Web 2.0 and Vanity Presses

Commercial book publishers have been criticized for fearing the paradigm shift of the Internet, and for being slow to integrate new technologies into their websites and their marketing strategies. Because I do freelance reviewing, I spend a lot of time wading through the websites of the larger presses, and I can attest that they're a real drag to search and navigate—fifteen different imprints of the same title to scroll past, genres with too much content to browse, etc. However, companies that offer self-publishing have apparently not been so lethargic. In fact, one of the prizes in the Books category of the 2007 Web 2.0 awards was given to www. lulu.com, a company that offers self-publishing services.

If you want to play around, you can log in as InteractivePublishing, with the password intpub. The site is definitely very Web 2.0—a web-based platform (with upselling of additional special services—marketing, translation, packaging, etc.), wherein they offer the technology, and you control your own content and design. Not only that, but you can sell your book right on the site and buy books from other self-publishers. You can join groups for children's authors, horror writers, etc., or you can create your own community. There's a blog, live chat, multimedia and so on.

Most importantly, there's a rating system. Usually vanity presses are disparaged because of the lack of quality control—scholarly and commercial reviews can't get involved with their lists because there'd be so much schlock to wade through. But although Lulu will facilitate the publication of anything and everything, there is a pre-screening process powered by its users, so it might actually have a shot at competing with commercial presses in terms of getting press and selling copies.

Project Gutenburg has nothing to do with vanity presses, but it is kind of Web. 2.0. They offer totally free access to online books that are no longer under copyright. It's accomplished almost entirely by volunteers. I used to be a volunteer proofreader with them, using their all-Web interface. There are cross-platform capabilities, and although there isn't actually voting, the site does track and publicize the top downloads. Moreover, the site is extremely vocal and committed about the freedom to download, share, distribute information, which seems almost as much Web 2.0 as RSS feeds.