Articles tagged "eBook publishing"

by Colin Lalley
December 6, 2012
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Life After NaNoWriMo

In How To — Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

We’re well into December, and it’s almost the end of the year, but let’s take a minute to talk about last month. How did you spend your November? Maybe getting ready for the change in seasons or braving crowds to get a head start on holiday shopping? If you participated in NaNoWriMo you can add “writing an entire novel” to that list. Fifty thousand words in thirty days is no small feat so first things first: congratulations! Now that you’ve got everything all typed up and had some time to go over it, the most important question is…what’s next? You wrote your book in record time, so why not publish it just as quickly? Lulu has the professional publishing services to put a little shine on things and get your work ready for the world.

Cover Design


They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but let’s be honest, a nice cover goes a long way and can hook a customer before the first page is even turned.

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by AJ
January 23, 2012
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eBook Education: Know Your Formats

In How To, Marketing Tips — Tagged: , , , , , ,

Self-publish an eBook

Hey there remarkable author. Want your titles to reach even more readers?  Today’s lesson: Know your eBook formats.

PDF, LIT, BBEB, EPUB.  There are literally dozens of different file formats able to be assigned to the end of your would-be eBook.  All the buzz these days seems to be mostly about EPUBs, and for good reason.  EPUBs are currently the most universally accepted file format for e-reader devices.  Want to sell on the iPad?  EPUB!  Want to sell on the NOOK? EPUB!   You can turn a Word doc into an EPUB using Lulu’s EPUB Converter in minutes, but don’t just stop there.  While most e-reader devices accept EPUBs, some eBook tech mainly accept proprietary file formats so keeping up on tech trends can go a long way in getting your content out to the most customers.

Lulu author Stephen Stark puts it best:  “eBooks are not the future of publishing.  They are the present.”  And right he is.  Any author today would do well to study up on all the different eBook formats and offer their titles in as many mediums as possible.  EPUBs might be the bees knees right now, but that doesn’t mean another format won’t come along.  These days, you never know how your next big fan might discover your works, so making your content as accessible as possible is the name of the game.  The less your limit your titles to just one format or medium, the easier you make it on your readers to purchase and can avoid losing sales just because you didn’t offer your book the way they wanted.

For more info on how to create an eBook of your own, check out our handy youtube channel – updated with new how-to videos all the time such as How To Publish an eBook with the Best Table of Contents.

Happy selling Lulu author!

 

by AJ
July 22, 2011
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5 Things to Avoid When Creating an eBook

In How To — Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

UPDATE:  Learn More About eBook Publishing at Our New eBook Page

A little known fact about eBook distribution is that each retail channel has their very own set of requirements for accepting content that your eBook must meet before it can be sold. These requirements may sound scary at first, but they are actually pretty great.  By following the requirements set by each retailer, you can be sure your customers get the most robust experience from reading your work.  To help, here are the top five reasons we’ve seen eBooks bounce back from distribution.

  • No description or description too short – Describing your work might be the most important step of all.  Not only does a book description double as a great marketing tool to get readers interested, it’s also used to catalogue your work in retail channels all over the world. For this step, you’ll be asked to provide details including category and genre, keywords, description, language, licensing and edition number. It’s crucial you provide consistent information here that matches any details you have already provided or stated in your book and on your cover. Many retailers require this information to be accurate in order to list your content and make sure it gets in front of the right readers.
  • “Metadata” mismatch - Simply put, metadata is the who, what, when, and where of your eBook.  Much like your eBook’s description, metadata includes items like your title, author name, volume number, price, etc. and are what most retailers use to appropriately list and categorize your content.  Metadata must perfectly match so that customers searching for your eBook in a catalogue can find it.
  • Up-selling or listing a price on your cover – You can adjust the price of your eBook at anytime and we encourage you to experiment with different prices that are competitive with other books in the same genre.  With that in mind, avoid listing the price of your eBook anywhere on the cover, in the description, or in the eBook itself so you can be flexible to change the price later if you need to.
  • Inappropriate or illegal content (erotic, malicious, or plagarized content) – This one is pretty self-explanatory.
  • Non-English content – Unfortunately, we’re unable to distribute non-English eBooks at this time.
  • Poor image quality (borders, pixels) – You’ve probably come across a picture on the Internet that was hard to see no matter how much you zoomed in or reloaded the page.  Pixelated or blurry images won’t show up on today’s high resolution computers, tablets, phones and eReading devices. This means they can’t go in your eBooks either.  If you decide to include images in your eBook, we can only accept high-resolution, three color, RGB (red, green, blue) formatted pictures.  Four color, CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key black) images will not translate properly.