A quick guide to Book Publishing Services (Lulu, Smashwords, Createspace, Issuu...)

This isn't news: the digital revolution changed the way books are produced, and also the way they are read.

Print on Demand (POD) makes it possible to create single copies of books, which allows to publish books for smaller and special audiences. Parallel, e-readers make it possible to read e-books in a new, leisure way.

Together, this leads to a growing range of publishing formats, and publishing services, which are especially interesting for small presses and for authors.

Below is a list of service providers, with examples of printed books and e-books that are featured in the blueprint book blog.



Lulu
Lulu is a company offering publishing, printing in various sizes, and distribution (including e-books).
Since their founding in 2002, Lulu has published over 1.1 million titles by creators in over 200 countries and territories and adds 20,000 new titles to their catalogue a month.
links: Lulu webpage, wiki-page
examples: "lulu"-books in this blog (print books + e-books)
cover: if you want to publish a book at CreateSpace, here some advice for creating the book cover

CreateSpace
A publishing/printing/distribution service that provides free tools to help self-publish and distribute books, DVDs, CDs etc. on-demand at CreateSpace and via Amazon.com. (CreateSpace belongs to Amazon, thus the listing, which only works for Amazon.com, no other countries)
link: CreateSpace
examples: CreateSpace-books in this blog
cover: if you want to publish a book at CreateSpace, here some advice for creating the book cover

Smashwords
An ebook publishing and distribution platform for ebook authors, publishers, agents and readers that offers multi-format ebooks, ready for immediate sampling and purchase, and readable on any e-reading device.
link: Smashwords
examples: Smashword-books in this blog
how-to-guide: Smashword Style Guide + Marketing Guide

Issuu
Issuu is a digital publishing platform that delivers full-color reading experiences of magazines, catalogs, and newspapers.
link: Issuu
examples: Issuu-books in this blog

Related links: Red Lemonade, exPress tutorial, Wiki-Pages 

• Advice+Example: How to prepare a book cover for print-on-demand services like CreateSpace
• Red Lemonade: new experimental service: full texts online + print books (example)
• exPress: print to e-book workflow tutorial advice from Folded Word
• General information: Wiki: Print on demand  / Wiki: E-book

---
Other blueprint How-to posts:

- How to create an own google map

- How to create an automatic paper.li newspaper

The Book of It - Daniela Elza

The Book of It by Daniela Elza is about being and becoming in the inconclusive manuscript of life. It is about creativity and the alchemy of the imagination. It is about knowing, and perhaps how we know more than we know we know. It is about the contemplative mind that wants more. It is about that which cannot be named, but can be pervasive in our lives (if we let it).

"The Book of It is a tribute to 'none of the above' when it comes to the search for meaning and answers-both in life and in education. In this meditative book, Daniela Elza tries to find the It between 'cash and two pieces of ID' and 'a blue guitar with one string (forgotten)', between a tree trunk that 'needs more than one person to embrace it' and a measurement of '1000 words (can be more but not less).' Without doubt, The Book of It is a pleasant surprise even to itself." - Arlene Ang

Daniela Elza is currently finishing her doctorate in Philosophy of Education at Simon Fraser University. Her work (mostly poetry) appears in over 50 publications. The Book of It is Daniela’s first ebook. Her full length poetry book, The Weight of Dew, is forthcoming with Mother Tongue Publishing (Spring, 2012).

Daniela Elza: The Book of It
116 pages
available as paperback + download + kindle-version
- the book of It (paperback) $11.99
- the book of It (PDF file download) $2.99
- kindle version:  amazon.com / amazon.uk

related links: poetry, kindle-books

triskelion, tiger moth, tangram, thyme - Marcia Arrieta (Otoliths)

triskelion, tiger moth, tangram, thyme is Marcia Arrieta's first book of poetry. Within its pages language and the invisible coincide, voyaging precarious, discovering.

"Arrieta’s poems are overlapping spheres, vanishing points, circles that reflect her fascination with modern cosmology, aesthetics, and the spirituality of language." — Andrea Moorhead

"Her poems are compelling, marked by deft and abrupt turnings, a total mastery of paratactic construction, and a dazzling sense of the landscape of the heart played against that insistent inner voice. Here, at last, they are gathered together, a gift well worth having, a quiet visionary voice which surprises and invites the reader to be attentive." — David Cope

As well as a poet, Marcia Arrieta is a mother, educator, and artist. Her chapbook experimental: was published by potes & poets press and another chapbook the curve against the linear was published by toadlily press in An Uncommon Accord. She edits and publishes Indefinite Space, a poetry journal. (featured in Daily s-Press: Indefinite Space 2010)

About Otoliths
Otoliths is a magazine of many e-things, published by Mark Young, Australia. The online issue of Otoliths appears quarterly, the current issue is: southern spring, 2010. The publishing arm of Otoliths began as print editions of the e-zine Otoliths, but has since expanded to include books & chapbooks by authors associated with the journal. Recent publications include the ulterior eden by j/j hastein and Market Street Exit by Caleb Puckett.

Marcia Arrieta: triskelion, tiger moth, tangram, thyme
poetry collection
80 pages, $13.45

related links: books by blueprintreview contributors, poetry

pay attention: a river of stones

a river of stones
The challenge: to notice one thing properly every day during January ’11, and to write it down. The result: more than 350 people across the world paying more attention to what was around them, and writing small stones. The birth of a new community of daily writers. A new movement - a river of stones. Which now also turned into a book.

a river of stones - the book
This book contains a selection of these engaged moments, written both by experienced poets and complete beginners, and a guide to writing your own small stones: "You will receive 320 amazing small stones written by all of you lovely talented people, short prose pieces written by Kaspa & me, longer quotes by several small-stoners and an appendix with lots of information about how to write small stones." - Fiona Robyn

a river of stones - a quote and links
The river of stones started in January with a blog and a welcome-post, here's a quote from it: "Why would you want to join in? - Because choosing something to write about every day will help you to connect with yourselves, with others, and with the world. It will help you to love everything you see - the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the beautiful and the ugly. You don't have to be a 'writer' to get involved. The process of paying attention is what's important." The month of writing small stones and sharing them online then sparked the open and ongoing community that is open to everyone who is interested in writing, reading and the world: Writing Our Way Back Home.

About the editors
Fiona Robyn is a novelist, Buddhist and creativity coach and blogs about being a writer at Writing Our Way Home. Kaspalita is a Buddhist priest and blogger and is engaged to Fiona.

pay attention: a river of stones
paperback: $10.56
download: $6.03
there also is a hardcover edition

Related Links: poetry, on writing, web projects

Outside Voices - Jake Berry & Jeffrey Side (Otoliths)

Outside Voices is the protocol of an 18-month transatlantic email correspondence between poet, musician and artist Jake Berry and Argotist-editor Jeffrey Side, it ranges across and intertwines a variety of topics that include: poetry and music; film and TV; the changes in culture over the past few decades; the differences in regional U.S. and U.K. accents; the difficulty of reaching the famous in order to interview them; the songwriter as poet and vice versa. Two excerpts of the book are online in Jeffrey Side's blog: Published Email Correspondence.

Jeffrey Side is the editor of Argotist Online, a magazine that it is devoted entirely to poetry and poetics and has an own Ebooks-section.

Jake Berry is a poet, musician and visual artist, and the author of Brambu Drezi, Species of Abandoned Light, Drafts of the Sorcery, and numerous other books. He has been an active member of the global arts and literary community for more than 25 years. Recently, he created a cut-up long poem with Craig Hill, which is available as free dowload: SIXIXSIX

About Otoliths
Otoliths is a magazine of many e-things, published by Mark Young, Australia. The online issue of Otoliths appears quarterly, the current issue is: southern spring, 2010. The publishing arm of Otoliths began as print editions of the e-zine Otoliths, but has since expanded to include books & chapbooks by authors associated with the journal. Recent publications include Unable to Fully California by Larry Sawyer and A Marzipan Factory by Grzegorz Wróblewski.

Jake Berry & Jeffrey Side: Outside Voices
Print: $13.45

Masala Moments - Dorothee Lang (Cautionary)

Masala Moments is a travel novel that includes ancient tales, lessons of karma, and modern myths. Based on her own journeys through Asia, Dorothee Lang takes the reader on a journey that leads from the West to the East, and offers a glimpse into the sameness we share, Indian or German or Canadian or American. For those who are longing to go, it includes an extra chapter with practical travel advice.

"India in a teacup. Its flavour in pages. Its aroma in words. That is Masala Moments, the thoughts of an intrepid traveller through the maze of crowds, chaos and centrifugalness that is India." - Smitha Murthy

Dorothee Lang is founding editor of the literary online journal BluePrintReview. Her writing has appeared in numerous online and print magazines, among them: The Sunday Herald (India), The Mississippi Review (USA), Zeit Online (Germany), Dublin Quarterly (Ireland), Word Riot (USA) and others. She holds a degree in economics and advertising, and lives in the South of Germany.

Cautionary Tale Press
Cautionary Tale Press is the publishing venue of Cautionary Tale Magazine, edited by Eric Wrisley, and featuring short stories, and regular series ("The View from the West Hill", "The Dictionary of American Diction", "These Here United States").

Dorothee Lang: Masala Moments
a travel novel
164 pages, $15.00
amazon / luluISBN 978-1-4116-4293-5

Waking Accidentally in the Dark - Margot Miller

Waking Accidentally in the Dark by Margot Miller is a collection of flash fiction stories, recently published at Lulu. Nearly all the included stories have been published in various Zines and print publications in the last five years.

Margot Miller’s stories are honest, hard, and believable, sometimes dark, always enriching. Not all her characters are sympathetic but they will all remind you of someone you know. In “I Am Not a Back-Up Plan,” the character's struggle for her dignity is written with subtle grace and sneaks up on the reader again and again, long after putting the story down. Miller's stories identify for us how we feel. The conflict, complications, and resolution of each story are served up in a gratifying emotional package requiring less time for you to read than for you to drink your morning coffee.

Miller has earlier published at Lulu Blackbird Calling, a collection of her longer fiction, stories from 2000 to 6000 words, nearly all previously published. Her poetry collection, Telling, is also available at Lulu.

Asked why she published at Lulu, Miller responded: “I didn’t think I’d live long enough to get published by a so-called “real” small (or large) press unless I started my own, as many people have done, and I didn’t want to deal with the set-up logistics or the rest, including the inevitable IRS designation as a hobby if I didn’t’ make money after five years. Lulu's publications are gratifying as well as very reasonably priced for consumers; the downloadable version is also available at the same time as the print version. I am looking into an audible version, which will be marketed elsewhere, of course, and that might be available in a few months."

Margot Miller lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the United States. She writes fiction and recently took up painting, at which she has had some modest success. She holds a Ph. D in French literature and teaches French women writers (for the most part) in translation to members of the Academy of Lifelong Learning and the International Academy of Learning (Chesapeake College).

Margot Miller: Waking Accidentally in the Dark
paperback, 94 pages
ISBN 978-0-557-40896-2

related links: short stories

mo(nu)ment (blueprint)

mo(nu)ment is an anthology that gathers reflections on moments and monuments in 70 unique pieces contributed by 30 authors from all over the world, capturing the fleeting and the solid, motion and matter, the present and the past.

"A versatile and varied collection of writing. The stories and poems flowed into one another with organic ease. The artwork complements the writing and the overall effect is of a mighty, living, breathing entity of modern literature. If you are interested in cutting edge writing and art then "mo(nu)ment" will serve well." - Carl Brunch

Contributors include: Lys Anzia, Marcia Arrieta, Michael Bergstein, Kelvin Bueckert, Sita Carboni, Jeff Crouch, Peter Dabbene, Kari Edwards, Helen Ellis, J. Fisher, Tasnim Jivaji, Dorothee Lang, Wes Lee, Smitha Murthy, Melanie Olson, Diane Payne, Sharon Rothenfluch Cooper, Ania Szado, Davide Trame, Michael K. White, Steve Wing, Eric Wrisley, Diana J. Wynne

editor and press
This anthology is edited by Dorothee Lang, and published by blueprintpress, the print side wing of BluePrintReview.

mo(nu)ment
anthology
168 pages, $11.81

let a thousand dictionaries bloom - Sean Burn

let a thousand dictionaries bloom: a documentation from anti-racist arts-activist residency with stanley picker gallery / live art development agency

Sean Burn: "i was recently artist-activist with the stanley picker gallery and live art development agency, one of seven residencies under the collective banner louder than bombs. my week focused on anti-racism and central with a durational performance napalm perceptible : a dictionary for the bnp - redactin 'non-indigenous' words to leave a blank dictionary. like each ov us, language is ovcourse outta everywhere. a series ov interviews on identity, race, struggle alternatin with speeches from angela davis and nelson mandela played while challenges to some tabloid headlines and other visual poetry wz also on show. walls were written up in charcoal and reverse graffiti'd with putty rubbers to provide poetic responses to the vocabularies ov hate - this included let a thousand dictionaries bloom."

films and photos from the residency:
- film: let a thousand dictionaries bloom
- film: some tabloid headlies by sean burn
- photos: photostream

Sean Burn is a writer, performer and outsider artist with a growing international reputation. He is also actively involved nationally in disability arts. He was shortlisted for a dadafest disability arts award 2009 and is currently outside in artist in residence to the new gallery walsall in association with dash (disability arts shropshire). his twenty five poetry films have received many screenings worldwide, as well as at tate modern and national film theatre studios, london.

Stanley Picker Gallery: Louder Than Bombs
Over the course of seven weeks, the Stanley Picker Gallery handed over its entire exhibition space to host a series of week-long Live Art residencies. Co-curated with the Live Art Development Agency, London, through an open call for proposals, “Louder than Bombs”: Art, Action & Activism was an ambitious programme of public workshops and live events that focussed on challenging social, political and global issues of the day, addressed through the seven invited artist/activist’s individual working practices and the Gallery audience’s direct participation and responding involvement.

Sean Burn: let a thousand dictionaries bloom
28 pages
available as paperback ($5,70)
or as free download

related links
- art
- books available as download

7 x 7 - Crag Hill (Otoliths)

Scattered parts
now lie about what happened.

"Implicitly comparing a book to a deck of cards, and that deck of cards in turn to the world of social violence we’re dealt, Crag Hill stakes his ante on the power of poetry to witness and document the multiply-layered, self-inflicted insanity of US daily life in the Bush years. As readers we become participants and are thus empowered to say no to the game of death." —Maria Damon

"It's pure serendipity that the 49th book to bear the Otoliths imprint just happens to have the title that it does..... 7 x 7"

Crag Hill is the editor and publisher of SCORE Magazine since 1983. He tries to go where no one knows to go.

About Otoliths
Otoliths is a magazine of many e-things, published by Mark Young, Australia. The online issue of Otoliths appears quarterly. The publishing arm of Otoliths began as print editions of the e-zine Otoliths, but has since expanded to include books & chapbooks by authors associated with the journal. Recent publications include wild life rifle fire by Paul Siegell and & cruel red by Mary Kasimor.

Crag Hill: 7 x 7
poetry collection
paperback, 56 pages, $13.45

Blue Crow - Issue 1

The inaugural issue of Blue Crow offers short stories for the mind and soul, and also for the funny bone. It includes enthralling fictional tales from thirty authors from all around the globe, and 2 interviews (Justin Bridges interviews deceased serial killer Peter Manuel + the late writer, J D Salinger).

A free sampler of Blue Crow #1 is available as [pdf].

Contributing authors: Grace Andreacchi, Lili Pâquet, Janie Dempsey Watts, Joseph M. Gant, John Dodge, Corey Mesler, David Day, Laura Solomon, Sandra Gail Lambert, Michele Freeman, Therese Mobayad, Ricky Ginsburg, Les Zigomanis, Jonathan Elsom, Matt Dennison, Tony Parker, Daniel Trask, Arne Hogan, Linda Visman, Charles Thomas, Trish Honeyfield, Blaise van Hecke, A. S. Patric, Marie-Claude Bourjon, Mark William Jackson, Ann Walters, Belinda Fidler, Kate Simonian, and Jason Gray.

About Blue Crow
Blue Crow Magazine has been created for writers who struggle to get their material published by the mainstream publishers. We like difference, and individuality. Novice writers will also be published if their stories show the necessary merit, we mainly publish short fiction only. Submissions for issue 2 will be called for from August 1, 2010.

The magazine’s all-Australian staff consists of Andrew Scobie, Matthew Ward, and Justin Bridges. All three writers pursue their own interests away from Blue Crow. Matthew also publishes Skive Future, an online journal featuring fiction, poetry and art, and has recently had a book of short stories published by World Audience (New York) titled, ‘John F Kennedy Lives in the Future!’, to go with his other published works. Andrew is currently looking to publish a novel, ‘Johnno’s Hideaway’, after previously mainly concentrating on books of short fiction. Justin remains fixed on developing his interviewing and reviewing career: he has temporarily suspended his interest in interviewing the dead and is currently looking for live souls to embarrass.

Blue Crow #1
240 pages
free sampler pdf of Blue Crow #1 [download]
paperback: $14.95
e-book: $5.00

Letters Patterns Structures - Andrew Topel (avantacular)

In Letters Patterns Structures, Andrew Topel treats his viewers to an architectural purity in which positive and negative spaces become interchangeable. These precise arrangements of letters and punctuation build forms that function equally as lattice works of theory, as finite sculptures, and as art. Topel ‘s craftsmanship locates and then captures the richness of individual angles superimposed on one another, yielding large, musical constructs that undergo successive phases of preparation, suspension, and resolution.

"Andrew Topel’s hand is sure, his eye is clear, his vision, superb. Within these creations, delicacy and boldness are not incompatible, but progress through mutually celebratory elements within successive pieces. When viewing Topel’s art, I do not have to work at loving what I see and feel. My admiration is inevitable. His masterful constructions enhance my own capacity for sensory awareness, melding discoveries that inform each new moment of joy in finding what is present and continually reconfiguring itself into conceptual possibilities that hold, for all their majesty, within a greater actuality space." - Sheila E. Murphy

About avantacular press
Andrew Topel founded avantacular press in 2002. The press specializes in books of visual poetry & other-stream writing as well as one-of-a-kind artists books.

Andrew Topel: Letters Patterns Structures
visual poetry collection
paperback, 50 pages + after words by Geof Huth
$12, which includes shipping

in transit - Dorothee Lang (blueprint)

in transit is a mosaic of encounters, departures and arrivals; a journey in widening circles. Dorothee Lang merges the short story collection and travel diary format to explore recent global changes and undercurrents, and their influences on personal life. Geographically, the transit route starts in Berlin, moves through Europe, heads west towards the States, and then eastwards to Asia. Core themes include: globalisation / digitalization and the increasing interconnectedness of the world; the reunification of Germany and the hopes of a new millennium; the enhanced pace of life - often juxtaposed by the longing for a time-out; the drama of 9/11 and its aftermath; the mercurial nature of value systems.

"Dorothee Lang's in transit uses sense as sonar, bouncing waves off the natural and manmade world to image the fluidity of our existence. Like Dogen's Moon in a Dewdrop, in transit quietly feasts on the beauty of minutiae, showing time and again that what often goes unnoticed represents a microcosm, a history, an indelible connectedness that deserves our attention." - Mel Bosworth

Dorothee Lang is founding editor of the literary online journal BluePrintReview, and author of the travel novel Masala Moments. Her writing has appeared in numerous online and print magazines, among them: The Sunday Herald (India), The Mississippi Review (USA), Zeit Online (Germany), Dublin Quarterly (Ireland), Word Riot (USA) and others. She holds a degree in economics and advertising, and lives in the South of Germany.

About blueprintpress
Founded in 2006, blueprintpress is the print side wing of BluePrintReview. The current focus is on new and experimental formats: upcoming are 2 "micro novels" - hand-made books that fit in an air mail envelope. Blueprintpress currently is looking for fitting micro novel manuscripts (4000-5500 words, details).

Dorothee Lang: in transit
story collection / travel diary
64 pages
paperback

Reb Livingston - God Damsel (No Tell)

Just because fairy tales don’t exist doesn’t mean we don’t need them—need their promise of a happily ever after—need their heightened, fanciful language to infuse our flat, modern vernacular with pomp and poof and oompf—but need especially their infusion of momentous meaning into our seemingly pointless actions and humdrum adult lives.

Through that hole of need enters Reb Livingston’s stunning God Damsel: a pyrotechnic, syntactical orgy wherein the speaker’s both creator and victim of a world that mirrors our own in disappointment and loss. She’s a creator of her own language, yet a victim of the limitations of all language. The poems are like the bizarre, hybrid-mutant animals slithering around the island of Dr. Moreau—cross-breeds of humor, whimsy, sharp intelligence, and deep—near unspeakable—sadness. I can hear Henry Darger’s Vivian Girls eerily reciting from God Damsel, like a primer, in unison. Do avoid the dreaded Woe-Dodo, and take a stroll through the puffy pink clouds (careful to avoid the inky-icky black pits) of God Damsel-land. - Jennifer L. Knox

Reb Livingston is also the author of Your Ten Favorite Words (Coconut Books, 2007). She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.

About No Tell Books (+ No Tell Motel)
Cousin to poetry magazine No Tell Motel and founded in 2006, No Tell Books is an independent press specializing in poetry. Upcoming titles for 2010 are Glass is Really a Liquid by Bruce Covey and Crushes by Lea Graham.

Reb Livingston: God Damsel
Poetry, 2010
146 pages, paperback, $16.99
ISBN 978-0-9826000-0-9