On Wed, Mar 30, 2005 at 08:29:50AM -0500, N Wolcott wrote:
Resellers of PG books have taken on a new target, Lulu.com.
Thanks for sending this info, Norm. I talked with Lulu a couple of years ago, and have been in recent communication with them. I think the titles you found are just early experiments (though not hidden from public view, as they should be).
I've told Lulu that our items must be clearly indicated as public domain. If we can agree on things (which seems likely - they've been pretty open to discussion, so far), I see POD as a viable option for people who want our stuff. Maybe a "buy it now" link in our catalog hits...maybe some other way of allowing people who want print to get it.
Compared to other publishers and book resellers I've worked interacted with over the years, Lulu is unusually receptive to our demands and tendencies. This is probably because they have such diversity in their author base.
Specific advice or demands or qualifications on how Lulu might sell our stuff would be welcome. It looks like they're using some templates for our content, so we could add a lot of general boilerplate. Plus, as I said, a clear statement that the whole book (cover to cover, including the covers) is public domain, and suitable for unlimited redistribution. -- Greg
Lulu offers POD publishing at zero up front cost, thus luring those who find free advertising for their spam. The postings I have seen so far both imply PG and Lulu are supporting thier spam. They advertise the quality of
There is probably nothing for PG to do except to get Lulu to take the PG
off their customer's postings. If they want to host 15000 books on their computers for free that is their business. I quote my post to the LuLu foruml I have posted 2 books to Lulu at 15 cent royalty with added content to the PG text and I do not mention PG in the blurb. My "quality" book may soon be submerged in a flood of lulu spam.
Posting follows: ------------------------- Lulu offers a good service for self publishers who provide "content
added" material. This offers the publisher to continually upgrade the
However recently public domain texts lifted from project gutenberg have
been appearing on Lulu. The accomopanying blurb states that www.lulu.com and Project gutenberg have joined forces to offer you these long out of print books. The implication is that somehow Lulu and PG are supporting this effort. PG is trademarked and there is no right to use the name in advertising; enforcing the trademark is another thin however for an all volunteer organization.
Software exists to move PG texts to a number of formats, ipod, ebook,
etc including Lulu. So there is a real possibillity that most of the 15000
Iin one case the publisher had re-copyrighted the book and in the other
had listed it as Public Domain. Nothing wrong with this, but the copyright only applies to "new material" and certainly not the entire book. In one case a ISBN number was listed, so Lulu might have gotten some revenue from
Another feature with Lulu is you never know who is selling the book.
Lulu distributes it, but the real seller is someone else, unknown. This may raise legal issues about ultimate responsibilitiy.
People like myself who provide added content at no or minimal royalty
will be unhappy to see our listing efforts buried in an avalanche of Lulu spam. At the very least Lulu should require permission before violating
To see the books in this post, search for "Verne" on Lulu.
The additional cost of hosting all these books could end up in forcing
up front charges on Lulu providers or radically restructuring the way Lulu operates, neither of which is desirable in my humble opinion.
I mention this as a discussion topic, as I feel it is an emerging
I've published 2 books of Jules Verne on LuLu. I think it is great for value added stuff; I added the French to one of the books, as far as I know it is the first dual language Verne text since the 1920's. The pictures I have inserted came out fairly well although a little improvement is needed, but they have not been reprinted since 1885. . 600 dpi does not make for the greatest illustrations. In any event this type of publshing is far superior to the Fredonia product, and if sold near cost as they are for $6-$8 are a much better muy than the Fredonia product at $20-$35 and others even higher. I think Lulu has found a nice niche market. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Newby" <gbnewby@pglaf.org> To: "Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion" <gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org> Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2005 11:20 PM Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] More PG spam being spread around their texts as being from PG. One ofthem admits there may be errors. product until it is in final form then market it through Lulu's various mechanisms. pg books could end up being hosted on Lulu. No review copy would ever be required, so the posting for the converter would be free. Lulu could end up hosting the entire pg corpus for free in a kind of publishing spam. The books are listed with a royalty of $1 to $2. One is published with a $1.59 royalty, and claims that $1 will be contriputed to PG of every book sold. This leaves only 27 cents for the seller. that if the ISBN is real. One of the books was listed as 5000 in sales, so I imagine that is how many Lulu has in its archive. It may soon get 14,999 more! trademark laws. problem.
--------------------- N Wolcott nwolcott2@post.harvard.edu
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