Often, when I’m talking about how our information environment is changing, I describe my experiences with Lulu, a print-on-demand service, through which I have self-published two of my books, Raw Materials for the Mind and Classroom Blogging. I’ve just learned of another application of these services that I find quite intriguing — and I’m certain that some of the readers of this blog will think of even more applications.
Let’s start with the original premise. I’ve written a story, or a text describing my hobby or other passion. I’d like to see it as a book, or even make it available for sell. However, I do not know how to attract the attention of publishers and can’t afford to contract with a printer to print and bind the book outright.
Enter Lulu and other print-on-demand services, where you upload your book in PDF format, select (or upload cover art), and then order your book. Lulu prints the book and ships it for a fee, and if you choose, includes it in their online catalog, making it available to consumers.
Now, lets step back even further to a world of writing that spans the centuries — archives of both obscure and famous books that are in the public domain and included in a number of online archives, such as:
- The Internet Archive (300,000 public domain books)
- Google Books (1.7 million public domain books)
- Universal Library (600,000 public domain books)
- Project Gutenberg (20,000 public domain books)
- WikiSource (69,000 pages)
For example, Caesar’s Column, written by Ignatius Donnelly in 1891. The full text is available here, at the Internet Archive. I want to read it, but not on my computer screen, and certainly not on one of those new-fangled Kindle things. Load the text into your word processor, save it as a PDF, and upload it to Lulu, or other print-on-demand service.
To make things even easier, Yakov Shafranovich is running an experimental project, Public Domain Reprints, that formats and uploads the texts for you.
Anyone with an email address can place a request on this page using a link from a supported archive. Your request will be forwarded to our conversion server which will convert the appropriate book to printable form, and sends it off to several of the print on demand services we use. When the book has been uploaded, it will be made for immideate ordering and shipping, and you will receive a set of links to it via email and THEN you can make the decision to purchase the book as well as choose the print on demand service you want to purchase the book through. Requesting a reprint does not obligate you to buy the resulting book.
As I say again and again, it is not the computers that are impacting us as a society or as individuals. It’s what we can do with information that is changing things.
Image Citation:
“Old Books.” Deepsan’s Photostream. 22 Aug 2005. 17 Feb 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/deepsan/36091443/>.
What a wonderful idea! I haven’t looked at Lulu’s pricing, but I have looked at Blurb and the prices are not bad. I like the idea of creating one-of-a-kind reprints of public domain titles. Thanks!
David – thank you for sharing this! My husband has several art instruction books that this would be a perfect way to use this service for. Your blogging workshop at NECC07 changed my life, and I appreciate your continued education!
There was a cool article in the New York Times last month regarding the phenomenon of ‘cellphone novels’ in Japan.
Here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/world/asia/20japan.html
I agree that new technology (Computers) “are not impacting us as a society or as individuals. It’s what we can do with information that is changing things”. The more I learn about how I can use available technologies in teaching really excites me as a teacher ed candidate. However, I worry about two things. 1) is that ever changing technology, both in hardware and software updates, may be increasing the gap in education levels between schools with different socio-economic levels and, 2)that perceived constraints on education from NCLB will prevent school districts from using available technology to it’s fullest potential. If we could convince manufacturers to either slow down the release of updates, or make larger improvements instead of smaller incremental steps, educators and others would have the time to fully embrace the possibilities and make them fully functional to their students to increase learning opportunities. Then we might be able to convince school boards to invest the time in changing the way students are taught and therefore actually achieve the ideals behind NCLB.
The concept of self-publishing is enticing and makes my head spin with possibilities for both personal and classroom application. But first a question about ethics: Could it in any way be considered a misuse of Lulu and other print-on-demand services to use them for creating books that have already been published? Weren?t these service created for publication of new books to add to the literature?
Now on to the possibilities for classrooms: What an exciting and authentic incentive for students to know that their writing efforts could become a published text! And teachers could easily combine pieces self selected by students for a ?best-of? end-of-the year publication.
But there?s so much to learn. How practical is this in a classroom? Off I go to reading your achieved postings and doing more online research about this subject. (BTW, in just a few amazing clicks, I came up with this informative bit of information on POD: http://www.dogearsetc.com/wp02/archives/138.) Thanks for opening up more possibilities for teaching and learning in this ever-changing information environment, David.
The concept of self-publishing is enticing and makes my head spin with possibilities for both personal and classroom application. Such an exciting and authentic incentive for students to know that their writing efforts could become a published text! And teachers could easily combine pieces self selected by students for a “best-of” end-of-the year publication.
Another bit of information on educational uses for POD: http://www.dogearsetc.com/wp02/archives/138. Thanks for opening up more possibilities for teaching and learning in this ever-changing information environment, David.