To enter the contest you must register your intent through the entry form on the Author Sales Contest page. Registration is open now through the end of March. For more information head on over to the contest page now and sign up.

We hope this contest will bring a little extra added fun and excitement to your experience on Lulu and help highlight some really great books in the process.

As always we’d love to hear what you think about what we’re doing or if you have any questions. Please let us know.

Regards,
Adam

Wait! How to I achieve fame and fortune with a traditional press release you ask. We can’t guarantee fame and fortune but with these five steps and a little elbow grease, you will be well on your way.

Try these steps when putting together your next release:

1. Keep the editor(s) in mind. Hundreds of releases vie for their attention each week, so make yours relevant and accurate.

2. Write your press release!  Keep these things in mind while crafting your release-

• Be catchy! Write a headline that grabs attention and summarizes your main point. Then, because the first paragraph is often the only one that’s read, make sure it covers who, what, when, where, why and how.
• Be brief. Keep your release to one page or 400 words. The end.
• Be current. Highlight something about your product in your release that’s relevant to current events.
• Be available. Make sure you put your current contact information (E-mail, phone number, fax…) so that those that are interested can reach you.

3. Create a relationship! With your local lifestyles, arts section, book reviewers, local bookstores and editors. The more they know about you and your book the more willing to read your press release.

4. Send it out! Either to a targeted list of regional and local reporters or an e-press release over a news wire service – choose a list that you can handle when following up.

5. Ask for help. If you’re having trouble, visit Lulu Services and look into a professional press release.

Now, in addition to publishing your books on Lulu, weRead will enable you to connect with well over two million readers across a variety of social networks. You can even create your own author page, and  interact with your fans!

Another feature of weRead is that it has the complete catalog of all books in print. 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?

weRead works on many of your favorite networks including:
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Orkut
• Hi5
• Bebo
… even your own blog or website!

To get started, you can either:
•    Go to http://www.weread.com and register for an account, or
•    If you already belong to a social network listed above, simply follow the link to install the application on your profile

To help you get more familiar with weRead, and what you can do with it’s features, we will be doing a series of posts focusing on how you can use weRead to promote your work and interact with the largest possible audience of consumers. Some of the topics we’ll be covering include tips for setting up an author page on weRead, and using weRead to market your work.

I hope you’re as excited as we at Lulu are about our new partnership, and be sure to keep an eye out for more Lulu and weRead tips & tricks.

Lulu wants to hear from you, and see you, too!

As much as we would love to pack up our camera equipment, get in the car, and stop by your house, we just can’t. Gas prices are too high, and who would run the blog while we were gone?

That’s why we’re asking you to come to us, or more precisely, to our blog. If you have created a product on Lulu, make a video telling us about it. Be creative, be inventive, but please, keep it clean. And not too long—thus Lulu in Sixty, like seconds. Our assembled team of expert bloggers will pick the ones that make us laugh, cry, or just scratch our heads, and post them on the blog!

Here are a few questions to get you started:

• Tell us about yourself and your Lulu project

• What inspired you to create your project? [And/or] How did you first become interested in the subject of your project?

• How does Lulu make possible for you what previously might have been impossible/very difficult?

• Are there any colorful, unusual/offbeat, surprising, amusing details, facts or stories?

• Fill in the blank: One thing that few people know about me is ________________.

• What do you do to bring out your inner muse?

• If you were being sent to a deserted island, what three things would you take with you?

Send us a link to your video to socialnetworking@lulu.com.

Enough blogging for now, let’s start vlogging!

Here’s a screenshot of one of my iGoogle tabs set up with Lulu news and information:

So what does this have to do with Lulu?

We have a new gadget on iGoogle to use! It has tabs displaying the following:

• Official Lulu blog
• Featured content from the blog
• Newly published fiction
• Top sellers this week
• Lulu in the news

And here’s a screenshot of it in action:

Like what you see? Add it to your iGoogle home page.

We are currently looking at other ways to use Google Gadgets to help our creator and buyer community. We’d like to do things such as offer our Mini-Storefronts there, too.

Do you use iGoogle or any of the other personal start pages? Have something you’d like to see? Please let us know by commenting on this post.

-John