Lulu.com
Lulu.com is a self-publishing platform founded in 2002 and based in Raleigh (North Carolina) , which operates as a print-on-demand service provider for the self-publication of books, e-books , photo books and calendars.
history
The company was founded by Canadian Bob Young, who was also involved in founding Red Hat . The name "Lulu" comes from an old-fashioned American expression for "remarkable person, thing or idea".
The start was rather subdued, with 55,000 books printed in the first two and a half years. It wasn't until 2006 that sales picked up and the business became profitable. In mid-2007 it reached a monthly output of 160,000 books and at the same time printed the one millionth book.
As of November 2018, around 1.8 million books have been published, according to the company's own information. The number of authors is over 1.1 million and the sum of the authors' fees is almost 75 million euros.
concept
Lulu.com completely dispenses with editors who proofread the texts and explains this by saying that the user must have full control over his texts and no changes are to be forced on him.
Books can be posted at Lulu.com, and orders from other users will be printed on demand. So only as many copies are printed as are actually ordered. The printing costs are paid for from the income, the rest goes to the author after deducting a commission for Lulu.com.
Some of the books listed there can be downloaded for free, for example The Anarchists and The Innocent by the Scottish-German writer John Henry Mackay, who died in 1933 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ "lulu" at Wiktionary (English)
- ↑ Le Figaro - Actualités ( Memento of September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ 01net.com Lulu.com a imprimé plus de un million de livres en ligne , accessed on August 16, 2011
- ↑ ecrans.fr: Lulu.com, l'autopublication bientôt illustrée , accessed on August 16, 2011