Michael R. Hicks

After poking around a bit on various bulletin boards, I came across some great information by Neil Slade that’s published on his site at MyOwnPublishing.com. I’m not going to steal Neil’s thunder here (please DO check out his site!), but I”ve decided to take the general path that he recommended.

The first part involves Lulu.com and getting your ISBN a little cheaper than you would otherwise (although it’’s not nearly as much of a difference now that it used to be):

1. Set up your book project on Lulu and get it ready for publication.
2. On the book’’s project page, click on “General Access” in the Availability/Project Status area.
3. Return to the project list, and you should see “Purchase a distribution package” under the ISBN column.
4. Click on the link to the distribution package page, and buy the “Published by You” option (note: it’’s now $99.95, somewhat higher than what it was when Neil wrote up his article).
5. Temporarily make your project private and update the cover with an ISBN bar code, and insert the ISBN into the inside page information (normally the same page that has your copyright statement).
6. Open your project back up to “General access” so folks in the Lulu marketplace can see and buy it.

The first question you may be asking is “Why bother with this at all?” The answer is in four letters: ISBN. If you want to be serious about publishing your book, you’ve got to have an ISBN; otherwise no major distribution channels will ever carry it and get it to all those bookstores out there. No matter how good your promotion efforts may be, you”ll never have a chance at real success.

Some of you may also be wondering why I’m not saying, “Just go to Bowker and buy an ISBN.” The short answer is that you can. However, ordering a single ISBN from Bowker will cost you a minimum of $125 (and up to $200 if you want it fast).Going through Lulu gets you the same thing for $99 in a few days, and gets your book up in their marketplace (although you can do that without an ISBN, but it won”t be further distributed).

Now, in my particular case, I did decide to go with Bowker for one particular reason: if you go through Lulu, any updates you do to the information (I believe for Books in Print, which is like “the” catalog for books that are available to retailers) has to be done through Lulu. To some folks that may not matter a whit. But I’m a bit of an independent sort, so I decided to go ahead and spring for the extra bucks for an ISBN from Bowker ($125).

Also, a quick note on bar codes: you DO want one of these on the back cover (normally) of your book! Again, you can order a bar code from Bowker for $25 (after you”ve got your ISBN, but you don’t have to get it from them to order a bar code there), or you can snag a free barcode from bookland. In my case, since I’m writing off all of these things as business expenses, anyway, I decided to spring for a bar code from Bowker; the bookland bar code generator looks good, but – make sure you read it – there’s a lot of fine print there because it’s a freeware program/service. Either way, get your bar code and put it on the back cover of your book. Just make sure you pay attention to the size requirements: according to the Lulu guidelines, the bar code should be 1.833″ wide and 1″ high – a very nice, round number!

At this point you could delete your project from Lulu and get on with your life. But I decided that I’m going to make it available through the Lulu marketplace, but am not going to have Lulu distribute anywhere else. Why? Because with a 50% discount to retailers, the shelf price would be over $37 (of which I would get $3). Would you buy a novel for $37? No. Neither would I.

But just on the Lulu marketplace, the retail price is $21.95 – that’s not as cheap as you might be able to get it on discount at a bookstore, but it’s not outrageous for a novel like In Her Name that’s in 6″ x 9″ trade paperback format and almost 700 pages long. Do I expect any sales from the Lulu marketplace? Not really. But, on the other hand, it doesn’t cost me anything to keep it there, and if somebody buys it, so much the better. Remember that part of making sales is a numbers game: the more places you can get your book out in front of people, the better the chance you have of selling some (again, promotional efforts notwithstanding).

The real door, however, has been opened: my book’s going to have an ISBN and a bar code with the ISBN on the back cover. Once I get those, I”ll be ready for the next big step: preparing the book for Lightning Source!

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Bookstores, Bowker, ISBN, Lulu, Neil Slade, Print On Demand

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm and is filed under About Publishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.