Wincing at Light

In my most recent post, I made a somewhat critical remark about Lulu’s Blooker Prize that probably requires some explanation (especially in light of the fact that one of the links on my sidebar is to a Lulu print copy of the novel I’m currently blogging here).

I want to state upfront that I have no issues with Lulu’s corporate services. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, they’re the premier Print-on-Demand printing service available. Their integration of web tools is seamless, straightforward and simple. Their production services are well worth taking a look at if you really want a bound hard copy of the manuscript living on your hard drive (or alternately, a hard copy of someone’s blog novel). On top of that, I have to admit that I’m mesmerized by some of the projects you can create with personal photos — think personal, annotated photo albums, family calendars, etc. Their product quality is exceptional and their per-unit cost is reasonable.

Plus, you know, the whole thing is free (FREE), until you decide to use some of their “promotion” tools or buy your labor of love, and if you do decide to purchase, the prices are in line with usual Print-on-Demand publications if you purchase through Lulu’s portal.

The bottom line is that Lulu is an honest, reasonably priced printing service for niche and/or specialty publications.

What Lulu isn’t is a publishing company. They’re not Random House. They’re not Bantam. For even a vague approximation of the sorts of services that traditional print publishers provide (excluding critical bits like, um, editing, a professional sales force, a marketing team, a genuine interest in the success of your book, the ability to get your work reviewed in the “right” places, etc.), you’re going to end up paying out the ass. See a quick example here of cost for very basic marketing tools Lulu provides.

What they are, and honestly, all I think they’re claiming to be, is a low-cost printing service — low cost compared to traditional offset printing, which requires sizable print runs and get get into the thousands of dollars very quickly, all of which must be paid up front. What Lulu has done is harness Print-on-Demand technology and made it accessible to hobbyists and people interested in generating short run creative print products. I’m working really hard to avoid the term self-publishing here, because I think it carries a bunch of negative connotations that I don’t want to associate with Lulu’s mission. (But, you know, that’s really what they’re doing. Or at least what they’re facilitating.  And if self-publishing is your bag, Lulu is definitely one of the best options out there.)  What I don’t want to connect them to is operations like Vantage Press or PublishAmerica, who are (essentially) subsidy or vanity presses selling the illusion of traditional publishing. You can use Lulu as a vanity publisher, but so much of their model is more appropriate to calling them a printing service that I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

(N.B. — In the interest of full disclosure, since I’m using Lulu’s printing service: I don’t make any money on copies of A Vessel for Offering purchased through Lulu. Lulu only makes whatever percentage they’ve marked up beyond basic printing costs. One of Lulu’s niftier features is the ability for product creators to set their own royalty rate — which gets tacked on to the printing cost. Lulu takes a cut of the royalty rate the creator sets. Mine is set to zero. In keeping with the whole Creative Commons ideal, I’m giving this shit away for free. Or in the case of bound copies, as close to free as I can make it.)

There’s an old adage in writing, most recently taken up by Victoria Strauss and Anne Crispin through their scam exposure efforts at Writer Beware (under the auspices of SFWA): Money flows toward the author. If you’re paying money for anything, then you’re not working with a real publisher — you’re working with a printer or a subsidy/vanity operation. Vanity/subsidy operations are either getting their money directly from the author — in terms of “fees” or direct sales of crates of printed books — or indirectly through pimping sales to the author’s friends and family. Especially under the P.O.D. model, folks like PublishAmerica are bargaining that they’ll sell enough copies on overpriced books to people you know to make back their (minimal) setup investment. Plus, you know, they’ve got the whole Long Tail working for them. If you publish a million authors who each convince their friends and family to buy 20 total copies of their mind-bogglingly precious Work of Art, that’s 20 million sales for PublishAmerica. Given that your storage is digital and works are produced, well, on-demand, so you’ve cut out warehousing costs, that’s a great deal more cost-effective and risk-averse than hoping you’ve signed the next Neal Stephenson to sell 20 million copies of his latest book.

(Look, this has all been discussed to death on the internets. Look here for a much more lucid discussion of the topic than I’m giving you and a summary of the benefits/pitfalls of Print-on-Demand vs. traditional publishing, but remember that SFWA is an organization for professional writers and prospective professional writers, so they’re not going to be real big on evaluating folks like Lulu as purely a “printing” service. So insert your grains of salt here.)

That said, the problem I have with the Blooker Prize — other than the fact that it’s a not-very-clever attempt at generating controversy (read: free advertising/attention) by co-opting the name of an established award — is that it ultimately makes it look like Lulu look like just another vanity publishing shill. As a P.O.D. printer, Lulu is a legitimate operation. The Buy-These-Lulu-Books-Cuz-They’re-Good Prize makes believe that Lulu is a publisher with an established publishing “brand” (and trusted track record) that should be taken seriously as an arbiter of culture. Publishers are arbiters of culture because they’re taking a risk on stories that they hope are good enough that people will want to buy them. Their status as a Gatekeeper comes from correctly guessing what sorts of narratives people want to read. Guess often enough, and we begin to trust your taste. We consider you an expert.

Lulu isn’t doing any guessing. They’re not experts in narrative. Their business model isn’t selling stories, but selling bound paper. The Blooker Prize fosters the illusion that Lulu as a corporate entity performs some other valuable role in story production besides printing.

That makes the Blooker Prize an over-hyped marketing gimmick.

It’s an advertising misdirection that lends Lulu a guise of legitimacy as a “publisher”, when all they’re trying to do is sell paper. It’s the equivalent of slapping a sticker on the cover of the winner that says, “We Want to Sell More of This One”.

Of course, moving more product is the ultimate purpose behind all awards. I won’t dispute that.

But here’s the difference: Science Fiction’s Hugo Award is voted on by everyone who attends the World Science Fiction Convention. The Oscar is awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. See where I’m going here? These are third party awards. Third party awards (and the product sales that go along with them) are legitimate because the relationship between sales and recognition is organic. Yes, the Blooker is awarded under the auspices of an independent judging panel. It’s still Lulu’s award and they’re the company that stands to benefit the most from the existence of this award. That’s just seems like too much of a hinky conflict of interest for me to really take this award seriously.

This should not be misconstrued as any sort of negative comment on the worthiness of the Blooker winners. These books may very well be worthy of your time and attention. I haven’t read them. Probably am not going to, either. (Which brings to mind a great James Smythe rant about how successful blooks have this dirty tendency to vanish from blogs once the print contract is signed, which seems counter-intuitive considering that blogging the novel for FREE is what led to the blook’s success in the first place).

I think the Blooker Prize is a great idea, honestly. I think online long form fiction needs an award like the Blooker Prize if it’s ever going to get people’s attention as a worthwhile and legitimate communication medium.

But I also think that Lulu isn’t the one who should be giving it.