Createspace.com

In the most recent Bad Signal, Warren Ellis discusses the vast potential of Amazon's new Print on Demand operation Createspace.com :

* Createspace.com: Amazon's
Print On Demand operation. Very
interesting. For no money at all,
you can create a book (or CD or
DVD or whatever), get an Amazon
Buy It Now badge for your website,
and let them take care of everything
else. I understand Lulu and other
POD operations are very good, but
this is the killer app: you get
Amazon's distribution system. This
is massive.

* Why is it massive? It's fucking
AMAZON. Self-publishing turns
into a one-click deal. In fact, POD
on this order transcends self-pub
and vanity pub to a large extent.
It re-enables the small press for the
new generation. You youngsters
won't remember what it was like,
looking through fringe bookstores
for the odd things, the new things,
the weird things -- things that were
small and important, which people
had had to gamble real money on
the production and printing of. I
still have boxes and boxes of this
sort of thing from the 80s --
photocopied booklets, short-run
magazines in strange formats,
books from one-person publishing
houses that only got distributed in
occult stores, music stores or very
big forward-looking bookstores in
major cities. You had to really
scratch to find things like Temple
Ov Psychick Youth pamphlets,
James Havoc's RAISM, Fortean
stuff (I'd go to the Fortean
Unconventions with a kitbag and
come away with two hundred quid's
worth of books you couldn't find
anywhere else), The Fred, even
Savoy's stuff...

* Also, just as an aside: given that
sf magazines pay$50/1000 words
and don't publish much that's over
15000 words, a determined sf
writer could release POD books
in the novellette/novella length.
Or even band together and create
a POD imprint inside Createspace.

I'm a huge supporter of Amazon and was shocked at how long it look them to make a profit on one of the most well organised, and efficient purchase systems online. Fantastic customer service, great prices, quality product. A benchmark for all the other sites I vist when I shop.

They may not cater for the specialist or the curio, but with the introduction of this new enterprise they're going far beyond that: it's giving us the opportunity to dip into a vast pool of practically untapped inspiration, imagination and creativity. Instead of constraints or middlemen they're streamlining the system of distribution and getting it out to us as easily and as quickly as possible. It's going to be explosive and as much as it's a bit of a key to the asylum, it's still a pool that can be filtered and sifted through to ensure exposure to the real accomplishments; be it new innovation in music, literature or film.

Owsler's blog

09/07/2007

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