Lulu.Com Print and Publishing Solution

Rich Sage Review of the Lulu print and publishing platform (Self Publishing), which was voted the best application in the Book Category for 2007 Web 2.0 Awards.

Since I am in the process of bringing to the online world 10 e-books and one print book, I did a bit of research where I can publish each masterpiece.  For the e-books, ClickBank is an obvious choice.  However, there are many other choice emerging.  I think Lulu will be a force in the self-publishing world.

Just one of my books, with my philosophies and practical advice, will “hit” the print form. So, what is then the best way to print 100, 1,000 or just 10,000 copies of a book? My answer was to turn to a service such as Lulu.

Lulu is a perfect solution for the small businesses to reach a mass audience with their media sales and dissemination.

Here is what Lulu can do if you are publishing a book:

Lulu will help you publish everything from paperback books, hardcover books, comic books to even dissertations. So, got a great collection of recipes? Need thousands of sales proposals? How about travel guides? If you need any of these types of published materials, Luly is the place!

If you need to distribute photos:

Lulu will distribute everything from photo books to calendars, posters and artwork. Once again, these don’t have to printed in runs of several thousand –from a few hundred plus, you can  “ramp up” your publishing on-demand.

If you need to distribute digital media:

Lulu does not leave out digital media –Images and graphic files, music, ringtones, sounds & midi files, movies & videos, cds, dvds, and e-books to documents.

Lulu Community:

One of the strongest business building concepts that I advocate is the use of joint ventures and outsourcing to develop your products and services.  I should add that getting a partner in your business is the FIRST order as well.  Often, sharing the fun leads to more income and spare time.  In the Lulu community it easy to find the partners, writers and other professionals that you may turn to for help completing a project, product or even running an entire business.

Of course, participating in a community is a wonderful way to learn and grow in business.  The community here full of publishing mindsets and is the perfect place for your to expand your ideas and grow your business.

Lulu Marketplace:

I am also impressed by the reach that Lulu has.  It’s a new service, but it’s already reaching millions of product creators, over 500,000 visitors, and all the products are then distributed through 60,000 retailers, schools and libraries, making it the number one self-publishing site.

The bottom line is that regardless of what type of media you’re selling, you’ll need exposure.  This is the place to get it!

Lulu, Under the Hood:

In the back-end, Lulu has some powerful tools to help you do everything from managing your account to creating your projects.

Regardless of what you’re creating for sale, be it a hard cover book or cds, Lulu has a wizard system that takes you from the start of the project to even binding and then pricing –the wizard helps you each step of the way!

The rest of the back office helps you take care of everything from shipping to your inventory of products.  Basically, this is a one-stop-shop for all of your publishing needs.

I am actually looking forward to a more in depth review of how we can take advantage of Lulu to achieve our online money making objectives.

Rich Sage