Secrets of successful self publishing with Lulu.com

"The advantage from a publisher's point of view is that you don't have to pay to print a large batch up-front and you don't have to fill your garage with those books until you can sell them. Lulu provides ecommerce facilities and customer service, which means the service can be fully automated from the publisher's point of view. There are no set-up costs. You set your own price (as long as it's above the cost Lulu wants to charge you for printing), and Lulu will pay you the profits directly.

The disadvantage of using print on demand is that it's more expensive per book than it would be if you printed a large batch through a conventional publisher. If you're aiming for conventional distribution through shops with an ISBN, it can work out prohibitively expensive once the retail margin is factored in. Because each book is printed when the customer orders, it can take a couple of weeks for books to arrive.

My own experience using Lulu has been fantastic and I'm happy to recommend it. Even if you're producing a mass market work, print on demand can be a good way to test your product before committing to a large print run. "

read more - http://www.sean.co.uk/a/journalism/self_publishing_success_with_lulu.shtm