The latest phenomenon in the world of Print-on-Demand is Lulu.com, a cyber publishing service that professional and amateur writers alike are turning to, as a means of packaging and sharing works of marginal interest.
I haven't investigated Lulu too thoroughly myself, but I'm told that the service can even be used to manufacture single copies of documents in book form, and writers also share more generously in the profits than they would when working with a major publisher. I'm sure there must be a downside to it -- no bookstore distribution, certainly, would fall under that heading -- but Lulu does make their books available to online outlets such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.
A couple of my friends have been using Lulu to make some interesting rare items available to a wider readership. David White, a past VW contributor, recently published through Lulu a lost novel by Fantômas creator Marcel Allain. While shopping on eBay, David happened to score a series of old FLYNN DETECTIVE WEEKLY magazines from 1927, which featured the serialization of Allain's A WOMAN OF PREY, as translated by Lawrence Morris. The novel was never collected in English, making it a real eureka for Fantômas collectors like me. Taking a tip from Allain's novel THE YELLOW DOCUMENT, which was published in America with the commercial subtitle FANTOMAS OF BERLIN, David scanned the PD documents and retitled the British-based novel FANTOMAS OF LONDON (A WOMAN OF PREY). It's now available in an attractive trade softcover edition, complete with the pen-and-ink illustrations that accompanied the novel's original pulp presentation.
Fantômas collectors should also use Lulu to seek out a reprint edition of the hard-to-find THE LORD OF TERROR (an English translation of Allain's first solo Fantômas novel, FANTOMAS EST-IL RESSUSCITE?), hardcover copies of which now sell for hundreds of dollars when they can be found at all.
Lastly, fans of Italian horror and science-fiction will be interested to learn that screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi has published two of his unproduced film scripts in English at Lulu.com. THE KEY OF LUCK, a science-fiction comedy, is published in a bilingual English/Italian edition, and UNION SQUARE, a thriller comedy, is available in English only. I haven't read these yet, but the presentation is attractive and indistinguishable from store-bought paperbacks. (A third book by Ernesto, I QUARANTA BELANTI [THE ROARING FORTIES] is available in Italian only. it has a great cover collage of Ernesto and family, so I assume it's autobiographical.) Ernesto's books are also available for direct PDF downloads at less than half-price. Support the Maestri of Italian fantasy!So many interesting film scripts are failing to be produced these days -- on second thought, this has always been the case -- that this manner of instant publishing may prove a viable alternative life for such works. Movies that you can cast and project inside your own skull -- why not?
Some other interesting titles I found while browsing Lulu.com include PROFESSOR CHALLENGER, a collection of all three novels (THE LOST WORLD, THE POISON BELT and THE LAND OF MIST) and additional stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring said hero; new editions of Sax Rohmer's extraordinary BROOD OF THE WITCH QUEEN, QUEST OF THE SACRED SLIPPER and an omnibus containing THE GREEN EYES OF BAST and BAT-WING; and even a new pulp fiction reprint zine called LOST SANCTUM.
Might Lulu also be a solution to the high cost and distribution woes of magazine publishing? The mind boggles...
