Bernadette Joolen: You've Gotta Love a Lulu...
An Article about Independent Publishing.
Copyright 1990 by Bernadette Maria Joolen.
All rights reserved.

There are many more writers in the world, writing beautiful works of every kind--fiction,
essay, poetry, biography--than can be published by the few publishing houses, large or
small, available, and by the few slots available within those houses for new published
works. Furthermore, the realities of the marketplace dictate that once a new work is
published, it must prove itself very quickly in order to keep its place in that marketplace.
Furthermore, it can take an author years, decades even, to secure such a place, with
journals, magazines, agents and publishing houses each receiving thousands of
submissions each year. So you can quickly see where a life would go.

But many of the most dedicated and enterprising writers pursue the publication of their
own works anyway. All of these famous authors have at one time published their own
works... D.H. Lawrence, Jane Austen, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Beatrix Potter,
Gertrude Stein, Upton Sinclair, Mark Twain, Virginia Wolff, e.e. cummings, Edgar Allen
Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Alexander Dumas...

With the exciting new technologies available today, this has become even more possible.  
Sites like Lulu.com and CreateSpace.com (on Amazon) offer writers the infrastructure to
develop and sell their own works.  They are, by and large, user-friendly sites that do
require some computer expertise, and definitely, a skill in your craft to create your
product, but they require NO money from the writer, and the writer remains the
publisher of the work. Simply, once the work is created and offered through the site, it is
printed on demand, only when a customer orders the work. The site then, takes care of
this printing, the financial aspect, and the mailing, and of course, takes a commission for
the service, while the author is free to pursue the writing of other works!

As an author who has spent many years of my life writing some very beautiful literature,
I am completely thrilled by these opportunities, and have discovered, furthermore, the
absolute joy of creating the physical product myself, and having a hand, ultimately, in
the marketing and promotion of my work, all of which are delightful creative pursuits all
their own.

A famous artist from my country, Vincent van Gogh, who died by and large
unrenumerated and uncelebrated, today has his face and his work on coffeemugs,
teeshirts, posters and calendars everywhere, while his paintings are sold for millions of
dollars.  Well, no one has to languish under a Vincent-van-Gogh complex anymore. (I
made that one up myself!) You can put your own name, or your own work, on a
coffeemug right now! Well, okay, if that's what you want. But more importantly, for
writers and artists of every kind, there are now ways to get your work out. Ways, as
Garrison Keillor would say it, to do the things that need to be done!!

On with it then.
Yours. ~b.

Postscript. I hope you will take the time to discover my beautiful books here. And then,
take the time to send me a comment and tell a friend!
.