P.Viktor

Working With Lulu.com

When fellow blogger The Amazon Iowan asked me about my thoughts on the print on demand publishing service Lulu.com, I wrote quite a detailed response, which I thought I would share on my website: My experience of using Lulu has been entirely positive, and you will find this positivity a lot from people who use it. It is very user-friendly, it's free (which is obviously an important factor – no up-front fees etc.) and you have complete control over your work. It's as simple as uploading your manuscript (which you may have written in a Word document) and then design your own covers, or use the customisable templates that Lulu provides. I think that designing your own covers gives your book a much stronger identity than the generic templates they offer, but I guess that depends on your technical capability.

What is great is that Lulu is a combined service. Once you have finished your book you can add an ISBN package (this option does cost money, but if you want to sell your book through the likes of Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc. then it is a must), they can help you market your book, they provide you with your own online store front, and people can order it straight from them - they do the printing, packaging, and financial transaction for you. The beauty is that because it is print-on-demand you incur no costs, and that's what's great about it. And I have to say, the quality of the books is very, very good. You can't tell the difference between a Lulu book or one you buy in a bookshop.

Darkness Is Where The Stars Are - Poetry Controversy

Who says that poetry can't incite debate or controversy these days? According to the BBC News website, a new book of poems by Patrick Jones, called Darkness is Where the Stars Are (Cinnamon Press), has cooked up something of a storm in Caerphilly. The poet was due to take part in a launch of the book at the local Waterstones, but when the poet emailed Christian and Muslim groups with his poetry prior to the event, all hell allegedly broke lose. Strong content relating to religious themes was apparently so provocative that Waterstones cancelled the event for fear of protest, or dare I say it, poetic protest? The author, the brother of Nicky Wire (Manic Street Preachers), wanted to incite debate, but more to the point wanted to incite huge publicity for his book launch (lets face it, new volumes of poetry rarely blip on the cultural radar these days), and it looks like his strategy worked. His book is now selling very well. Who said poetry can't ruffle feathers? Note to self: write blasphemous poems, launch it in a local venue (preferably a book shop), email religious group, have a huge success. If only I had known this for The Loss House.

Blurb

The print-on-demand publishing sector takes another leap forward as Blurb announce increased sales and expansion into Europe. A fascinating interview with Blurb’s CEO Eileen Gittins in the Guardian outlines how Gittins went from a relatively simple idea (she wanted to produce a single copy of a photo coffee-table book) and turned it into a successful business. This success also illustrates the attractiveness of print-on-demand to the wider publishing sector. Traditional publishing houses, beset by financial woes as the country descends into the first recession of the new millennium, will now have to start seriously considering the potential in publishing on-demand, a business model which helps cut costs, reduce book waste, and also allows publishers to keep old titles in print and have more money to invest in new writers (there would only be marketing/artist development costs involved).

Print-on-demand is also good for the environment. Vast reams of books that are not sold are pulped (one can only hope they are recycled into new books). This is not strictly wasteful considering the bleak alternative would be to dump them in a landfill, but the energy costs involved in this process are large as books can be continually pulped and reprinted. By printing only what customers order, there is no need for books to be holed up in warehouses waiting to be sold or go back to the pulping machine. This is environmentally crucial as businesses start to address carbon emissions that are created due to energy usage – why recycle books when they don’t need to exist in the first place?

Creative Bibliographer

The Guadian Books site has a very cute blog post about creative bibliography that made me smile this morning. The basic premise is, rather than sort books on your shelves by name or by title in alphabetical order or even by genre or publisher (often I like to sit my green spined Virago books together or my silver/orange spined Penguin classics), a novel way of ordering books is to cluster them by title so that those titles form long sentences of phrases. One example given was Somewhere A Cat Is Waiting/To Kill A Mockingbird/In A Dark House/Bad Kitty. The Sorted Book Project was Nina Katchadourian's genius idea - take a look at her site for inspiration and get sorting that book shelf. When people have a sneak t your books during that gin and tonic half hour before a dinner party at your plaxce, they certainly will be able to 'read' something about your personality.