alt publishing
If you want to get books in bookstores, Lulu’s not the way to do it: The production costs are too high. If you want to produce a special item for a handful of people or do a book that you know won’t get into bookstores anyway (how many of my books have you ever seen in a bookstore other than at ALA?), Lulu so far looks like a good option.
I had the good fortune to meet the famous Jessamyn West on her flying visit to Melbourne this month, at the State Library cafe thanks to Michelle Thomason of ALIA Groups. I created a Pageflakes account the other day and have stuck a flake with the Librarian.net feed in it on the first page - and here’s the first snippet of her wonderful blog that I’m mining online.
Walt Crawford, a senior analyst at OCLC, and the author and editor of Cites and Insights, has published a book using the increasingly popular self-publishing platform, Lulu. He gives an account, here (from which the quote above is taken), and Jessamyn offers some discussion here,
where she mentions how cumbersome being involved in a scholarly journal can be, and notes the arrival of left of centre small library publishers, Library Juice Press, who have a terrific blog.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I actually picked Jessamyn from the airport when she got up here to Sydsvilletown. She be a funster.
April 25th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Peacay, you are a well connected individual.
I had a great talk to her about Library 2.0 and vendors of library software, as well as the maintenance of dreadlocks. I really admire her commitment to the digitally deprived (there, I’ve said it) - and her consistently sensible remarks about technology.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Just to let you know that I have revived North of the Latte Line weblog.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Very glad to hear it, Anne. Long may you run!
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:30 am
What a thought provoking post, thank you.
October 7th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I just heard your warning about LULU, days after a friend had nice things to say. She’s at the tale end of a rock novel (and had a minor part in rock music history with a now-departed rock music icon. Good thing I’m not ready to pursue a book length assignment right now. - Abby F.
October 8th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Abby, I also have some other associates who are happy with Lulu. Jessamyn and Walt are fairly highly regarded, so their ideas are worth sharing as well.
Nice of you to visit this blog too!
October 11th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
I try to keep an open mind!