips that will help get you started.

 

Create a new and unique book cover – Our research has shown that Lulu books with custom covers sell four times as many copies compared to those with the default covers we provide in the publishing wizard. Create a new cover that’s tailored to your book, or let us help you create one that’s sure to get noticed. Learn more about Lulu’s professional cover design services.

 

Create a book preview – Why should I provide a preview of my work? Your book’s preview serves as a significant marketing tool by allowing potential readers to sample a portion of your work. Learn how to start setting up your book’s preview now.

 

While you’re at it, get even more viewers and consider creating a preview on Google Book Search.

 

Get your book distributed worldwide – Publishing your book on Lulu is just the first step. Get your book automatically listed in tens of thousands of retailers online and off, including Amazon.com, Borders, and Barnes & Noble, Inc. Learn more

 

Write a description- Peak a potential reader’s interest in your book by providing a short description on your book page. Highlight key topics for your reader or simply ensure the contents of your back cover are visible online. From your My Lulu account page, click the “revise” icon to the right of your book’s title, then click the “Edit” button to get started.

 

Create a Lulu storefront – A Lulu storefront is a free, easy-to-use webpage highlighting both you and your work. Send potential readers a direct link to everything you’ve published on Lulu by setting up a storefront today. Learn more

 

Add “Keywords” to your book: Keywords enhance the way potential readers find your book when searching a relevant topic. By adding key words or short phrases to your keyword list, you can dramatically increase the likelihood that potential readers will find your book. The key (no pun intended) when setting keywords is to think about what words a potential reader would use to search for books on your subject and try to use these in your list of keywords.

You can add keywords the same way you can write a description: from your My Lulu account page, click the “revise” icon to the right of your book’s title, then click the “Edit” button.

 

Earn revenue on each book sold – Now that you’ve enhanced the marketing potential of your book, don’t forget to set your creator revenue. Select the amount you earn on each sale and start earning today.

 

Looking for more help? Regardless of what you take away from these tips, the key is about increasing the likelihood that a potential reader will successfully find your title, then improving the quality of those first critical moments of exposure, convincing them to open to the first page. Marketing your book does take work, but you don’t need a dream team from a major publisher to get noticed either. Make an effort to improve your book’s presence when you have some extra time. If you discover that you need a little help, Lulu offers a wide range of cost effective author services, ranging from editing and formatting, to graphic design and marketing.

 

Is this in itself a shameless attempt at marketing our service? You got me! But seriously, we want to help you be a more successful published author and if you need our help, we’re here for you. View Lulu’s full range of author services

 

Have any other free marketing tips to share? Post a comment and share your tips with authors here.

 

-Adam

 

by Nick
January 9, 2009
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Copyrighting Your Work 101

In How To —

Something we get asked about a lot is copyright.  As creators, we want to make sure our work is protected from intellectual property theft, and ensure that we control the publication, distribution and adaptation of what we’ve created. The problem is that copyright can be confusing and there are a lot of misconceptions about it. Hopefully, I can help clear some things up and give you some resources for more information on copyright if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

Please note that this information is focused on copyright in the United States. For more information on International copyrights, please check out the links at the bottom of the post.

What is Copyright?

To begin with, I’m going to get the easy stuff out of the way. With a quick Google search, you can find the basics of what copyright is as well as in-depth discussion and even some analysis. As such, I am going to keep this as simple as possible. Copyright protects the rights of creators of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. Specifically, it gives the owner of the copyright the exclusive right to, and to authorize others the right to, reproduce, distribute, perform, or display the work. It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the law to copyright holders.

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by admin
January 5, 2009
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Lulu Author Interview: Chad Moutray

In Author Success Stories —

Lulu is home to thousands of books. You can find cookbooks, books about golf, puppy calendars, business guides and more. While I was browsing the Lulu marketplace happened across a book that stood out to me. Chad Moutray’s touching memoir of his brief, but intense, relationship with his wife Laura is a great example of how people turn to Lulu to publish their most intense personal memories.

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