Sites Let Amateurs Be Published Authors Without the Book Deal

Karen Del Pellegrino, a bookkeeper in Keansburg, N.J., who collects Italian ceramics, said she and husband Walter used Lulu to publish three illustrated books about Italian pottery markings. So far, they have sold 400 copies to buyers around the world, including Japan, Switzerland and England.

"Walter would have been content with a spiral-bound workbook for his own personal use," she said, "but when I saw what he had put together, I knew it deserved better treatment."

Pricing and mechanics differ at Lulu and Blurb, though the basic process is similar. At Lulu, authors upload their material as preformatted, printer-ready files and then tweak them online. Blurb offers offline formatting by providing special software that authors download and use to lay out text and images.

For now, Blurb offers only full-color hardcovers starting at $30 for 40 pages, each 8 by 10 inches. Prices rise to $35 for 80 pages and $80 for 400 pages. Paperbacks will be coming soon, along with templates for different genres, including novels and text-only manuscripts.

Lulu offers far more choices, including text-only formats, paperbacks that start at less than $9 and color books at less than $35.

Authors can set their own sale prices and pocket 80 percent as a royalty, with Lulu taking the remaining 20 percent. Lulu also charges extra for an ISBN number to make their books available for purchase through Amazon.com and other retail outlets.

Lulu's pricing for full-color books caught the eye of Gilreath, a 39-year-old law-firm employee in Los Angeles who writes Reflekshins, a Web log that blends poetry with imagery. He recently used Lulu to convert his artistic blog into a 130-page, full-color book that sells for $32.14 -- or $8.11 more than what it costs to print. Of that, Lulu keeps $1.62 and Gilreath keeps $6.49.

While it's only sold a few copies so far, Gilreath said he's happy.

So is Edwards, who owns and runs a Los Angeles test-preparation service called Achieve Tutorials. He's sold several thousand copies of an SAT manual he published with Lulu, he said.

"The numbers on Lulu certainly can't compete with the big publishing companies," he said, "but I think it's remarkable how successful my book has been."

Leslie Walker welcomes e-mail at leslie@lesliewalker.com. She will be host a Web chat at 1 p.m. today with Blurb founder Eileen Gittins. To participate, visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/.