On 13 Dec 2011, Rich Shepard wrote: > On Tue, 13 Dec 2011, Rainer M Krug wrote: > > >OK - my question is, how can I achieve this? I guess something like > >lulu.com is the easiest option? Any recommendations, specifically > >concerning the fact that most books will go to South Africa (likely bulk > >order)? > > > >Any self-publishing houses in Europe which are recommendet? > > Rainer, > > Rick van der Laans lives in the Netherlands and published his SQLite book > via lulu.com. I have a copy of that as well as his most excellent > "Introduction to SQL, 4th Ed." published by a conventional publisher. > > At 50 pages your proposed book is quite small. You can probably find a > local publisher or printer who could produce bound copies for you. > > Rich
It depends what you want to do. If you want a book for sale that will be distributed to Amazon etc, Lulu will do this. But note that they are printers, not publishers -an important distinction. I've produced five books via Lulu. I had pretty good experiences when I started several years ago but I like them less now, although I think they are the best in their category. At least you don't have to pay anything in advance. On the other hand, they are not cheap when it comest to printing and delivery. If you simply want a quantity of books for distribution to a specified audience I agree with Rick: cheaper to get the book printed yourself. This is what I've done myself for two books which I use on courses I teach; they are printed by Antony Rowe and this is considerably cheaper and also usually quicker than Lulu. Plus I can reach them on the phone, which you can't do with Lulu. More generally, I think that self-publishing printed books for sale, unless to a very clearly defined market, is unlikely to yield much if any profit. The future, I'm sure, is in ebooks. Don't use Lulu for that; Smashwords is better. I have 6 books on Smashwords, including most of those I published with Lulu, and all are selling regularly. Anthony -- Anthony Campbell - a...@acampbell.org.uk Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell
