What an awful name--"Lulu". I seriously wouldn't name a pet poodle "Lulu" out of embarrassment.

When the internet was young I made a half-hearted attempt to spread the meme that it was "A giant vanity press". The book industry was obviously dying and I hated to see people giving "self-publishing" more credit than it was worth.

It certainly is a giant vanity press, of course. But, as with historical vanity releases, you have the occasional Walden, and then thousands (and now--millions) of rubbishy dribblings. So, you know, do your own filtering. And really, it is more like "vanity journalism" which is anyway superior to the old kind, if only for being honest in intentions.

But the attraction is pretty strong. A fun game is to go to Poetry.com and then do a search on your own name. Unless you have an odd name (example: Ignathius Winesnout), you're likely to find at least 5-10 people who've submitted (ahem) "poems" for (ahem) "publication". Sadly, my name generated almost 100 hits.

More on that presitigious press can be read here:
http://www.windpub.com/literary.scams/bigmoney.htm

Anyway, good luck to the "on demand" crowd. The world definitely needs more books.

Posted by: onetwothree on July 22, 2006 5:07 PM

Lulu is a name I like, mostly because I used to love the comic strip, "Little Lulu," who took a very direct approach to life. But also because I've known several women known as Zizi, Mimi, Bibi, and the like and they were all women of spirit and substance.

Beyond that, if I can figure out Lulu, my intention is to use it for a series of fiction short stories about Blackfeet. No publisher is interested because I'm not Indian and these stories are not old legends. I don't have the money for a vanity press.

Besides, I'm getting one book published by a prestigious academic publisher and have discovered that it is a LOT of work and there is NO profit. The biggest advantage of a professional publisher is that with a "proper" publisher, one qualifies for Writers' Guild and therefore can get dental insurance.

Prairie Mary

Posted by: Mary Scriver on July 22, 2006 10:40 PM

Then throw in the "ebook." One of these days the technology will catch up with the dreams:

Is the IREX ILIAD the breakthrough hardware? I don't think it is at 649 EUR. But in time...prices of electronics go down substantially.

Posted by: David Sucher on July 23, 2006 1:25 AM






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