Lake Neuron

Gee, there are parts of my novel that are really and truly terrible. And I’m only midway through; the parts I was most worried about, involving my main character’s whirlwind romance, are towards the end.

I’m worried about those parts because my own social life has been … how do I put this? … underdeveloped. I just don’t have a lot of experience, and when I write about romantic relationships I think it shows. I made a comment back during November that I was worried the romantic stuff would sound like it was written about Nancy Drew by one of the Hardy Boys.

Granted, the first draft of a NaNoWriMo novel is supposed to be lousy. It was written in 30 days’ time, for heaven’s sake! Most of the cringe-worthy stuff I’ve found so far can be fixed.

If I can whip this into some sort of shape, I am thinking more and more about turning to a publish-on-demand service like lulu.com.

In the old days, of course, there were real publishers who paid authors for manuscripts, and there were “vanity” publishers, some of them legitimate but some downright crooked, which spurned authors could pay to have copies of their books printed. The vanity-published author, of course, would then be responsible for trying to sell the darn thing.

Publish-on-demand (POD) is a much lower-risk, above-board form of vanity publishing. POD companies use a printing technology that is technologically similar to, but much more attractive and professional-looking than, many computer printers. An old-style vanity publisher would require an author to purchase a certain minimum number of copies, because there’s a minimum number of copies needed to make a traditional printing job financially viable. But a publish-on-demand company can print out a single copy of a book on demand, whenever someone wants to buy one — and the books look and feel great.

So the author doesn’t have to pay anything up front. He or she can certainly buy a few copies of the book for personal use, to sell in person, or to try to place in local bookstores. But that’s not required. With some POD firms, the author can sell copies over the Internet with no risk or upfront investment whatsoever, simply by directing buyers to the POD firm’s web site. The POD firm handles the entire transaction and then sends the author his share of the profits.

Some POD firms do charge for services like helping to design the book, obtaining an ISBN number, sending out a press release announcing the book’s publication or placing the book in various literary search engines. But the author can save money by doing some of those things himself / herself.

Steve Mallard, from Tennessee Technology Center at Shelbyville, has had great success with lulu.com. Kathy T. has also used lulu, and she also reported good experiences. My sister recently helped a friend of hers with a POD book, and I’m trying to find out what company the friend used.

If something happens and you do get the chance to sell the book to a traditional publisher, it can be deleted from lulu’s servers, according to Kathy.

I am not certain that my novel is something I could sell to a traditional publisher. But I do have some goodwill here locally because of the success of my first-person mission trip stories in the newspaper. Hardly a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask me about them or comment about them. I’m wondering if I could sell some copies of the novel by putting it onto a POD service.