Deborah Woehr

I’ve read countless posts in forums and blogs where writers talk about the dreaded writer’s block, publishing nightmares (traditional and POD), etc. On occasion, I’ll hear writers moan or rejoice about their latest book signing(s). What I don’t hear much about is how they market their books once they’re published.

I found a couple of great books on book marketing: Francine Silverman’s Book Marketing from A-Z and Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerilla Marketing for Writers. Over the next several months, I’ll be testing out their resources and tips, plus whatever resources I find on the Internet. Then I’ll post the results here.

The best part about this film was the scene where a wife pours hot bacon grease over her husband’s head for bitching at her about a late/burned breakfast. She finished him off with a good whack of her pan. I actually hooted and clapped inside the movie theater over that one.

As for the rest of The Grudge 2, it was almost identical to the first. If you haven’t seen the first movie, the second will fill you in about how the ghost came to be and why she’s out to kill. Rent the first if you want to get to know the character of Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and why she is in the hospital in the beginning of Grudge 2.

After the movie was over, I was talking to my mother-in-law (who went with me) about how they could have expanded on the Japanese rituals for exorcism. That would have added some depth to this film. There were some other things that bugged us about the movie, but I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who want to go see it.

If I had to do it all over again, I’d think twice before paying the movie theater price and wait for it to come out on video. It wasn’t a bad movie, but it was the typical “more of the same” sequel.

I was writing a story on my old iMac (long gone now) when my husband called me away. When I returned, the screen was black, with a black avatar of a bomb. I moved the mouse from side to side.

The screen refreshed. Clouds dotted a pretty blue sky. Flying through that sky was the bomb, circling and smoking and laughing at me as it ate every file on my hard drive. The piece I’d been working on was long gone.

I woke up to Friday the 13th.

Can you believe we’re going to be celebrating another Halloween? Other than taking the kids trick-or-treating, we generally don’t do anything but pass out candy to the rest of the kids. Last year, we broke our couch potato tradition by going to a party. I’m not sure what we’re going to do this year.

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Halloween than watching scary movies. Here is a list of my top 5 faves.

1. The Grudge: This is the first movie that creeped me out as an adult. I’m looking forward to watching the sequel, which comes out on my youngest son’s birthday (Friday the 13th!).
2. The Shining: Not the wimpy remake, but the Stanley Kubrick classic. Heerre’s Johnny!
3. The Thing: I’ve never seen the original movie, but loved the remake with Kurt Russel and Wilford Brimley. Watching the Quaker Oatmeal guy (Brimley) have a nervous breakdown added volumes to the tension.
4. Prince of Darkness: This movie scared my husband because he believes in the Anti-Christ.
5. What Lies Beneath: This was one of the best psychological thriller/ghost stories I’ve seen in quite a while.

What are your favorites?

When I first signed up for a Lulu account last year, the price for an individual ISBN was around $35.00. At the time (if I remember correctly), you had to submit your book to the online retailers. They’ve since done away with that and charge you $100 for their Global Distribution service, where Lulu assigns an ISBN for your book and distributes the books to every major online retailer.

The screen below shows what stage your project is in. Check out the ISBN column. The “mock book” is now ready for the Global Distribution service. Click on that and follow their directions. Lulu requires that you buy another proof to make sure everything was formatted correctly before you approve your book for the ISBN number. If you don’t, and you find mistakes, they will charge you a hefty fee to make the corrections.

Once your second proof arrives, check it out again. You’ll need to add the ISBN number to the copyright page, which means that you’ll have to reassign the ISBN number. See How do I make changes before approving my book? Then they’ll prompt you to order a third proof.

I tried to get around this but they wouldn’t let me. If the only change you needed to make was entering your ISBN number on the copyright page, then go ahead and approve the ISBN number after you order the proof. After you do that, you’ll be taken to Global Distribution: Approve Book page, where you’ll be given these links:

* Distribution FAQ
* How do I update my book’s listing with online retailers?
* How do I upload my book cover to online retailers?
* How do I make changes after approving my book?

Open a new window and click on your Projects tab. Your ISBN number should be displayed next to your book’s listing. Another option Lulu has is the Google Book Search. Enable that, if you want. Then you’re done. It takes approximately 6 weeks for the distribution service to kick in and around 8 weeks for your book to get listed on Google.

That about wraps it up for this tutorial. Best wishes for your book’s success!

Once you click the publish button, you’ll be taken to a new window that gives you the option to market your book (using Lulu’s free and paid resources), view and/or customize your book’s preview, and buy a copy of your book. I suggest you buy a copy of your book before you make it available to the public.

Once it arrives, check the quality of the cover as well as the pages. Now is a great time to check for any typos that you may have missed. If everything looks good, you’re ready to assign an ISBN to your book.

The pricing screen automatically calculates how much your book will cost and how much of a cut Lulu will receive, based on the royalty amount you enter. With the “mock” novel, I experimented with the royalty, entering $5.00. That shot the book’s price up to $21.95. Here is a more realistic figure:

Print cost: $12.43
Download (ebook): $1.25
Your Royalty: $1.00

Pricing your book is the most trickiest aspect of self-publishing. You have to know what your audience is willing to pay. I’ve bought POD books in the past and wouldn’t pay more than $16.00 for a 6×9 paperback novel. I checked out the price on a book that was published by Del Rey. Their pricing was $13.95 for this book size.

Before you click “Complete Publish,” make sure your pricing is set at a reasonable rate and you have your license set (see the bottom of the pricing screen).

Lulu has updated its book cover interface since August, which I consider an improvement. All you have to do is click on the section of the cover you want to edit to design your cover. My computer screen wasn’t large enough to capture the entire screen, so I’ve spliced it into two sections.

The cover above is Lulu’s default, which you can change by selecting a cover from the Gallery or uploading your own file. If you’re going to use your own file, remember to format it to 1838 x 2275 pixels (6.25 x 9.25 inches) before uploading. Otherwise, Lulu will give you an error message.

The snapshot below was an experiment with the Gallery cover options. Lulu makes it very easy not only to upload your images, but your synopsis for the back cover, something which I didn’t see available (unless I missed it) when I first started the publishing process for the anthology. Back then, I had to copy and paste it to the back cover image in Photoshop. Now, you can enter your description directly into the interface and not have to worry about centering it properly.

I’ll include the one-piece cover section, while I’m at it. I don’t know how many of you will be using this feature, but I’ll be testing it out when I’m at the publishing phase for Prosperity.

Once you’ve uploaded your cover, the next step is setting your book’s price.

The thing I hate the most about getting sick (or coming back from vacation) is catching up on all of the work that had to sit while I was down. I managed to squeak out a few paragraphs for Prosperity this week, almost making it to the 80K mark. But looking it over Thursday night, I’m going to have to redo the chapter I’m working on. That’s one of the things on my To-Do list.

The first priority is finishing the Lulu series. I’m almost there, so it shouldn’t take me too long. The good news is that I received the final copy of the anthology, and it is finished. I’ll be making it available to everyone later today or this evening. Check the sidebar for the link!

Thanks to all of you who responded to my Lulu series. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it so far and hope it helps you if you decide to publish through this company. I’ll be taking a break from it for a couple of days because I’ve come down with a bad headcold. Once my head clears and I can think again, I’ll continue.