It's Lulu
by Quinn
Kevin Carson’s Mutualist blog included an interesting post a little while ago comparing the innovative Pull Economy with the more traditional Push Economy. In his post he quotes this David Bollier article which explains the difference between the two:
Briefly put, a “push economy” – the familiar industry model of mass production – is based on anticipating consumer demand and then making sure that needed resources are brought together at the right place, at the right time, for the right people. A company in the “push” model forecasts demand, specifies in advance the necessary inputs, regiments production procedures, and then pushes the final product into the marketplace and the culture, using standardized distribution channels and marketing.
By contrast, a “pull economy” – the kind that appears to be materializing in online environments – is based on open, flexible production platforms that use networking technologies to orchestrate a broad range of resources. Instead of producing standardized products for mass markets, companies use pull techniques to assemble products in customized ways to serve local or specialized needs, usually in a rapid or on-the-fly process.
Instead of companies pushing their products at us (in pursuit of their own strategic or competitive advantages), the networked environment radically empowers individuals, and communities of like-minded individuals, to pull the products and services that they want, on their own terms and time requirements. For example, small groups of people with unusual niche interests – say, extreme skateboarders or opera buffs – can now aggregate their consumer demand and successfully induce businesses to serve their specialized interests. In the process, many corporations are having to radically re-organize themselves in order to serve the emerging “pull” market demand.
If I’ve understood the concept correctly – and I’m not wholly convinced that I have – then it certainly seems a far more efficient and effective way of providing goods and services. An apt example of the pull economy could be Lulu, a self-publishing website I have recently “discovered”.
Traditionally, if you wanted to publish your own book you were faced with a dilemma; approach a printers and either organise a short print run which would involve a high unit cost per book, or go for a longer print run which would mean a lower marginal cost but a larger overall bill. As you had to “push” your book out onto an uncertain marketplace it could be difficult to know what to do; far easier, perhaps, to do nothing.
With Lulu, however, you can design the cover and format of your book, upload it to Lulu for free, and then it can sit online indefinitely until someone wants to buy a copy; only then is it printed (or the manuscript itself can just be downloaded). The price is not far off what you would expect to pay for a book in the shops, and the author gets to keep 80% of the profits of each sale, such as they are. As a result many books can now be published that would probably never have seen the light of day before. Some could even become minor hits, although I imagine that this is more likely to happen to niche non-fiction books rather than to “Just Another Novel” by A.N. Other.
This is fine as far as it goes for self-publishing, but it could also show the way forward for more general book publishing in the future. For as long as people like me enjoy browsing in bookshops then I imagine there will always be a need for long print runs in order to fill up all those shelves in the stores; but on the face of it I can see no reason why a company like Amazon will in future need to hold any stock at all if technology is able to allow each book to be printed on demand as and when a customer orders it. In addition, theoretically no book need ever be out of print again, indeed the very term “out of print” could become an anachronism; just so long as they are held on file somewhere ready to be printed then all books, no matter how old or obscure, could be available whenever a potential customer wants to buy a copy.
But for me perhaps the best thing about Lulu is that this may be the best only way that the yellowed manuscript of my novel, currently gathering dust in my loft along with numerous rejection letters from literary agents, will ever get printed and bound and placed on a bookshelf; even if it is just a vanity copy squeezed into my own bookcase between Philip Roth and William Trevor.
there will always be a need for long print runs in order to fill up all those shelves in the storesWell, yes, but also to bring the unit costs down to levels that make book-buying something like an affordable hobby, no?
Perhaps, I don’t know. I mean, I can’t see there being anything to gain in hedging your bets on whether the next Harry Potter will take off, no point in waiting to see if anyone will request it to be printed on demand; better to print a gazillion and watch them fly off the shelves. On the other hand there may be many books that would be better printed as and when, rather than ordering a low marginal cost/high total cost print run, to warehouse them for a while and then either pulp or remainder the unsold copies.The interesting point for me is that Lulu’s prices are not really above the odds; I don’t know what their unit cost or mark-up is compared to other publishers but I imagine they intend to turn a profit. I also wonder what part technology has to play in all this. I’m presuming that one of the reasons publishing has traditionally relied on long print runs is because of the inflexibility of old fashioned typesetting, where a switch from printing one book to printing another was a time consuming, and so costly, operation. Nowadays, could it be possible to have “long print runs” which actually print a whole variety of different books, just like I could stack up jobs to keep my computer printer going non-stop right around the clock while it is actually printing different documents one after the other?That said, I don’t have any knowledge of the publishing industry, and for all I know it may well be cheaper to go the print-store-pulp route rather than to publish individually. I’m speculating, is all.
Well, I worked in house in editorial, sales and marketing for two publishers here and in the US for a few years and am now a publishing freelancer among other things…. so…. I’m by no means an expert on book production, though, but I picked one pbk. on Lulu at random and it was over 22 bucks for 157 pages. And that’s buying direct remember. To give you an idea: a decent print run for that type of book, page length/format etc., a few thousand copies, ought to come in well under 2 bucks a book unit cost IIRC. Add a reasonable markup and it’ll sell for 3 to the next link in the chain. Just-in-Time production is fine for niche stuff but due to the brute facts of manufacturing (it’s cheaper per unit to buy more paper, ship bigger numbers, and so on) it’ll never replace mass-marketing of books. What might is when e-books can be read without making your eyes hurt, which will cut out production altogether.
Fairly do’s, you obviously know far more about the practicalities of this sort of thing than I do, and I certainly don’t expect mass production to disappear. I suppose I am making a leap of the imagination, to some extent, wondering to what extent Lulu’s model could expand in the future. $22 for a 157-page book doesn’t sound great; I probably need to look into the small print a little more, although I think the real comparison would be to know what the actual cost per unit is for a single book from Lulu; no doubt their pricing structure is based to an extent on the fact that they know they can charge a vanity premium to the author of the book when they inevitably buy their own copy. I know that if I do go through Lulu for my novel I will happily pay way over the odds for my one copy, and that in my case at least demand will be pretty price inelastic.Another thing; you say that “it’s cheaper per unit to buy more paper, ship bigger numbers, and so on”, which I accept; but is there any reason why Lulu, or another similar publisher, need buy less paper overall? Is there any reason why they can’t buy their paper in bulk like a more traditional publisher would do and so reap that particular economy of scale? As for shipping costs, I was mainly thinking that this model could work for Amazon and other mail order companies, so actually cutting out the shipping costs between publisher and seller. Instead the book could just be posted straight to the customer from the printers. I know you probably just picked these two examples off the top of your head out of the many flaws you see in my expanding on the Lulu model, and I’m sorry if it seems like I just won’t be told, but I am just exploring the idea.Finally, what did that Lulu book look like when you got it? Did it look reasonably professional, or could I just as easily print my book off on my cheap HP printer and safe myself the time and bother?
I meant “save myself the time and bother”, obviously.
Finally, what did that Lulu book look like when you got it? Did it look reasonably professional, or could I just as easily print my book off on my cheap HP printer and safe myself the time and bother?I haven’t seen one but according to their site, it’s done in Perfect Binding which is reasonably professional.Is there any reason why they can’t buy their paper in bulk like a more traditional publisher would do and so reap that particular economy of scale?Well, they could but as they’re using far less, and more slowly, they then have to warehouse all that paper. And if they offer different printing formats/qualities, they have to stock different types of paper in different quantities, which requires they hire someone to do that, the overhead for which has to be spread over far fewer books than in a trad. publisher. And in any case, there’s huge overhead in actually setting up the printing press to print one book. Far better if you then press a button to “print x 10,000” than print one and have to set the thing up again (new format, say, with new pdfs or crc etc. etc.).Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying this is impossible, just likely to be expensive with little scope for slashing costs as technology becomes more efficient, as the big cost with books is the fact that you are actually making something. Have you tried some of those publishers that specialise in new authors (or the non-vanity type)? If you have questions, chuck me an email and I’ll ask around. Fiction isn’t an area I’ve evr worked in, but I can always make some calls. jarndyceATNOBLOODYSPAMPLEASEgmailDOTcom with the usual deletions…
Thanks for all your comments; this blog is mainly about me thinking aloud, and so being told that what I have said is wrong or at least naïve is as valuable as being told that you agree with something I have said, so thanks for your time.My tactic in getting published so far is to have been rejected by literary agents; perhaps I will try to get rejected directly by those publishers you refer to, cutting out the middleman. I really need to try harder and to make a concerted effort to send it to more agents and publishers than I have done to date; but to be honest the novel is about 6 years old now, and I could really do with doing a proper job of re-reading it and perhaps doing another draft, or just junking it. It’s finding the time that is the problem.Why NOBLOODYSPAMPLEASE? Don’t you like being deluged by emails for Viagra, Windows Office and “I apologise for the unconventional manner of this approach but could you send me US$n for a spurious reason”? What’s the matter with you?
Thanks for the link.I think the high price jarndyce mentioned was probably because the author set the royalty too high. I checked out their pricing template, and my 400-odd page book would cost about $13. That’s about the same as it costs me to have them printed by Blitzprint; but as I understand it, the price is the same with Lulu if I only order one copy. And since the customer can order it directly, it also cuts out the extra cost of S&H to my house. It definitely sounds worth looking into.
Thanks for your comment.I certainly thought the prices seemed pretty competitive when I looked and ran an example through their price calculator, but I guess until I go through the whole process and look into the royalties aspect I won’t really know. I’ll investigate further.