Lulu
Originally published on macresearch.org, around 2008. Reproduced from the author's archive; some links may no longer resolve.
Self-Publishing with Lulu.com
Most fields of scientific endeavor are niche in scope. The markets are small — with some exceptions — and not very attractive to book publishers. If you’re a specialist in such a niche, and have a great idea for a book, the chances are you will not be able to publish it. That’s a shame for you, and a shame for others in your field who struggle to find good literature.
Enter lulu.com. Lulu is a web site where anyone can publish a book, and I’m talking about real hard-/soft-cover books, not just PDFs. You simply sign up, upload your work, and it becomes available via an online store. It gets printed on demand, and shipped without you having to lift a finger. You set the price, and get 80% what’s over after printing costs are covered (usually $5-10). Not a bad deal considering you would usually be lucky to see 10-15% of the wholesale price when selling through a mainstream publisher. And with lulu.com, sales volume is not important. Whether you sell 10 copies or 10000, it doesn’t matter, because it is all print-on-demand.
Lulu.com also offers a service called ‘Published by You’ where — for a small fee — you get your own ISBN number. According to the site, your works will then be made available through online giants like Amazon.com.
Your book is listed with major global book industry databases. These listings lead directly and automatically to tens of thousands of retailers, online and off - among them Amazon.com, Borders, and Barnes & Noble, Inc. - not to mention thousands of schools, universities and library systems on four continents.
Lulu.com website (link no longer available)
If you’ve got lecture notes tucked away that have been perfected over the years, it may be a good time to see how much work it would take to turn them into a book. With lulu.com, you can earn a few bucks, and make your scientific niche more accessible to newcomers.