Gadgetopia

Do-it-yourself book publishing takes off on the Web: Good article about the phenomenon of on-demand book printing, which is the Next Big Thing in book publishing. We’ve talked this before, both with the Internet Bookmobile, and with Packt Publishing, who prints all their books on-demand.

Instead, the Seattle residents — who wanted their book in readers’ hands before the November presidential vote — uploaded their completed manuscript to a North Carolina-based Internet company called Lulu.com.

Within minutes, the book was available for sale online. Each time a purchase is made, a printer in Rochester, N.Y., makes an individual copy that is shipped to the buyer, typically in 24 hours or less. The royalties are split automatically among the Yockeys, Lulu and the printer, ColorCentric.