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Friday, April 23, 2004 Lulu.com Enters Self-Publishing Services Marketplace Lulu.com, an on-demand marketplace for books, ebooks, music, and multimedia, is the latest company offering self-publishing tools for authors. Lulu.com claims that in the space of a few minutes an author with a finished manuscript can make his or her book available as a paperback to order through the Internet. The company reported that authors have published 4,000 new titles on Lulu.com in the last six months alone. Lulu is based in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, and evolved from a company called Open Mind Publishing. The collaborative music site nowRecording.com is also part of the Lulu family. Lulu.com does not currently charge fees for publishing an author's book. Authors themselves assume responsibility for editing, marketing and many of the other services traditionally provided by publishers. In return they retain complete control over their work, including setting their own royalty and the ability to revise and republish their books anytime. Lulu.com also offers custom cover art, uploading, formatting and editing services for a fee. Lulu.com also earns a 20% commission on book sales. Lulu.com is the brainchild of Bob Young, the entrepreneur who founded the open source company Red Hat. With Lulu, Young is gambling that lessening the control exercised by traditional publishers over the distribution of information will in the long run create a richer marketplace for consumers. The Lulu brand is derived from the concept of a "lulu," which is an old-fashioned term for a remarkable person, object or idea. Bob Young, Lulu.com's founder and CEO, argues that putting authors in control of the publishing process is a good thing. Young says, "When the Internet came along, established media companies were horrified that anyone could publish a web site. They thought that the amount of bad content would make the information available on the Internet worthless. But that has turned out not to be true. The Internet is full of useful content. People have developed tools to sort out what they want from what they don't. Lulu.com opens up book publishing in the same way." Related Links: · Lulu.com · Self-Publishing Resources Click here to return to the homepage of The Write NewsTM Click here to subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter. www.writenews.com Copyright © 1997-2011 by Writers Write, Inc. All Rights Reserved.