If you fancy the idea of making money from creating your own books, then Blurb might be of interest to you. It follows a DIY model of publishing books (similar to self-publishing). But, without all the hassle of coming up with a huge capital and plenty of unsold books in your garage.

In a nutshell, this is how Blurb works: You write your book. You take care of the typesetting and layout. You make sure the whole document is publication-ready. Then, upload your book on to the system. Once it’s ready to be published, you set a price if you wish to sell your book.

Then, you can order a book (or more) from your account, paying the base price. You can just mark-up the price if you wish to sell your book in person.

Or, if you don’t want the hassle of ordering too many books and selling them yourself, you just get people to buy your book directly from Blurb. Then, you get whatever profit/mark-up that you provide when you set your price. You keep the profit.

Some of the things that I like about Blurb:

• Clean interface; really pleasant site to look at;
• You can have your own little Blurb shop, if you wish. You can then share that link to people so that they can buy your books there;
• They have a free software application (called Blurb Booksmart, available both for Windows and Mac) that you can use to create your book – really handy if you want to make sure that your book is formatted for publication. It even has a built-in function that gives you warning signs if your image is not going to be publishable, etc.
• If you prefer to format your own book, that’s okay too;
• Basic books starting price is reasonable (approx. $5 for a 20-page Black and White Text book with coloured soft cover), prices go up from there, depending on the number of pages, etc;
• There are a number of options and pricing available – soft cover / hardcover, 4-colour/BW, etc.;
• Bulk discounts are available (if you buy 10 or more, you can buy your book at a lower price; the more books you buy, the higher your discount); and
• They seem to cater for a number of countries.

In any case, yes, it works pretty much like Lulu.com.

Since I haven’t tried using Blurb yet, I’m not sure about the printing quality of the books. I hope to be able to try it out one of these days and report my findings back here at some stage.

If you have given Blurb a try, do let us know what you think of it. Do you like it? What’s the quality of the printed books like? What about the service?

Right now, they’re currently running the 2009 Best Blurb Photo Books Contest. The grand prize winner gets to win $3,000. The runner-up wins $1,000. Then, there will be honourable mentions, who will then win $50 gift cards from Blurb.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Blurb: Make and Sell Your Books

Someone recently asked me if I knew any Australian online bookshops that offers a paying affiliate programme. Since some other people might be asking the same question, I thought I’d share what I know here at JMMO.

At the moment, the only Australia-based online book seller that I know of that has an affiliate programme is Fishpond. The basics:

• They offer 10% of the final transaction price to their affiliates.
• They have various books, CDs and DVDs in their inventory.
• They offer vouchers (usually AU $10 in value) to their customers. And, if you’re an affiliate, you can often use these vouchers as offers to your user base too.
• They offer free shipping to any address in Australia, for orders over AU$50. This is a great bonus. Although some books listed on Fishpond seem more expensive than Amazon, it works out cheaper most times due to the free shipping (combined with the vouchers, they’re great).
• They use Paypal (you can buy books using Paypal, however I’m not 100% sure if they pay affiliates through Paypal as well or via other ways).

I’ve used their services as a book buyer. My only complaint is that shipping does take a while. Usually, at least 3-4 weeks per order. Unless you’re ordering books that have 24 hour shipping (this translates to about 1 week to get the order delivered.) But, overall, it’s a good alternative for Australia-based book buyers.

On the affiliate front: They offer various tools, such as banners, product linking, and affiliate report, among others. I have yet to be paid for any transactions that have occurred using my affiliate account, so, I’ll let you know what happens here, once I know more.

Other than saving some money buying books and making money as an affiliate, there are two other ways Australian-based bibliophiles can make money online from Fishpond.

- Sell your old books via Fishpond. Not only can you tap in to their user base and make some cash from old, unwanted books, they even offer AU$0.20 credit per book you list.

- Review books that you’ve read. Again, they offer AU$0.20 credit per book that you review on their site.

From what I know, you can use these credits to purchase your next book. I have yet to see these two other money-making options in action. So, if I do, I’ll let you know.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Fishpond: Australian Online Bookstore Affiliate Programme

Almost time to close this month’s poll. So, please vote now if you haven’t done so yet. I’ll be sharing the results shortly.

And, don’t forget to share book titles (and authors) in the comments section. Would love to know what books you’ve read so far – and how you like them.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Poll Reminder: Have you ever read a book about making money online?