What a month it has been.

As NaNoWriMo and the Lulu Short Story Contest come to a close – we’ve been thrilled by the hundreds and hundreds of responses we’ve gotten from authors of all ages and genres who couldn’t resist the chance to share their creativity and who found out just how easy it can be to publish an eBook.

We’re not done yet though.  The official cutoff date for the contest is Dec. 1st, so there is still time to submit a story of your own and enter to win $1000, a NOOK™, free publicity, and a professional review of your story in Shelf Unbound Magazine.

We’ve been getting a lot of questions too.  Mainly from authors who just want to be sure they have entered their story correctly.  Remember, once you’ve published your short story as an eBook with our EPUB Converter, to copy and paste your story’s web address on our Survey Monkey form.  Once you click submit on Survey Monkey, you’ll be taken to a “thank you” page with a 20% off coupon on it – good for your next purchase on Lulu.  We may need to tweak your submission too in order to get it to pass the validation requirements set by retailers like the iBookstore^SM. You still keep the copyright though and we will only change the formatting – not the content itself.

Once Dec. 1st hits, we’ll gather all contest submissions and our panel of judges will fire up the coffee pots, pull out the reading glasses, and get to work reading all your remarkable entries.  We’ll announce the first, second, and third place winners mid-December.

So keep that creativity coming – you still have till Thursday.  You can do 600 words in no time!

In the 10 days since we launched the Lulu Short Story Contest, we’ve received hundreds upon hundreds of submissions, authors are helping each other out more than ever on our social networks, and authors are finding just how easy it is to publish an eBook of their very own.

Based on the whopping 150+ comments on the original contest announcement blog – we’ve noticed that a lot of you have some of the same questions about the contest, so here are some helpful tips to consider as you get closer to submitting your own story.

600 Word Max: We know it might be a challenge, but it is definitely possible to submit a short story that is 600 words or less.  Facebook fan Jason Johnson puts it best:  “I agree that 600 words is short, but I also think that’s the point.  What can you tell in 600 words that still makes it interesting to your readers.” Oh, and the 600 word count does not include the title and copyright material.

Use the Template: I love that people are looking for ways to spice up their entry – be it with pictures, a table of contents, etc.  But avoid straying from the template we’ve provided.  We’ve done most of the work for you formatting-wise and designed the template to pass through eBook validation as smoothly as possible so you can be sure your story can be distributed to places like the iBookstore.

Multiple Submissions: Yes please! You are certainly allowed to submit more than one short story, so keep em coming.  600 words not enough to contain all that remarkable creativity? Then write and submit as many new short stories as you want.  Several people have submitted more than one already.  We’ve even had one guy ask if he could send in 400 separate stories.  No matter how many you give us, submitting more than one will increase your chances at winning.

Submitting Your Story: Submitting your story is just a matter of visiting this link to Survey Monkey and filling in the 5 questions.  The most important part is providing us with a link to your work.  Once you finish publishing, you can click the “My Lulu” tab.  Here you’ll see a list of your projects, including your new eBook short story.  Click the “view/buy” button next to your work’s title.  Copy the web address of your story’s product page and paste it into question 4 on Survey Monkey.  This will help us track submissions and is how you get your 20% off coupon for participating.

Pricing: Once you get to the pricing step in the publishing wizard.  You will be able to set your price to anything you want – even free.  The default price is set at $1.24, which is the minimum for making revenue off your story.  If you’d like to give your eBook Short Story away, simply enter $0.00 as your price.

We’re excited to see so much activity going on with this contest and definitely plan to do more in the future.  There is still plenty of time left in the month though, so send us your short story today.  Good luck and thanks for playing.

Want even more short story writing tips?  Check out this handy article from Fiction Factor.

The Lulu Short Story Contest is here and starts right now!

As many of you know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) – a great time to put your nose to the grindstone and try to complete a 50,000 word novel in under 30 days.

But we got to thinking: over 200,000 authors participated in NaNoWriMo last year and only 30,000 actually made the deadline.  That leaves 170,000 dedicated and talented folks high and dry.  That’s a whole lot of creativity to waste.  So why not make things easier?  After all, creativity is about quality, not quantity.

Thus, the Lulu Short Story Contest was born…

Throughout the month of November – all the way to December 1st – anyone can participate in our Short Story Contest and take the pressure off the creative process.  Better yet, we want to help folks see their creativity available to the public as quickly as possible too, so we’re gonna help you create an eBook out of your short story that’ll go live in the iBookstore and on Barnes & Noble’s NOOK.

How to play:

• Write a 600 word short story using our handy eBook template.  Download the template here.
• Follow the list of things you don’t need to worry about available here.
• Upload your work to Lulu.com and send it through the Lulu ePub Converter
• Make sure to set your work to public availability and set to “sell on Lulu, the iBookstore, Barnes and Noble, and more.”
• Once published, submit a link to your eBook’s product page, along with your name and registered Lulu email address to SurveyMonkey to help us track submissions and claim your 20% off coupon.  Once submitted, you’ll receive a notice within Survey Monkey confirming your entry.
• Feel free to promote your contest submission on our Facebook and Twitter (#nanowrimo) pages too

What about prizes?!?!

This is the best part.

First place:

• $500 cash
• Barnes & Noble NOOK
• Feature in Lulu Staff Picks and Lulu Blog
• Free mentions in upcoming Lulu publicity
• Professional review of your work

Second place:

• Barnes & Noble NOOK

Third place:

• $100 gift card to Barnes and Noble

All participants:

• 20% off coupon for next purchase on Lulu.com

Winners will be selected by a panel of Lulu judges and announced mid-December after review of all submissions.  Bring on your remarkable stories for a chance to win some amazing prizes!

No purchase necessary.  U.S. only.  Prize packages for the Lulu Short Story Contest include:  First place prize of $500, a Barnes and Noble NOOK™, publicity in upcoming Lulu materials.  Second place prize of a Barnes and Noble NOOK.  Third place prize of a $100 gift card to a Barnes and Noble retail store location.  All participants will receive a 20% coupon good for their next purchase at Lulu.com.  The maximum savings for this offer is $100. Sorry, but this offer cannot be applied to previous orders. You can only use this code once, and unfortunately you can’t use this coupon in combination with other coupon codes. This great offer expires on December 31, 2011 at 11:59 PM, so don’t miss out! We can only accept English-language content.  While very unlikely, we do reserve the right to change or revoke this offer at anytime, and of course we cannot offer this coupon where it is against the law to do so.  Lulu also reserves the right to make any short story submitted publicly available and to make small edits to content to aid in distribution to third-party retail stores.

But wait, we’re not done yet.  Post a picture of your spookiest, most hilarious, jaw-dropping, or straight up awe-inspiring pumpkin on our Facebook page and our expert panel of pumpkin carving experts will pick a winner (cough…bonus points to the person that incorporates the Lulu logo…cough cough).  Best pumpkin gets $50 off their next purchase on Lulu.

Happy Halloween!

The maximum savings for this offer is $50. Sorry, but this offer cannot be applied to previous orders. You can only use this code once, and unfortunately you can’t use this coupon in combination with other coupon codes. This great offer expire on December 31, 2011 at 11:59 PM, so don’t miss out! While very unlikely, we do reserve the right to change or revoke this offer at anytime, and of course we cannot offer this coupon where it is against the law to do so.

To play, just visit the Lulu Facebook page and add onto the scary story we post on our wall.  We’ll even help get the ball rolling by providing the first line.  All you have to do is keep the story going.  The comment with the most likes will win! Easy, right?

So thrill us, chill us, and write us your best scary story.  Big savings await the ghoul who wins.  Happy Halloween!

No purchase necessary. The maximum savings for this offer is $100. Sorry, but this offer cannot be applied to previous orders. You can only use this code once, and unfortunately you can’t use this coupon in combination with other coupon codes. This great offer expire on December 31, 2011 at 11:59 PM, so don’t miss out! While very unlikely, we do reserve the right to change or revoke this offer at anytime, and of course we cannot offer this coupon where it is against the law to do so.

We also got the chance to surprise one lucky Book Expo America attendee with a third HP Mini Laptop,  just for visiting our booth back at the conference in May.

Without further ado, the winners are:

• Ronald Libertus – for his photo book wonderfully titled: Cupcakes and Lollipops
• John Hurly – A long time customer of Lulu’s services.  John purchased a Best Seller package for his upcoming work.
• Austin Reale (pictured) – Good old Mr. Reale, blogger for Reading Teen, stopped by the Lulu booth several times a day throughout BEA and was about as excited as I’ve seen anyone to receive a brand new computer.  Yes, I asked him to blog about it.

Help us in congratulating our winners on their new technological prowess in the comments.  Now, they’ve each got a shiny new computer to help them start on their next remarkable works.  As for the rest of you faithful Lulu blog readers, keep your eyes peeled for other contests in the coming months and for your chance to win from a selection of great prizes to help kickstart your publishing career. And most of all, thank you to HP.

Back in October, we announced the Bedtime Stories contest that the folks over at Nature Made Sleep® were holding. The contest was open to anyone unafraid to let loose their imaginations and offered the perfect opportunity to show some creativity and share it with others.

Over the course of three months, 382 aspiring authors submitted their sleep-inducing stories and gave the judges some tough decisions to make. It was inspiring to see so many people take a chance on putting their ideas out there. And I bet many authors were surprised to learn how talented they are.

After tallying 5,162 votes, and reading each story cover-to-cover, the judges narrowed the results down to one grand prize winner: Tracey-Jane Smith for her story, Addie and Ollie, which teaches the importance of friendship even when someone is different from you.

As the grand prize winner, Tracey-Jane Smith will receive:

• A $7500 cash prize
• A publishing prize pack, sponsored by Lulu.com, where her story will be professionally illustrated
• 10 printed copies of her book
• 1-year supply of Nature Made Sleep

Please help me in congratulating Smith and all of the participants of the Bedtime Stories contest in the comments below. You can check out Smith’s story and the two runners-up on the Nature Made blog. Also be sure to keep checking the Lulu blog and our Facebook and Twitter pages for more contests to spark your creativity in the future.

We’re obviously big fans of books here at Lulu and that makes November one of our favorite months. Why? Because it’s National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo.

For eleven years NaNoWriMo has brought together thousands of aspiring authors who share a passion for writing and creativity. Each November, more and more authors join in and take a no holds barred approach to pumping out a 50,000 word book in just 30 days. With such a limited time-frame for making a remarkable work, writers often surprise themselves with what they can accomplish and what creative ideas they can come up with – music to the folks at Lulu’s ears.

Some of us Lulus are even getting involved in the action. I am using this year’s NaNoWriMo to overcome a three-year case of writer’s block. Well, at least I’m trying to overcome a three-year case of writer’s block. So far I’ve spent several days staring at a blank screen hoping to channel Neruda, Hemmingway, Frost or Fitzgerald and then distracting myself with exciting things like laundry and grocery shopping.

Writing is much harder than anyone gives us literary types credit for, and I admire all of you Lulu creators for being able to have the self-discipline to write something and the confidence to put it out in the world.

NaNoWriMo is all about getting motivated. Any book written in 30 days probably won’t be a work of genius, but writing 50,000 words in one month is going to force you to write and take risks. You can edit, take out weak characters, and add sub-plots later. For now, just get writing!

My favorite high school English teacher told me once that writing is easy. You just write about yourself with the life you’ve always wanted. Change your name, give yourself an apartment in Paris and a love interest who got away. Find inspiration in everything and use the mannerisms of interesting strangers to write new characters. Combine it with the search for home, and you’ve got yourself a bestseller.

So, let’s do this together! We’ve got three weeks to write a book. It may not be your most remarkable work, but then again, maybe it will be. You don’t know till you try. And when you’re all done, I encourage you to publish your books on Lulu. What have you got to lose?

Feel free to add your NaNoWriMo experiences in the comments section below. We’d love to hear what you’re working on or any tips for NaNoWriMo survival and getting motivated?  Come on NaNoWriMo veterans, I know you’re out there.

Hulkmania!

It’s Halloween in the Lulu office and I thought it’d be fun to share some of the great costumes people have been wearing all day.

Each year, Lulu team members break out their biggest wigs, their goofiest glasses and their scariest masks in an attempt to out do each other in the fierce competition to win the “Best

Right to Left: A Musketeer, Dr. Who, Captain Planet, Barista

Costume Award.” No Lulu holds back and there were some pretty remarkable costumes this year. Some of my favorites were Hulk Hogan and Uncle Fester (with a real light up bulb in his mouth).

But we don’t want to be the only ones having fun, so as a treat for All Hallows’ Eve, we’re offering a couple special deals to all our customers and creators this weekend.

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Uncle Fester

Through November 1st, you can take 20% off any order with coupon code TRICK. And you can take 25% off any order of $500 or more with coupon code TREAT.

While coupons aren’t as tasty as candy, they are better for you and your wallet this Halloween season.

Have a happy and safe holiday everyone.

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If you’ve ever dreamed of writing your own, now is a perfect time to do it.

The folks over at Nature Made Sleep® are holding a Bedtime Stories contest that’s a great chance to show your creativity. The Grand Prize Winner will receive a professional illustration of their story, along with 10 professionally printed copies of their book courtesy of Lulu. In addition, they’ll take home $7,500 in cash, plus a year’s supply of Nature Made Sleep.

It’s easy to enter. Just visit the Bedtime Stories site, where you’ll be led through the simple process of creating and illustrating your bedtime story. Enter your text and drag-and-drop in some colorful illustrations before submitting your story to be entered in our contest. Contest winners will be decided by a combination of number of votes and selections by a panel of judges, so have your friends and family visit the site often to vote for your bedtime story, or visit the site yourself to vote for your favorite story (everyone can vote once a day).

So let your imagination run wild. And don’t let the bedbugs bite.