Amazon Muscles into PoD
The Bookseller has news and comment about Amazon.com's move into the publishing business via their new CreateSpace print-on-demand project:
Comment online has suggested that the move could knock publishers and other literary third parties out of the equation. [Timo] Hannay wrote on his Nature blog: "Amazon becomes the ultimate clearing house for books of all kinds (and much else besides), with none of the traditional middlemen getting a look in. Genius. If you're an agent, publisher, wholesaler, or retailer of books and you haven't just soiled your undies, then you don't understand what's going on."
The production price per unit is still significantly higher than if you use Lightning Source (around double, though depending on page count), but this certainly looks like a step toward Amazon becoming an 'all-in-one' book business. And no doubt many self-publishers will still find the terms attractive, not least due to the 30% take from Amazon (vs the standard book industry 50 - 65%) , the lack of setup fee/ISBN requirement, and more obviously the ease of selling and postage through Amazon's system. In fact, if anybody is going to 'soil their undies', I'd imagine it would be Lulu.com - CreateSpace appears to offer the benefits of Lulu at lower price and with better market access.
Lightning Source vs Lulu
Greg, how do you compare Lightning Source to Lulu? Another question I have is if you use LS as your POD, does your title get listed at Amazon as 'in stock' or do you have to sign up with their Advantage program in order to show 'in stock'?
Clint
Answers
Hi Clint,
Sorry for the delay, have been busy finishing publication of an anthology (going through the LS system as we speak).
For the first part of your question: are you asking how I physically compare LS and Lulu, or are you asking my opinion on the relative merits? Sorry, don't quite catch your drift.
To the second part - no, the whole point about using LS is that you don't have to jump through the hoops of the Advantage program. You are directly listed on Amazon as in stock (see Aaron Shepard's Aiming at Amazon for example, which is published through LS). And you can set a short discount to boot (20-25%).
Kind regards,
Greg
LS vs Lulu
Thanks for your response so far Greg. With my LS vs Lulu comparison question, it was pretty open ended. I'm assuming that since you are dealing with LS now, you see advantages over Lulu. As a new author/publisher who wants to get the best listing possible at Amazon, etc., I just wanted to get your confirmation if indeed you do recommend LS over Lulu or any other similar services.
Clint