Web 2.0 Award Is A Lulu

I went through a number of the Web 2.0 Awards, and had some difficulty deciding which one to glom onto. There's really serious stuff like Library 2.0, some useful things like Craiglist (though its usefulness may be somewhat of an illusion in many markets), and some silly places like one in which you can share your cocktail inventions with others of similar interest (whom I'll probably meet at a fender bender out on the highway).

In the end, I chose Lulu, for personal reasons. Lulu is a website on which members publish books for free--sort of. When I say publish, I mean either downloaded books or actually hard copies (hardbound or soft cover) with cover art and all the rest. The author sets a price with the help of the site and pays only when a copy is sold. And the site is also a marketing venue for authors. Visitors can search for books by genre, read author-written blurbs about individual titles, look at the cover art, then buy the book as a download or actual book (shipped to purchaser). Payment is made to Lulu through credit card or PayPal, and a check is issued quarterly to the author.

Since there is no upfront cost, any dreamers with home-grown novels and a computer can upload the Word document, choose a format (i.e., size and cover type), upload cover art (or use pre-made templates), set the price and wait (and wait and wait and wait and wait) for someone to read their blurb and bite on the hook to the tune of 10-20 bucks. It's really fabulous.

I'm one of those closet authors myself. I have a humorous mystery and a long and serious novel sitting inertly on my hard drive. All I have to do is get up enough gumption to write up an alluring description, design a cover, and whammo, I can sit and wait just as I did when I sent queries to dozens of agents.

I recommend that anybody who does this task in a cursory way (picks a winner, writes about it, and forgets about the other winners) is missing out on some bodacious places (that almost rhymes...) on the Internet highway.