Smash hit

Nicholas Clee, former editor of the Bookseller and a writer for The Times on the books industry, thinks it unlikely that authors will sell many books on Lulu. He believes the analogy with eBay is overdone. “If you are selling 1930s crockery there will be someone out there who wants that, whereas with My Crazy Novel there’s no reason someone finding that on the internet will think, ‘Oh yes, that’s what I want to read’.”

Young and his acolytes certainly do not lack ambition. They are at the London Book Fair this week to announce the shortlist of their provocatively titled Blooker Prize — a competition for successful books based on blogs. British finalists include the anonymous call girl’s memoir Belle du Jour, which began on the web and became a publishing best seller.

Peter Freedman, who heads the British operation, says that Lulu is the biggest revolution in publishing since Gutenberg printed his Bible. He describes “Luluism” as “the first political philosophy since the fall of the Berlin Wall” because it combines communism and worship of the free market. The workers (the writers), control the means of production but can thrive only in the marketplace.

But in the same way that Red Hat hasn’t yet quite knocked Microsoft off its perch, it may be a little early to expect to see the big bad publishing barons trembling in their boots over what Lulu is up to.

Self-publishing: risky inky business

Lulu’s virtually free print-on-demand publishing model is unique. Other companies offer a self-publishing service online that gives authors far more control of the look and feel of their published books. There is, however, a cost.

Grosvenor House (www.selfpublishing.co.uk) will publish a book for £495, including typesetting, five “free” copies and a basic marketing package. Proofreading is extra, at 35p per 100 words. Writersworld (www.writersworld.co.uk) charges up to £1,998 for a package that includes a night in a hotel to go through the final proof. Other companies offering similar services include authorhouse.com, which charges £525 and will help authors to get an ISBN number for their books, as well as give them guidance on design.

Lulu uses technology to enable authors to upload their work, feature it on a dedicated web page and have it printed. Authors pay for any copies of the book they buy, and Lulu takes a 20 per cent commission when other people buy the book. Authors must supply their manuscript ready to print, in the correct format and sized to fit Lulu’s templates.

There are only a few high-profile examples of self-publishing success. The Yorkshire vicar G. P. Taylor’s self-published Shadowmancer books were picked up by Faber and are now bestsellers. Jill Paton Walsh was nominated for the Booker Prize for Knowledge of Angels, which she published privately after repeated rejections from commercial publishers.

These are the exceptions, however, and many authors make no money from self-published work. According to Publishers Weekly, of the 18,108 titles published by the American self-publishing company iUniverse in 2004, only 14 were on sale in Barnes & Noble and only 83 sold more than 500 copies. You are more likely to have success marketing your book if it has a small, easily targeted audience — one concentrated in a particular location, or that can be reached through specialist magazines or websites, for example.

ELLA STIMSON

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• The 100 Best Books of the Decade
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• The conversation: James Ellroy