The Third Lecture: lulu and the wonders of self publication

Its late, I'm sleepy and both of these are my own fault - but Marcus Brigstocke on in the background so its all good

Good stuff check it out, anyway here's some thoughts on self publication via lulu (http://www.lulu.com) and how it can be turned into a successful project.

Lulu.com is a site that allows any user to create and publish a text ready for sale, similar to Author House (http://www.authorhouse.com/). Services such as this add a new element to publishing, although this can be seen as vanity publishing which has traditonally not been looked on favourably by the publishing industry. What Lulu offers adds a new aspect to publishing and combined with archive projects such as Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page)offer literature a second chance. It also offers another advantages for publishing, last weeks blog mentioned how 10% of companies publish 70% of the worlds books, and this is something self publishing can challenge providing a sense of potential. It could add a greater degree of creativity and orginality to the publishing industry, and also a greater degree of freedom. However in the words of Dylan Moran a little potential can be a bad thing, the publishing value chain adds important skills and processes to the production of the artefact. The value chain adds key aspects like proofing and type setting which are key in quality control.

And this is where skills will need to be learned to turn this service into a successful project for the module's assignment. In order to use Lulu to make a success students such as myself will need to learn the skills the publishing value chain adds. During the first attempt I neglected proper formatting and sizing of the orginal word document, which has a big effect on the end project. This is just one example of how self pubishing can result in a poorer quality end product and highlights how important learning the correct skills is. In order for this project to be successful students will need to type set and format the documents, design covers, price and then make preparations for marketing amongst other things. The combination of these skills would result in a proffesional looking artefact which could rival the produce of big publishers. The application of these skills will also highlight the importance or otherwise of publishers, giving a deeper understanding into the publishing process. The report based on the creation of this artefact will be an effective account of how well these skills have been aquired and applied, and so how successful the project has been. Through the reports accounts of self publishing conclusions on its practicality and effective will be able to be drawn, as well as insights into its positive and negative impacts on literature as a whole.

Thats all now, come back next week for more e-publishing related talk :).