A reader calls our attention to a story on the Time website from last week about a new twist in self-publishing from a company called Blurb, which offers free downloadable software that allows users to design “bookstore-quality” books, even with color photography. If the software’s free, how do they make their money? Printing, that’s how: A basic book of 20 to 40 pages will run you $18.95, with 440-page tomes costing $69.95 apiece. (And, as always, I’m impressed that the company has the chutzpah to charge $14.95 for what amounts to a promotional brochure—though in fairness they also offer it as a free PDF file.)
And, fine, fine, we’ll concede the point that self-publishing is no longer unrespectable; in fact, as I’ve said on numerous occasions, the existence of companies like Blurb, iUniverse, and Lulu.com means that all those writers “too radical for the New York establishment” no longer have any excuse for bitching about how they’ll never get published. Still, I’m curious: Could Time possibly be right in calling self-publishing “the only real success story in an otherwise depressed industry,” and if so, where does that leave the rest of us?