How Long Can You Have Without Knowing

Lulu is a book for all with the open source philosophy The site prints only the copies that are sold by RICCARDO WET

if nine books on ten are rejected by publishers, not necessarily because they are poorly written, but simply because they have no market. It is convinced Bob Young, co-founder of Red Hat, the most famous open source companies in the world, visiting Italy to launch his latest creation: Lulu.com. Born four years ago, the site has arrived in Italy this week and promises to give the opportunity for anyone to publish, promote and sell their pictures, music CDs, films, pamphlets, essays, or collections of poetry.

Just sign up, follow the instructions, define title, edition, format, author, cover and price, load the text, and you're done. You can decide making it to sell it to download a PDF copy, or put on sale only in print, CD or DVD.

In this case, received the order and Lulu. com will take care of it printed in Spain or England and delivered to the customer. It's called print-on-demand, or print-on-demand. Lulu.com print only the copies that are sold. There is a fixed price for production costs ranging from 5 to 10 euro and a fee equal to 20% on royalties. At the heart of the policy of Lulu.com is the writer's work. The author decides the price by increasing or decreasing the rights, but no longer has to deal with the publisher, only with the market and then the readers.

But is it really that simple? Who guarantees the quality of the books? And why Lulu is in Italy only four years after its birth? To find the answers to these questions and others we met Bob Young in Milan. Smiling, red hat on his head, but this time baseball, the magician of open source is about Adam Smith and Karl Marx as if he were speaking of the outcome of a baseball game at the bar, his experience as CEO of Red Hat and why has abandoned one of the most promising software companies in the world completely devoted to Lulu.

'It is true, "says Young," we were born four years ago, but could not land in Europe without first to develop standards for all services offer a good service. The printing, calculation of VAT, are all steps required for the simplicity of which we speak is real. "

"On the other hand, we are convinced that Europe's success will be even greater than Lulu United States. Just look at the success of the mobile phone in your continent. "What?" Yes. To get a landline the time and cost of the fee was too high compared to the benefits. Before the United States, where telephone networks were less costly and more efficient, here in Europe, the mobile phone has appeared as a solution to many inefficiencies and delays. If a person has to wait 20 or 30 days to get a landline, you might as well buy the cell phone, plus the convenience of having it all by itself, can be purchased immediately. So is Lulu. To publish a book passing years, and often not even enough. We offer everyone the opportunity to do so immediately and to maintain total control over their copyrights by offering a parallel market, much bigger than what they can offer the traditional publishers. "

you competitors? Or do you have some partnerships with sites like Amazon or traditional publishers? "of competitors there are, but in most cases offer a similar service, but for a fee, while Lulu is completely free. As for the publishers or Amazon, their model is opposite to ours, rather than seek their partnership, we expect that sooner or later they ask for a partnership with us, or simply start to use our platform to publish and sell online.

Lulu could be particularly interesting for the University, have anything to do with them? " Yes, although actually the University environments are traditionally conservative and still can not understand the benefits of a publishing system like Lulu. On the other hand, if universities do not understand, I understood perfectly the students who publish their essays or their searches.

Lulu is a provider of print-on-demand books with the greatest growth in the world, about 55,000 titles available and presented more than 1,500 new titles each week. How can you ensure a quality content with an increase to, and no filter?

"You see, a traditional publisher is happy if he manages to have 10 best-selling book a year. But we aim to give the chance for everyone to publish. The earnings will be lower than in isolation, but significant on large numbers. which in turn is a concept that I leave it to market, to the readers. We are not publishers, we offer a service where we put the author at the center, as well as taught me the open source world I come from, if the author earn, we earn ".

( October 3, 2006 .) Source: www.repubblica.it