Articles tagged "publish an eBook"

by AJ
January 23, 2012
No Comments

eBook Education: Know Your Formats

In Lulu Blog, Marketing Tips, Tips and Tricks — 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
January 20, 2012
Comments (4)

What’s the buzz on all this Apple publishing stuff?

In Lulu Blog, Lulu News — Tagged: , , , , , , ,

If you’ve been paying attention to any tech news since yesterday, you probably heard about the Apple announcement of their new iBook® Author app – geared towards educators looking to publish textbooks for customized classroom solutions.  Here’s what some of the top tech-media outlets have to say about the new program:

Mashable
Hands On: Apple’s iBooks Author App

Engadget
Apple launches iBooks 2 e-Textbook platform (video)

PC Magazine
iBooks Author: You Work For Apple Now

The Telegraph
iBooks Author:  Apple doesn’t want to own your book

The Verge
iBooks Author restricts all sales to iBookstore, wraps for-pay books in DRM

Techcrunch
Apple Announces iBooks 2, A New Textbook Experience for the iPad

LA Times
Apple’s iBooks 2, iBooks Author:  Bids to own publishing’s future

TechRadar
Hands on:  iBooks Author review

So what do you guys think about Apple’s new initiative?  Sound off in the comments below.

 

by AJ
December 22, 2011
Comments (9)

Winners of the Lulu Short Story Contest Announced!

In Author Spotlight, Contest, Lulu Blog — Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,


Wow.

We just can’t get over how many truly remarkable stories we received for the first ever Lulu Short Story Contest.

Our panel of 25 judges carefully read through the 2000+ submissions, picked their favorite, then read it out loud to the rest of the judges. From there, judges voted on which stories they liked the best from the readings and tallied the results until there were three clear winners with the most votes.  Your stories made us laugh, made us tear up, and some of the judges even got into literary debates over their favorites that lasted for days on end (no, really).

It was amazing to see everyone take such a passionate interest in our authors’ work. I can’t express enough how hard it was to pick just three finalists. But, we had to…SO! Without further ado (and because the suspense is killing me)…here are the winners of the Lulu Short Story Contest:

1ST PLACE WINNER:

The Red Boots by Poornima Ram Kiram

$1,000 Cash
Barnes and Noble NOOK
A review in Shelf-Unbound Magazine
Free Lulu Publicity

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2ND PLACE WINNER:

Grass by Charles D. Shell
$250 and a Barnes and Noble NOOK™:

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3RD PLACE WINNER:

Revenge by Gail Kavanagh
$100 Gift Card to Barnes and Noble

–
 Honorable Mention:

Persona Quietus by Jesse Lee
Lovely Stranger by Jennifer Porter-Kennard

If you didn’t win, don’t let it get you down.  So many of the stories were so excellent and hey, now you have an eBook version of your story and your name out in the world for millions of readers to see. All just because you believed in yourself. Neat huh?!?

You can take that shiny new eBook of yours and promote it this holiday too for what we’re calling Download Day.  We did some research and figured out that December 26th is the highest traffic shopping day for eBook sales – much like “Black Friday” in November. So, we’re throwing a good old-fashioned author sales contest for Download Day and the author who sells the most copies of their eBook on December 26th, 2011 – even if you sell your eBook for free – will win a Barnes and Noble NOOK and $100 off coupon good for anything on Lulu.

Learn more about Download Day, the highest traffic buying day for digital content on the Lulu blog here. And thank you again so very much for helping make the Lulu Short Story Contest such a success.  Due to popular demand, we’ll soon be posting a full list of all 2,000+ submissions to the contest for everyone to read and we plan to publish an anthology featuring all the semi-finalists and three winners for all to enjoy.  More details on that to come soon.

All the best this holiday from Lulu.

by AJ
July 18, 2011
Comments (3)

Winners of the HP Mini Laptops Announced!

In Contest, Lulu Blog — Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As some of you may know, Lulu has an ongoing relationship with HP and we want you to reap the benefits of that relationship just as much as we do.  So, back in June, we announced two easy ways customers could win one of two brand-new HP 5103 Mini Laptops – by either creating and publishing a photo book, or by using one of Lulu’s handy services to publish one of your remarkable works.

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.