I was just looking at Innanis the Hooded: Adventures in Self Publishing Blogger Sean Froyd (a Bemidji ex-pat) is blogging to promote his book which was self published through Createspace. Createspace is an online press which allows you to print, market and sell through their site, or through your e-store, or through Amazon.

Sean says that Createspace competitor, Blurb is “basically a vanity press.” (see Making the Market) They “don’t allow you to set prices and you make nothing off the book” And I guess he’s right. Read Sean’s blog entry for more on his experience with self publishing, with Print on Demand, and with selling his book. You might want to buy it.

And then there’s Lulu which is yet another personal press which allows you to sell and make a profit. Lulu may be fine but some things you need to look at twice.

Lulu offers a “guaranteed number of clicks” which you can buy Clicks (someone clicking on your page with your book, but not necessarily reading the content) which will “generate a flood of potential customers” and 30 clicks for only $45! Imagine! Now how stupid do you have to be to buy that?

How does anyone guarantee that your web site or e-store is getting a certain amount of visitors? To my knowledge the only way Lulu can absolutely guarantee clicks from humans is to pay them. I wonder if they are using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to buy the clicks. A warning here, don’t work for the Turk, you’ll make less money than you ever thought possible.

BOOKS
Everyone would like to think they have a book in them, whether it’s a novel, poetry, art book, photography, ceramics, architecture, how to knit, a cookbook… A book shows just how good you are. But how to get published? Self publishing has traditionally had an air of unease about it for most literary and visual artists: there has been a whiff of self-glorification about it, desperation even. If you aren’t good enough to be published you can’t be a professional, right?

Well no.

The only truly bad thing about a self published book is an ugly book. Poor image reproduction, poor color, poor quality paper, poor layout all make your work look second rate or worse. And why would anyone throw a ton of money at publishing their own book, only to end up begging venues to carry the book and giving them away as slightly embarrassing presents? And who would want a poor reproduction of images as a portfolio?

The shame is past.

Terry Garrett recently showed me a beautiful book by a fellow artist Roben-Marie Smith which he bought from Blurb.com. Blurb offers “Self Publishing with free BookSmart software for Mac and Windows” and the results are VERY professional.

You download the software and add in your own images and text, build your book, upload the book and order. There are similarities with other self publishing offerings such as iPhoto. They also offer books you can assemble and design from photos, such as the extremely easy book option integrated into iPhoto on Mac. Given a little work you can get these books to look fantastic too.

When you are done with your book and you have a pile of them hot in your hands, what do your do then?

FILM AND MUSIC
Create Space is another do-make-sell site which allows you to upload your movies and audio, (they do books too) and sell directly through Amazon. As yet I haven’t seen any work in hand from there nor know anyone who has tried it. I hope to find someone who has tried it soon. Using video might allow you to promote a film, performance, or even make an arts educational video. Maybe.

TAKE THE PLUNGE
It all sounds interesting doesn’t it? In theory at least! Putting your work into a book, making a DVD, does take time, money, and computer savvy. If you’re an emerging artist with a lot of time on your hands, I say go for it and try self publishing through these online services. It will at least get you off the ground, give you an idea of what your work could become, and maybe it will be the start of something big.