I had the opportunity today to interview Keith Dixon author of the crime novel Altered Life. Keith has been using Lulu for a little over 3 years. In the process of putting his own work on Lulu he became familiar with the site and frequented the forums.

After I got familiar with Lulu I found myself on the forums a lot, answering questions from other newbies, and after a few months I became a 'Power Poster', so I have a fancy icon next to my name

While reading through Dixon's blog The Idle Writer I encountered the a term he used "beta-reader".

haha ... yes, I think - hope - I might have invented that term ...

Basically, I realised after my first book that I needed to have other people read the book before it was sent to professionals. I used to be a proof-reader professionally, so I'm pretty good at that ... but still the occasional typo can get through. But also, you need someone who doesn't know the story to tell you whether something is credible or not. So for my second book I asked 5 people if they would read it for me. Some were good on the typo and detail stuff. One lived in the city (Liverpool) where the book was set. Another couple read this kind of crime novel so knew the conventions of the genre ... so they all gave me useful feedback that I could incorporate in re-writes.

The idea of beta-readers, incidentally, is taken from the notion of beta-software, if you weren't aware ...

Seems like a logical step for a self-publisher.

Interestingly enough Keith isn't big on social networking tools for marketing. This is why:

Not really .. I have a Facebook and a Myspace page, and I looked at Twitter last week. They all seem to take more effort than they're worth, from my perspective

[...] I have a slideshow of my book on MySpace, but not much else. In fact, when I visit the pages of most writers who are pushing their books, it turns me off. I'd rather have a straightforward writer's web site. Look at Robert Crais' site, which is straight down the line.

Keith is one of the many self-publishers for which self-publishing is a step in the direction towards traditional publishing. We talked briefly about copy-right and publishing which led into the following dialogue as to why Keith isn't putting his second book on Lulu.

Well, publishers like to have 'First publication' rights, so I gather they can get sniffy about books already published. That's why I haven't put my second book on Lulu, just so it's not 'tainted' by self-publication. And there can be an issue for some if a book already has an ISBN, for instance. But many Lulu authors have reported that if a publisher sees a market for a book, its pre-publication on Lulu, or the existence of an ISBN, isn't going to be too difficult to get around.

One Lulu author was selling over 500 copies of his novel a month - he was snapped up and now has a three book deal and a movie deal for his book.

Keith made a valid point of what I've seen throughout my research and certainly in the last few weeks of it. That not everyone uses Lulu the same way.

Some almost see it as a 'right' to help them publish. They get very annoyed if something goes wrong, and start talking about it 'costing them money' ... but Lulu is largely a free service, to get your book published. You don't have to pay a bean if you don't want to, except to buy a draft copy of your finished book. If you put a royalty on your book, Lulu adds 25% of that royalty. But when you buy copies of your own book yourself, you don't pay your own royalty and Lulu doesn't add its 25%. Likewise if you don't actually put any royalty on to begin with. You just pay the manufacturing costs. I think there are many people who just don't see what a boon that is.

Then there are those who use Lulu as a printer, basically. They set themselves up as small publishers and either print their own books, or reprints, or put together anthologies ... and then print through Lulu.

Some, like me, have done it to see their books in printed form. Others have tried the commercial route but not managed to make it. Some are already successful in professional publishing but see Lulu as a way to 'top up' earnings by re-publishing their old work ... etc

And there are many who - usually non-fiction - have published something that a commercial publisher wouldn't publish because the market was allegedly too small, but there's enough to sell 2-300 books a month on Amazon, making a nice little profit.

Not every self-publisher is alike. There are certainly degrees of use existent on Lulu and other POD services. I apologize for quoting at length, but the clock is ticking.

Visit Keith's Storefront here.
Thanks again Keith.

1 Comment

1. Poster Printing on April 15, 2009 1:25 AM

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