I’m not afraid to say it: I love Lulu.

Lulu.com is a print-on-demand (POD) service that works wonders for teeny tiny “Bit off more than we can hold in our mouth never mind chew” publishers like us. You type up your  Next Big Thing, upload it to Lulu as a .doc or .pdf file, go through some light and easy formatting stuff, and Lulu prints an actual book for you. There’s no setup fees, you can include graphics in the text file, and best of all, you can print any number of books including just one.

Sure, but how does it look? More professional than me even after I shave and put on my one suit. I ordered one copy of the Triune Quickstart Rules v1.1 to be printed. Even though that book will only be offered as a free PDF, I wanted to test out Lulu and see what the end result looks like and the Quickstart is done. I got it yesterday, and to quote Christopher Walken, wowie wow wow. It looks great! The binding is solid, the paper is professional grade (slightly glossy and thicker than regular paper), the images are clear (even the 90 dpi ones!), and it’s formatted exactly as I formatted it when I submitted it.

We still plan on PDF sales as our main revenue stream (or trickle as the case will likely be), but many people prefer hard copies over e-copies. Setting up our Players’ Guide and Gamemasters’ Rulebook in Lulu will help increase our sales by catering to that segment of the market. Plus, we want to sell on Indie Press Revolution and they require a hard copy before they agree to sell anything, PDF or otherwise. All in all, Lulu.com will be a tremendous help for us and all small press publishers.

Do you think Lulu.com takes flowers?