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i dunno, being an old timer zine publisher (since '87) i still kinda sorta miss the days of the gluestick, typewriter and a trip to the kinkos (well, the one where you had a friend who worked the grave yard shift and let you copy your zine for free).

but alas, i must admit that programs like quark (and now indesign) have made things a bit easier... and well, the whole on-demand publishing like lulu (and others) have made the DIY publishing cheaper but also opened up "underground" press (aka small-press) to new audiences.

i mean, there was only so much you could do with your by-hand copied zine... sure passing them out at the shows and begging the local record store owners to carry them was great... but this on demand thing is, well... not only do you get the control (creative) but you also can actually (sorta) compete with the "big boys."

I am a PowerPoster over there, and it's better, and supports the author.

http://www.lulu.com/content/295223 for the e-book
http://www.lulu.com/content/289526 for the paperback

No, I'm not the author. :)

I am a PowerPoster over there, and it's better, and supports the author.

http://www.lulu.com/content/295223 for the e-book
http://www.lulu.com/content/289526 for the paperback

No, I'm not the author. :)

I am a PowerPoster over there, and it's better, and supports the author.

http://www.lulu.com/content/295223 for the e-book
http://www.lulu.com/content/289526 for the paperback

No, I'm not the author. :)

There is money to be made without DRM and without insane prices, it's just hard to give it up and treat your customers ethically if you are used to making monopoly sized profits.

This is a totally shameless self-promotion, but ...

I recently completed the first half of a book that features a program that does exactly this: plugs into your software and calcuates trust networks, then takes it one step further and applies firewall filters based on those networks. Basically, a P2P version of PeerGuardian, but smarter and more plugin-friendly. The author is Xochitl Green, a web programmer who quickly discovers that she's out of her league because there are people out there that don't necessarily want self-securing computers.

The first chapter of "Trust Network" is available for download from my site, and you can get the first half (up to chapter 18, about 150 pages) through lulu.com in either PDF or printed form, for what I think is pretty cheap. (There's even a large-print version for the visually-impaired.)

I'm pushing for the second half to be out by March 30. I don't claim to be Gibson, Gaiman, or Stephenson, but it's not Star Trek fanfic, either.

You already can by using Lulu.com. Publishing a book is free and for an optional fee you can purchase an ISBN and have your books available through Amazon.com, B&N.com, etc.

Lulu.com has also offered free blogs to authors for quite some time now.

There is an interesting book on this issue:

http://www.lulu.com/content/155267

Why not upload it to http://www.lulu.com/ and order a print copy?

I guess I've grown up in the indy comic culture. Other than the huge audience Marvel and DC comics already have, I don't see a reason to join those companies. There are so many possibilities for indy publishing out there. Granted, distribution is a problem for paper comics, but this is the Internet. We have the distribution thing covered.

My comic is 2 years old and has an international "distribution." My readership is roughly 400 and I've sold maybe 30 comics for actual money, which isn't a bad percentage as far as webcomics go. With on demand printing services like Comix Press and Lulu.com and hosting services like Comic Genesis and Drunk Duck, international distribution isn't as big a problem. Getting huge IS a problem because there's so much competition out there.

Although it's great to hear about webcomics making it big, they're just a very small percentage of online comics. Most people will never see any profits from their comics. There's no way to compete with big comic companies like Marvel in the print world. There's no way to compete with big comics in Internet either. Don't try. Webcomics have their niche. Find your group of readers and don't expect to be big. It's a good time, not a living.

I don't argue that non-techies will learn about this soon enough. However, Donald Parris is hardly a non-techie. He wrote Pengiun in the Pew, a pro-Linux book for churches.

The book has a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0), and I've a copy linked on my GPL Programs page.

...I'm a big fan of both copyrights and patents, the problem was that our legislators didn't recognize the fundamental rule, which is: too much of a good thing no longer is. And so we're seeing things like the DMCA, like the idea that you could patent ideas, not just inventions, like the idea of taking copyright from 20 years to a hundred years with very little public debate on the topic and you sort of realize that it's a little bit like vitamin D -- you know, too little vitamin D and you get a variety of health problems. Too much vitamin D will actually kill you...

Lulu.com, the site David Wendt used to publish the book, has been really slow for the last few days, so if you want to buy it then using a direct link will be (slightly) faster:

Print version: http://www.lulu.com/content/168302
E-book version: http://www.lulu.com/content/168212

Or you could just wait until 1 a.m. and then place your order.

[On a side note, Newsforge posted a l-o-o-ong interview with Bob Young, Lulu founder and CEO, yesterday. You know... the Red Hat guy.: http://business.newsforge.com/business/05/11/01/15 34231.shtml?tid=3]

Lulu.com, the site David Wendt used to publish the book, has been really slow for the last few days, so if you want to buy it then using a direct link will be (slightly) faster:

Print version: http://www.lulu.com/content/168302
E-book version: http://www.lulu.com/content/168212

Or you could just wait until 1 a.m. and then place your order.

[On a side note, Newsforge posted a l-o-o-ong interview with Bob Young, Lulu founder and CEO, yesterday. You know... the Red Hat guy.: http://business.newsforge.com/business/05/11/01/15 34231.shtml?tid=3]

But why subscribe? I can distribute DVD on Lulu or sell T-shirts from Spreadshirt. All commission based, doesn't cost me a penny in subscription fees.

When he moved from his position as CEO in 1999 to a member of the board, he had always anticipated this happening...and he has taken a back seat as of late (ever since starting Lulu Tech Circus).

This is the way a good founder/CEO steps down from his company...it's just that lately, we haven't had many good CEOs in the public eye.

This is certainly not bad for Red Hat...and I wonder now who will take his place on the board...

I'm commenting again, just to clarify. There is no SEC investigation, he is not selling his stock (he couldn't even if wanted to do to contractual obligations), Bob Young is a good leader who only recently has become too busy to fulfill his duties but has a history of being very interactive with the company. Anyone who knows Bob Young knows that he is nothing like a used car salesman, he's a very nice and intelligent man, he gave Linus 12 million dollars in stock to show appreciation (yes, Linus is a millionaire). He really believes in open values. He wants software to be free and he wants people to be able to publish their books without having to deal with publishers which tend to take most of the profit. He is the founder of Lulu which allows anyone to sell their own books. Here is a book that he wrote and gives away for free, it is about how open source businesses are viable and locking people into things is not the only way to make profit. It is a shame that some troll is spreading misinformation about a guy who has done so much good. One other thing that gives huge credibility to Red Hat's potential is that Dell invested 100 million in them, and Michael Dell doesn't screw around with his money.
Regards,
Steve

I'm commenting again, just to clarify. There is no SEC investigation, he is not selling his stock (he couldn't even if wanted to do to contractual obligations), Bob Young is a good leader who only recently has become too busy to fulfill his duties but has a history of being very interactive with the company. Anyone who knows Bob Young knows that he is nothing like a used car salesman, he's a very nice and intelligent man, he gave Linus 12 million dollars in stock to show appreciation (yes, Linus is a millionaire). He really believes in open values. He wants software to be free and he wants people to be able to publish their books without having to deal with publishers which tend to take most of the profit. He is the founder of Lulu which allows anyone to sell their own books. Here is a book that he wrote and gives away for free, it is about how open source businesses are viable and locking people into things is not the only way to make profit. It is a shame that some troll is spreading misinformation about a guy who has done so much good. One other thing that gives huge credibility to Red Hat's potential is that Dell invested 100 million in them, and Michael Dell doesn't screw around with his money.
Regards,
Steve

For those of you intent on making JT's game, but who don't have an avenue for "releasing and distributing," make an ISO of a CD or DVD with your game on it and head down to Lulu.com - a sort of CafePress for books and CDs - where they will gladly print on demand as people order your game. To be really thorough, you can make yourself a "company" by heading down to the local county clerk and registering for a DBA.

Not affiliated with lulu; they just seem to be convenient for this sort of thing.

I'm surprised more people aren't mentioning lulu. You upload, they sell & distribute. Damn simple way to get all the "long tail" content out there.

Here is a typical example of the content I'm talking about. It's a great film but the distribution is so far out of the scope of the creator that it just isn't worth investing in a personalized eStore, advertising etc.

If you mean purely online, you missed photo streams (aka: blogging with pictures), video blogging and game publishing - not to mention the completely obvious (and so last-decade) free web sites. For simply distributing content, there's always BitTorrent and - my favorite underexploited - "magnet://" style links which can point to content on Peer 2 Peer networks.

On the live front, there's also the whole webcam thing which gave rise to the camwhore movement. Shoutcast type things for "internet broadcasting" your own radio station. You can also creat your own internet television station if you want.

The very latest cutting edge variant on this is peer to peer streaming video, often refered to as CoolStreaming. There's maybe a 2 to 5 minute delay in the stream as it takes a little while to patch together the video before it's decodable. While so far it's popularity seems to be limited to China (where it's used to pirate / rebroadcast regular TV channels), the main advantage is that you should be able to establish your own streaming P2P television channel with an almost unlimited number of viewers - from your existing broadband internet connection.

And finally, where the online world meets the offline, physical items are designed and sold online in virtual stores, then physically published and shipped on demand. Like Cafe Press for stuff with logos - and Lulu for things like books and CDs.

"If you really want to fix the system you would take away some of the rights afforded to corporations."

That would be nice.

"Corporations have only financial interests in mind, nothing social or moral."

A change in the law could possibly change this problem.

"Our representatives are supposed to be just that: ours, not the corporations."

Yes, they are supposed to be yours.

"Even if corporations may have our financial interests in mind (third to their executives first and their stockholders second) they clearly do not represent the people, nor are they people in themselves."

While I agree with you that corporations are not people, we may both be wrong. (Legally in some ways, at least.)

Let me know what you think of this post concerning jail time for corporations:

http://slashdot.org/~zotz/journal/101428

after all, if they are people legally, shouldn't there be some way to send them to jail. If not, what happens to the "equal protection" idea that gets bandied about.

all the best,

drew
--
http://www.lulu.com/zotz
Buy some of my stuff at lulu and help set it Free.

"How does said "REAL artist" eat? Or buy art supplies?"

Obviously they eat from the royalties on the books they cannot get anyone to publish. Did you not read the choice given?

Burn the book versus let it be read for free.

Your solution only stands a chance of working where other options are before the artist.

Here are some links to some of my work which can be had for free:

http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A %22drew%20Roberts%22
http://zbcw.sourceforge.net/

and a link where you can buy some of the same stuff:

http://www.lulu.com/zotz

Knock yourself out.

I am still able to eat. Actually, I should probably eat a little less and I most certainly should excercise a lot more.

Then again, perhaps I am not one of those REAL artists either.

all the best,

drew

Lulu.com is founded by Robert Young, a co-founder of Red Hat, the famed Linux distributor. Lulu publishes books, images, music, etc. They use on-demand technology, and the creators own all the rights.

I've never tried their music publishing side of the business, but I have a novel published through them (http://www.lulu.com/content/138218). Lulu's technology of fulfilling customers' orders is topnotch, as good as Amazon.com. If you order a product from them, they inform you every step of the way -- when the book (or CD) is produced, when it will be shipped, when it will arrive at your doorstep, etc.

Reality check: you're not going to get rich by self-publishing, but it's a start, and starting online is a sound strategy, because there is a whole generation of people growing up being comfortable with buying things online.

There is a small on-demand publishing company called LuLu. You give them the PDF file and work out some pricing system things, and then when someone orders your book they print a copy of it and send it to them.

Unlike a regular publisher, they don't print a huge number of books at once to rot in a wearhouse and reduce profit, and they can print the books relatively inexpensively, meaning most of the profit finds its way into your pocket.

"Creative Commons" notice clearly does something -- it tells people to go ahead, don't be shy, take whatever you like and use it, but just don't use it to make money. "Copyright 2005 by So-and-So" notice basically says that you need the author's approval to use his creative work for whatever purpose.

The use of Creative Commons notice is a choice. Mr. Dvorak seems to be huffing and puffing over something he would not choose to use anyway. If the significance of Creative Commons puzzles him, this long essay of his is an even more puzzling non sequitur.

I'm a blogger/amateur graphic artist; in my blog, http://sunandfun.blogspot.com/, I offer the graphics I created to anyone who wants it, without copyright concern. I am also a novelist who has just published a novel, "Unwrapped" (at http://www.lulu.com/content/138218), which is protected by the standard copyright notice. Two different things. Yet somehow this simple reality seems to be taxing the brain cells of a well-known columnist of a major publication.

There are no upfront costs involved.

Also, I'd like to point out that I have no affiliation with lulu, I just was looking around for a site that did what they do.

set in the future. Check out Travis' other novel.

The Escapist can also be bought as a PDF direct from the website. And since the novel is published under a Creative Commons license, once you've got hold of one of these PDFs, you can share it around and print it out as much as you like.

See http://www.lulu.com/Lulu for an economical approach - you can choose to take royalties if you like.

Have you considered making the book available through http://www.lulu.com/? It's a print-on-demand service that allows people an easy way to get a properly bound printed copy of your book, and for you optionally to get some money for your efforts. No cost to you to get set up either.

No, I don't work for lulu or have any financial connections to them. I just know one of the guys that works there (Jeremy Hogan, formerly from Red Hat).

You want to publish a book? It's easier than ever to create an e-book with free software like Scribus and OpenOffice.org, and use a service like PayPalDownloads to deliver it.

Or you could publish a book using dead trees with Lulu. I've never tried it, but it looks neat!

Want to expand your Linux skills & save the church some bucks? If you have a chance, purchase Penguin in the Pew by Donald Parris. I volunteer edited it & its a quality publication. I am no way affiliated with the author nor do I receive any monetary gain from the book.

Description:
Penguin in the Pew clears up the confusion about the terms "free" and "open source", addresses the challenges of hardware compatibility, software interoperability, and whether a migration is really more expensive than an upgrade. Readers will learn why and how they should migrate to the GNU/Linux operating system. Additionally, Penguin in the Pew connects readers to the growing community of Christians who use, develop and provide technical support for GNU/Linux and other free and open source applications. The book's author, Don Parris, invites fellow Christians to join in a dialogue where the GNU/Linux "philosophy" and Christian values intersect.

Wow... obviously I couldn't read your book in this short period of time (1616 pages?!) but it looks good. Sorry to hear that the publisher backed out on you. Was it too technical for them?

Have you considered offering it through a publish on demand site like LuLu? It seems like you could make some money for all of your trouble. And w/ LuLu you can distribute in digital or paper forms.

lulu avoids many of the problems you mention. No getting locked in- no loss of control. As far as publishing houses turning their noses-- well if they are already doing that before you go the POD route, what's the difference?

Seconded. And with stuff like beamer (a presentation creator, e.g. to replace PowerPoint), LaTeX gets better and better. I use it to publish out-of-copyright books using POD.

I needed a manual printed (perfect bound - like a paperback novel) last year and went with CafePress. They have reasonable prices--I think I spent $15 on a 200-page book, one copy. Decent quality, but the pages were a little yellow.

Then I found Lulu. Same kind of thing, with a base price of $4.53 per book and $0.02 per page. They do have a page limit of 700 pgs, which would translate into a whopping $18.53. Anyone have any experience with them?

I just want to point out that Bob Young does not work for Red Hat anymore, so this definitely can't be considered PR for Red Hat (although he still serves on the board and owns stock). It would be accurate to say that this stunt provides PR for Young's football team and for his current company, Lulu.

The point seems pretty clear. This lawsuit is lame.

Ya know everytime I say we're trying to change the world of IP around here he corrects me and makes me utter the mantra of making the world a better place. So in light of Bob constantly trying to keep the rightous prize in sight, I say shove off ya hosers, Id prefer to avoid beating up on the good guys that are all aboot protecting against corporate giants doing stupid things.

Oh yeah and he is CEO of www.lulu.com not Red Hat, eh?

also available here

The preview contains the complete document,
which is licensed Creative Commons-Attribution.

"You are forgetting that agreeing to a license is accepting it. As such, being widely "used" is the same as being widely "accepted"."

Do you honestly think that most people even read those "agreements?" And when the click on "I agree" do you honestly think they are not saying to themselves something along the lines of "yeah right?"

Granted, the law may hold this to be agreement, but what do you think is going through people's minds?

These self same agreements are one of the reasons I switched over to Free Software. When I bought my Vaio a year or two back, I booted Knoppix and did a hard disk install withoug ever letting XP boot for the first time. "I agree" - no thanks, I don't.

all the best,

drew

http://www.lulu.com/zotz

<jokedestroyer>

http://www.lulu.com/

</jokedestroyer>

We need a redhat of music and film.

Would a RedHat of Music and Literature do?

All proceeds from sales of the printed version of ATLANTA NIGHTS go to the SFWA Emergency Medical Fund.

And the electronic version in various different formats is a free download.

Vera

Yes, I am one of the thirty-odd writers who collectively make up "Travis Tea," a pseudonym (and a pun -- say it outloud). :-)

Here is some background on this wacky collaborative sting project that we cobbled together.

Several months ago, in response to a claim by a certain publisher that writers working in the SF/F genre believe it "does not require believable storylines" or "does not need believable every-day characters," genre writer James D. Macdonald got approximately 40 mostly science fiction and fantasy writers to cobble together an intentionally horrendous monstrosity of a novel (read it here as an FTP download in RTF and PDF format) and then submit it, in order to display the less than discriminating tastes of that same certain publisher in regard to the kind of work they accept for publication.

Earlier last week, the sting has been revealed, the publisher fell for it (retracting the acceptance as soon as news spread, of course), and I proudly own up to having authored Chapter 13 of ATLANTA NIGHTS by Travis Tea .

Here's a bit of an excerpt from my chapter:

"Actually, I think I am ready to order now," said Isadore, firmly ignoring it all, flipping back his red forelocks out of his face and beyond the back to where the bulk of the abundant and suggestive ponytail rested against his wide strongly utterly virile back -- a back that could do the beast with two backs so well, when one of the two backs came into question and under scrutiny (but the other back of course depended on the woman writhing with him, under him and on top of him ah, the beasts they would make!).

Yes, you can even buy your own copy at Lulu.com to read for gut-wrenching hilarity and educational purposes (lessons on how not to write can be derived from the perusal of this book). Here is the stellar lineup of blurbs from the back cover. And that's just the ones that fit the back cover. There are twice as many additional blurbs inside the front matter of the book. Some of them are truly classic....

I predict this will replace THE EYE OF ARGON as midnight panel reading material at science fiction conventions. This book, is purely and genuinely bad. So bad that it's great. In all seriousness, The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest should give it a special achievement prize. :-)

For more detailed coverage, including a list of contributors, of the ATLANTA NIGHTS atrocity -- or should we say, travesty -- see the Cold Ground blog , and Tor Books editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Making Light . ..

Also, looks like the LA Times has picked up the story .

:-)

Vera Nazarian

Yes, I am one of the thirty-odd writers who collectively make up "Travis Tea," a pseudonym (and a pun -- say it outloud). :-)

Here is some background on this wacky collaborative sting project that we cobbled together.

Several months ago, in response to a claim by a certain publisher that writers working in the SF/F genre believe it "does not require believable storylines" or "does not need believable every-day characters," genre writer James D. Macdonald got approximately 40 mostly science fiction and fantasy writers to cobble together an intentionally horrendous monstrosity of a novel (read it here as an FTP download in RTF and PDF format) and then submit it, in order to display the less than discriminating tastes of that same certain publisher in regard to the kind of work they accept for publication.

Earlier last week, the sting has been revealed, the publisher fell for it (retracting the acceptance as soon as news spread, of course), and I proudly own up to having authored Chapter 13 of ATLANTA NIGHTS by Travis Tea .

Here's a bit of an excerpt from my chapter:

"Actually, I think I am ready to order now," said Isadore, firmly ignoring it all, flipping back his red forelocks out of his face and beyond the back to where the bulk of the abundant and suggestive ponytail rested against his wide strongly utterly virile back -- a back that could do the beast with two backs so well, when one of the two backs came into question and under scrutiny (but the other back of course depended on the woman writhing with him, under him and on top of him ah, the beasts they would make!).

Yes, you can even buy your own copy at Lulu.com to read for gut-wrenching hilarity and educational purposes (lessons on how not to write can be derived from the perusal of this book). Here is the stellar lineup of blurbs from the back cover. And that's just the ones that fit the back cover. There are twice as many additional blurbs inside the front matter of the book. Some of them are truly classic....

I predict this will replace THE EYE OF ARGON as midnight panel reading material at science fiction conventions. This book, is purely and genuinely bad. So bad that it's great. In all seriousness, The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest should give it a special achievement prize. :-)

For more detailed coverage, including a list of contributors, of the ATLANTA NIGHTS atrocity -- or should we say, travesty -- see the Cold Ground blog , and Tor Books editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden's Making Light . ..

Also, looks like the LA Times has picked up the story .

:-)

Vera Nazarian

... it's called "Nature Photography Naturally" by James Egbert and it illustrates this point perfectly. This dude literally went online and took whatever photos he could find, filled the book with a bunch of BS about which kind of film to use, and got published. I know the book is a scam because he used to brag about how he was making money off of "poor naive people who don't know that it took [him] only a week to throw this piece of crap together"

Oh, the offending "piece of crap" can be found here:
http://people.lulu.com/blogs/view_post.php?post_id =1212/

is here

In my book What is Music? Solving a Scientific Mystery, I discuss predictive algorithms, generative algorithms and (in the last chapter) the Future of Music.

A predictive algorithm is one which accepts music or alleged music as an input, and outputs an estimate of its musicality. A generative algorithm is one which generates new and original music. The secret Hit Song Science algorithm is a predictive algorithm. The Future of Music (according to my book) is that someone will eventually discover a generative algorithm, and when that happens, and we all have an implementation of it installed on our computers, much of the existing music industry will become irrelevant.

In the Hit Song Science FAQ, Polyphonic HMI state that their technology cannot create new music. So they are not claiming to have a generative algorithm. Also there is the obvious fact that they have to get other people to send them musical items.

In principle a predictive algorithm can be converted into a generative algorithm, simply by feeding randomly generated music into it until an item of music is found that has a high score. The practical problem with this approach is that strong music may be very rare compared to not so strong music, so you will be waiting a very long time for a hit to be found. However, unless there is something intrinsically irreversible about the predictive algorithm (in the sense that a cryptographic hash function is intrinsically irreversible), it should be possible to reverse the predictive algorithm in some way to define a generative algorithm which generates different items of music, such that the generated music scores highly according to the predictive algorithm.

As I point out in my book, it is very unlikely that we will discover a complete predictive or generative algorithm until we properly understand the biology of music, i.e. what happens inside our brains when we respond to music, and why such a response has evolved.

The details of how Polyphonic HMI have developed their algorithm raises some further issues:

• The initial analysis is restricted to items that have already been selected as being musical by at least someone. What predictions would it make about randomly generated musical compositions?
• The analysis requires access to a database of music. Copyright law makes it very difficult for anyone else to do this, unless, of course, they don't care about copyright law and they are prepared to take the necessary risks. (Soon we won't even be able to perform scientific analysis of music that we do legally "own", since the music that we buy is licensed only for the purpose of listening to it on some specific music playing device.)

Is my book a better deal than a Hit Song Science report?

• My book costs less (only US$30 + postage, and the preview is free).
• It does not provide a complete theory of music, but there is a very good chance that the theory in the book is correct enough that any complete theory of music will build on the theory I have developed.
• If you do develop a complete theory of music, you should be able to use that theory to formulate a composition algorithm, and make a fortune, even if you have no musical talent.

By the way, the reviews on http://lulu.com/ are not posted there by Lulu, but by readers.

Some of the comments here disparage the idea of "self-publishing," but they fail to make any distinction between independent publishing and subsidy publishing (vanity presses).

Independent publishing is not unlike indie music, indie filmmaking, blogging, or any of the other recent revolutions in content publishing that allow individuals to take advantage of inexpensive ways to produce and distribute work for smaller audiences than those required by giant book, music, and film companies. Lulu provides tools for independent book publishers, as well as those who wish to sell other content, like songs or images, through the Internet.

Some of the books published this way lack good writing, editing, formatting or some combination of all three, but there's no reason to assume that an independently published book won't be as good or better than a book published by any small press. Most authors offer previews so you can get a sense of the book before buying it.

A vanity press (or subsidy publisher), on the other hand, makes its money by charging authors for services. This can be a straightforward business or an unscrupulous one. In either case, it is a very different business model from Lulu, which earns money only when authors like Mark Jeffrey make money, through a commission on each sale.

By way of a footnote, print on demand--the manufacturing technology used by Lulu in the case of The Pocket and the Pendant--is a process not specific to self-publishing at all. POD technology allows books to be manufactured literally one at a time. The ability to print books one at a time economically is the product of new manufacturing technology that barely existed five years ago. Large, mainstream publishers and academic presses are looking for ways to take advantage of POD technology to lower their costs and support a broader library of titles. In that respect, big publishers have a shared interest with independent publishers like Mark Jeffrey.