self-publishing

With an ever-expanding array of online tools available, it's getting easier and easier to turn your ideas into books -- and money. The secret is to know your market before you begin to write, start selling before you've published and never, ever stop promoting your book.

Barnes & Noble announced Wednesday that it will enter the self-publishing business this summer with the launch of PubIt, a digital publishing service that will make it simple for hopeful authors to sell their books and content on its Nook e-reader.

Getting paid by authors to publish their books is a booming business, and Raleigh, N.C., firm Lulu has been selling the dream to a fair share of of those aspiring writers. Now, Lulu is preparing to go public, but its own dreams of a $9.50 per share IPO price are being tempered by business reality.

Here's yet another sign that pay-to-publish firms are booming: Lulu.com, a firm that lets authors publish their own books and sell them directly to their audiences, is set to launch an initial public offering worth approximately $48.25 million.

An article by Mokoto Rich in the New York Times recently covered the booming industry of self-publishing books. As traditional publishing houses scramble for an increasingly smaller reading public and suffer from the effects of the re/depression, many writers unable to sell their manuscripts are...