Lulu and the Trojan Horse

Nobody seems to spit out their morn­ing cof­fee in a shower of sticky rain any­more, so I was pleased to re-ignite the tra­di­tion this very Saturday morn­ing while read­ing the Guardian Review.

On page thir­teen, I found Nicholas Lezard’s review of Spoilers: Film Reviews by Anne Billson. Nothing sur­pris­ing thus far…and until I reveal the ter­ribly excit­ing secret, I beg, dear reader, that you replace your cof­fee cup and swal­low any­thing extraneous.

The pub­lisher of this book is Lulu.

For those not in the know, Lulu is an online ser­vice through whom authors can pub­lish their work. There is no upfront cost. It is a van­ity pub­lisher in the sense that pub­lic­a­tion is not soli­cited. Lulu provides the har­bour; its writers are free to turn up in whatever sea-going craft they wish, from row boat to float­ing res­taur­ant. However, Billson’s book com­prises film reviews that were pub­lished in the New Statesman and the Telegraph. It would not do to call this a van­ity project.

To be sure, Nicholas Lezard, the Guardian man, seems unaware of Lulu.

There’s no price on the cover, I’ve never heard of the pub­lisher, and it was pos­ted to me from, unusu­ally, Jamaica.

This is sur­pris­ing. Lulu is at the centre of what might be termed a pub­lish­ing revolu­tion. It uses a tech­no­logy called Print on Demand to min­im­ise up-front costs. (Cf. and N.B. Lulu with any brick-and-mortar van­ity or sub­sidy press.) Nicholas Lezard is a fea­tured reviewer for the Guardian Review. How had he avoided this?

The sub­stant­ive point (for the writer) is that Lezard has con­sidered the book without pre­ju­dice. Here’s how he sums it up:

You are get­ting a series of joy­ously executed reviews, by a clear-eyed yet pas­sion­ate com­ment­ator, of films that, per­haps sur­pris­ingly, have lingered longer in the mind than you might have thought, at the time, that they would.

This whole epis­ode has put a smile on my face. Not two (or was it three?) years ago, I found myself walk­ing from Waterstone’s to Waterstone’s with a copy of my book, Déjà Vu. It also car­ried a great write-up from the Guardian Review. But because my pub­lisher (not Lulu) used the Print on Demand tech­no­logy, no branch of Waterstone’s would touch it. The prob­lem is one of iner­tia. Waterstone’s, and other large brick-and-mortar insti­tu­tions, derive the bulk of their income from the terms they demand of pub­lish­ers. When con­fron­ted by pub­lish­ers who will not — or can­not — meet these terms, that’s the end of the conversation.

This is not a good situ­ation for the con­sumer. Today, per­haps, we’re a little closer to a time in which books that receive atten­tion and acclaim can be pur­chased in brick-and-mortar shops along­side those books that are pushed by hard currency.

Spoilers: Film Reviews, by Anne Billson, is pub­lished over at Lulu and costs £10.20. You can down­load it £6.84.