We love books. And we love moms. So what better way to combine our two loves than with a Mother’s Day themed book giveaway?

Today through Thursday, we’re giving away one book a day (up to $20 value) to a lucky Twitter follower who gives the best answer to our tweeted question about Mom. The daily winner will be announced at 8pm EST each evening and will be chosen from the tweeted answers of that particular day.

We’re also giving away a Grand Prize on Friday (5/7/10) — a year’s supply of books (that’s 12 free books – a value of $240!). The winner for the Grand Prize will be chosen RANDOMLY from all the tweeted answers of the entire week and will be announced at 8pm EST on Friday.

To take part in our book giveaway, here’s what you need to do:

• Follow us on Twitter

• Answer each daily question about your Mom

• Use the hashtag #LuluMom in your answer

• RT our question to your followers for some hilarious twitter dialogue

Remember, there’s no limit on daily tweets. Your chances of winning the Grand Prize increase with each tweeted answer so tweet as much as you can! Be funny and clever – it increases your chances of winning the daily prize and helps us understand why your Mom thinks you are so special.

See? Following us on Twitter really does have its perks!

To celebrate our newly expanded open marketplace, we’re giving away a book a day to one lucky follower! From April 16 -21, follow Lulu on Twitter and tweet us your favorite Lulu find (make sure to use #LuluFind in your tweet). You could be the lucky daily winner of a $20 coupon for your favorite Lulu find!

As with anything, gaining Twitter followers does not happen overnight. I initially wrote about how to use Twitter last year to find an audience, but with more and more people using the service, having your voice heard can be difficult. These simple tips should help you gain followers and stay followed by those who can turn into readers of your Lulu.com content.

Censor Yourself: Before you post anything, think if you’d actually like to read the Tweet if it came from someone you were following.

ReTweet: I often ReTweet links or posts that I find useful, interesting or humorous. I find that people whose Tweets I have Retweeted often Retweet my Tweets (say that 3x fast). This allows my message to reach an even larger audience.

Don’t Spam: An alarming trend is happening, many people are simply sending out the same message to every celebrity using Twitter over and over. These messages are not read by the celebrity and often cause the sender to be unfollowed or blocked.

These simple tips can help you build an audience and establish relationships using Twitter and ultimately help you sell more of your Lulu.com content.

Follow Lulu here.
Follow me here.
Sign-up for Twitter here.

Read more about using Social Networking here.

One issue with gaining converts to the power of social networking is showing the value. Many people who are unfamiliar with the medium only see the noise and not the benefits. I have found a number of my LuluBlog author interviews via social networking. In fact, Lulu author Bob McDonald conducted an interview with me via Twitter. Samata Angel found me via my LinkedIn profile and asked me some questions about Lulu.com and how she could effectively market her books. That simple message turned into this interview. The real trick to marketing your business, and yourself, via social networking is creating a conversation. None of the people who I have profiled or helped promote their content have sent impersonal messages. They all started a conversation with me. For now, here is my post on using Twitter to gain an audience and we’ll have more social networking how-to posts coming up on the blog and on Lulu.com.

Samata Angel has used Lulu to promote her fashion career. So far, she has created two books using Lulu.com and was kind enough to do an interview with me via email.

Tell us a bit about your background?

I grew up in Cambridge and moved to London to study my undergraduate degree in Economics, Finance and Management. Whist in London I just used the opportunity to get more involved in the fashion scene as I always loved being creative and wanted to see where it may take me, so I got involved in fashion shows backstage, assisted other designers and went to lots of networking parties. After university I worked in a range of fashion industry roles including Head of PR for a Chelsea 3 floor boutique and as Head of Marketing for a Japanese clothing label and it was after all of these experiences that I decided to register my company, Samata’s Muse. Since that I have just worked hard and been given the some great opportunities, with Samata’s Muse counting the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Dawn Richards as clients and having been featured in LOOK, PRIDE and Fashion Capital to name a few!

What inspired you to write your books?

It was really whilst working in the fashion industry as a designer and doing various spots as a guest speaker at different business and enterprise events that I realized there was a need for a certain type of assistance and that I could provide it! By launching “Fashioning your Life, A Clothing Designer’s Guide – Volumes 1 & 2″ I wanted to provide essential books to assist fashion designers understand business elements of running a clothing label. I studied business and I am very much a self-taught designer so I wanted to share knowledge in areas such as Marketing, PR, Trade Show participation and writing a business plan. I also got some industry friends on board who are experts in their fields such as international photographer Nigel Barker (America’s Next Top Model), celebrity stylist Nick Ede (Project Catwalk ), Jenny Holloway (Fashion Capital founder) and PR Guru Courtney Blackman (Fashion Business Club) to share brilliant advice in their relevant sectors

How have your books helped your career?

I would say they have helped others more than my career (I hope!) but the acknowledgement I have picked up due to writing them has been phenomenal. They have definitely brought a great deal of press my way and I have been asked to speak at some really fantastic events alongside other entrepreneurs and business leaders such as Levi Roots, Baroness Scotland and Margaret Mountford in part due to this achievement. They have also helped me focus on what I would love to do and I can see that in the future some form of social enterprise work is very much on the cards for me. I am an ambassador for the national campaign Make your Mark which aims to encourage young people into enterprise so I have a taster of what to expect and how rewarding that type of work can be.

Tell us about the awards you have won?

Since launching I have picked up a few industry nominations and wins such as Best Couture Line 2006 at UK Urban Fashion Awards, British Female Inventor and Innovator Network’s ‘Exceptionally Creative Award 2006′ (Finalist), Aristoc’s ‘Ultra Woman of 2007′ (Finalist)
and Precious’ ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2008’. They have been huge acknowledgements which have meant a great deal to me because they give me a pat on the back and show much-needed industry support.

What is the most important advice you think a budding designer needs to have?

I would say try to stay inspired by surrounding yourself with positive people, new environments and the materials of your craft, work hard and stay true to who you are. It is easy for people to get caught up in the glamorous image of the fashion industry and yes, of course it is sparkly, exciting and fast paced, but it is a business industry like any other and what really matters is putting in the hard work so that you can rightfully reap the rewards.

Any plans for a 3rd Volume?

I am definitely planning volumes 3 &4 of the guide for later this year early 2010. Right now I am focusing on promoting the first two and trying to ensure the content will be relevant and also that I can get the same caliber of contributors for that as I did for 1 & 2. I want each step I take to be a progression from the next and not a step backwards.

To learn more about Samata:

Samata Angel’s Books
Official website
Samata on Twitter

I am a huge fan of the social networking tool Twitter and have added all of the Lulu authors I can find who use the tool. (Follow me here and Lulu here.) I happened to be following Marty Wombacher who, as it turns out, is kinda semi-famous. He founded the magazine Fishwrap and also has written a number of books.

Marty also wanted to be a firetruck when he grew up, which is way cooler than the baseball that I wanted to be.

Can you give us a bit of background on Fishwrap?

Sure, I moved to New York in the summer of 1993 from my hometown of Peoria, Illinois, hoping to get a job as a staff writer at a magazine. I had a connection with the founding editor of People magazine, Dick Stolley (you can read about that connection in my book, “The Boy Who Would Be A Fire Truck,” yikes, I’m plugging my stuff already!) and he got me interviews at People magazine, Entertainment Weekly and In Style. I was really excited and was certain I would land a job at one of them. Well one by one they turned me down (I later learned they thought I was a talented writer, but thought I might have an attitude problem. Moi?) and while I was doing some freelance writing for newspapers, it was a real disappointment. So I decided to publish a magazine that would ridicule the whole world of mainstream magazines. This became Fishwrap and it became somewhat of a cult hit. It started out as a black and white fanzine (this was the pre-blog era) and later evolved into a 48 page glossy magazine. I had a distribution agent, so it was available across the country. I got some decent press through the years, but could never sell ads for it (I’m a horrible businessman) and it never made any money. By the year of 2000 I felt it had run its course and put it to rest.

How many books have you written and where are they available?

I’ve written two other books. One was written in 1992, when I still lived in Peoria, Illinois and it’s title is: “Elvis Presley is a Wormfeast.” It was a humorous look at how Elvis Presley actually got bigger after he died (although he was pretty big at the time of his death, har har.) That one is long out of print and I’ve only got a couple copies of my own. The other book I’ve written is called “99 Beers Off The Wall,” and it came out in 2002. What this is, is one man’s guide to 99 bars right here in New York. The hook to it is, I had a week’s vacation from my night job, so I went to 99 bars and had 99 beers in seven days. As you can imagine, a lot of adventures ensued and in between the reviews are travelogue type writing of me running around in a drunken stupor in Manhattan. I’ve still got a couple hundred of these in my apartment, and if anyone is interested in buying one they can email me via my Lulu storefront.

You mention that you had a few “small doses of fame.” Can you elaborate on a few of them?

In 1985 I created a satire on Trivial Pursuit which was really hot at the time. My game was called “Trivial Trivia, The Idiot Edition,” and it was designed for people who weren’t smart enough for Trivial Pursuit. Some of the questions were, “What is Burt Reynold’s first name?” “How many members were in the original Jackson Five?” “Who’s buried in Grant’s tomb?” I’m sure you get the drift of the game. I just did it for a goof, got them printed up and went from getting written up in the local paper in Peoria, to being on the local news, then the U.P.I. wire service did a quick story on it and it was put on a national wire and things went nuts. I did hundreds of radio interviews, papers picked it up across the country and ultimately I got flown out to New York and was a guest on the Today Show and interviewed by Jane Pauley. In the end, over 100,000 games were sold, so I had a decent payday out of that. The bad news is that years later I started my own magazine in Peoria (which again was a cult hit, but nobody would advertise in it) and I blew through all the money in three years. However it was through that magazine that I made my connection with Dick Stolley and why I moved to New York, so I have no regrets. Fishwrap also brought me some chunks of notoriety, through the years I got write-ups about myself and Fishwrap in Spin magazine, USA Today, Men’s Journal, The NY Post, NY Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Folio magazine among others. I guess you could say I’m a legend in my own mind.

Do you have plans for another book?

Yes, I have an idea for one I’m hopefully going to have written by the fall. You’ll be the first to know!

What are you working on now?

Right now I’m doing a magazine on Lulu, just kind of for fun, I don’t think there’s much commercial potential for it, but I’m having fun doing it. It’s called Natalie Word and the first issue is available now. You can find a link to it on my Lulu storefront page. I don’t think a lot of people realize you can do a magazine on Lulu, because I don’t see many. All you have to do is lay it out in the paperback book section, make it 8.5 x 11, saddle-stitched and baboom, you’ve got your own magazine.

Who designed your book cover and the page layouts?

A friend of mine designed it. His name is Joe Freedman and he’s an artist, designer and runs a design/production business out of Portland, Oregon. You can check out his website at LeafDisplay. He does original and amazing work. One thing we have in the book are flipbook movies at the bottom of the page, that was all Joe’s idea and it’s a fun and unique aspect of the book.

I connected with you via Twitter. How are you using the service? Personal? Professional?

Right now kind of a mixture of both. I don’t have a lot of followers and I’m not following a lot of people just yet, but I’m adding them slowly and getting used to the world of Twitter. I’m finding it is a good way to connect with like-minded people. Without it we never would’ve met and this interview wouldn’t be happening, so that’s very cool.

How much of your latest book is factual?

I wold say about 98% of it is true. The book is a collection of true-life short stories, so its all remembered stuff and everybody’s memories of events are different, but this is how I remember them. One chapter about when I worked at a printing plant in Peoria is a bit of a mixture of different characters I’ve worked with through the years and there’s just a bit of embellishment in that one, but I admit to it in the introduction. But all in all, they’re true-life stories, from my somewhat unconventional life.

The subtitle of the book is, “The True-Life Tales of a Working-Class Writer.” What does that mean?

That alludes to the fact that through the more than twenty years I’ve been writing, I’ve always worked a night shift job in the printing industry. I’ve done freelance writing for a number of magazines and newspapers including the NY Post, NY Daily News, Nerve magazine, Time Out New York and others, but I’ve never been able to make my living off writing, even though I’ve had some notoriety and people seem to enjoy reading my writing. A guy I work night’s with read my book and said to me, “Why are you still here?” And it’s a question I’ve asked many times through the years. But in the long run, I’ve had tons of fun and experiences and wouldn’t trade it for the world. And who knows, maybe my big break is right around the corner! Mucho thanks for the interview Dan, and long live Lulu!

Thanks again to Marty for taking the time to do this interview.

Visit his storefront HERE.
Preview his book HERE.

In the past year, another great way to find and communicate with people who share your interests has emerged: Twitter. This web-based communication tool allows you to have conversations with numerous people whether they share your interests or are simply interesting in their own right. If you’re shy, you don’t have to actively engage people in conversation; you can follow people that interest you and sit back and watch the conversations unfold.

Twitter allows you to communicate in 140 characters or less. You can also share links to longer blog posts, news items, or websites. The current political candidates are using Twitter to organize their supporters and keep people informed about what is happening in their campaigns.

To use Twitter simply sign up for an account and get a username. The process is easy and only takes a few minutes. You also can use a picture (or an image of your book) to represent yourself.

Once you create an account you need to start finding people to follow. You can input your email account details and Twitter will show you if people you already know are using the service. You should also use the search tool to find people who are talking about topics that you want to follow . I did a search for “Lulu.com” to find other authors who use Lulu. Simply follow each user to create a list of people who are interested in Lulu.com and self-publishing.

Try searching for other topics that interest you. I enjoy hockey and am working on a book about youth hockey, so I searched for “hockey” and then followed other people who enjoy the sport. This has allowed me to join in on conversations with my target audience: hockey fans. As I have gotten to know them, I have been able to talk to them about ideas for my book, and even solicit feedback on some of my chapters. I know that once I release my book, I will have a built-in audience that is not only interested in my work, but has also participated in its creation.

Once you start following people, you can begin to see their conversations and whom they talk to. Start following people you find your friends talking with. Always remember, the messages you post will be viewable by everyone unless you send a direct message to an individual user. Before you know it, you’ll be networking and making friends. To get started, you can follow Lulu.com HERE and weRead HERE.

There are a number of other tools to help you:

Twellow.com: Directory of Twitter users
Twitter Search: See what people are talking about
Twirl: Put Twitter on your desktop

Questions? Comments? Post Below!