Blurb.com – A Way for Authors to Self-Publish
What is Blurb? It’s a wonderful discovery for an aspiring author or someone who just wants a few books for a special occasion or to share with their family. When a writer chooses to self-publish their content, there are a number of Print-On-Demand sites like Lulu.com or Create Space, but let’s focus on Blurb.com here. I’ve used it a number of times with varied books and found it quite versatile.
The wonderful thing about Print-On-Demand (also called POD) is the author doesn’t have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of books to get the book published by a traditional printer or face rejection over and over from a traditional publisher. The way that POD works at Blurb is the author uploads the book content to the Blurb website. At that point, the only obligation is to buy one copy of the book. Anyone else wanting the book can order it directly from Blurb’s online bookstore. The author sets the price and keeps any income above the printing cost set by Blurb.
How To Do It
- Sign up with Blurb. It’s free and you put the usual information (username and password).
- Click on DOWNLOAD THE BOOKWRIGHT SOFTWARE at the Blurb site. This downloads Blurb’s software to your own computer. You work offline at your own pace. Use the Blurb BookWright Guide to learn more about it.
- Start a new book using the software. Choose a title, paste in the text and get the pictures from your own computer files.
- Rearrange the text and photos until you are satisfied with the book.
- Edit, edit, edit… run the spell check and review the text and photos one more time. It’s best to actually print out the pages and review it that way. Somehow one sees the errors more clearly in a printed copy.
- Once you have it perfect, upload the book to Blurb.
- Now you have 15 days to order the book or they will remove it from their site. Don’t worry, it’s still saved on your own computer.
- Start promoting the book. Potential buyers go to Blurb’s online bookstore to preview a part of the book and to order copies.
You can preview the various books I’ve published using Blurb. My sample books are featured in my online bookstore. Click on a book cover to read more about it and to PREVIEW a portion of the book.