Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Publishing an ebook which is better Lulu or Amazon?

Look at Ingram's www.LightningSource.com for both ebook [adobe, ms, palm] and print books [most bindings and interior color now, colour in UK :)] and they can link you into national and international distribution online and brick/mortars, and airport book kiosks; bring your own ISBNs [www.Bowkerlink.com].

Amazon, I believe, only takes MobiPocket [for Kindle] ebooks, which you can download, set up and upload yourself from MS Word or Adobe Acrobat file.

Your $% cut can be large or small at Ingram's--you control it. Amazon Mobi is 50/50, It think.

It is feasible, once you're in Lightning Source , that you can write, edit, and publish and have on sale within a couple of weeks--all uploaded from your own computer.

You can do all this yourself, I do--with some hysterical hair-pulling, every now and then; but, I can, publish weekly or whatever and it'll be available nationally and internationally.

Or, you can have a layout editor at Elance.com or Guru.com help you (at a price), then upload the files yourself. Price your books above the print rate for print [it's pretty much ALL yours in ebooks] with a % for all the bookstores to share, and the payments (minus the printing rate) come in monthly straight to you--if you have sales.

All this costs a lot less than having a rather printer print and stack books to get damaged in your basement.

Also, Infinity Publishing / BuyBooksOnTheWeb has good low rates to typeset your files, design a cover, and distribute for you. Call [1-877-BUY-BOOK] them for a sample book, which will have all their info for setting up with them, and latest prices.

Neale Sourna

Links:

* http://www.LightningSource.com
* http://www.InfinityPublishing.com
* http://www.Bowkerlink.com

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