Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, July 5, 2005: Special Relativity from the Ground Up, by high school student and aspiring physicist Patrick Julius. The book is Patrick's stab at a layman's explanation of Einstein's theory of special relativity. The Associated Press wrote up the young man's ambitious effort in "Teen decodes Einstein in book on special relativity." How many kids can list a book on their college application? Impressive.
|
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, June 29, 2005:
the photography books of Mike Johnston, including The Empirical Photographer. Johnston also edits a photography newsletter called The 37th Frame. And yes, I have been bad about posting new storefronts of the day lately. On the other hand, the treehouse in the backyard is almost finished. |
The Empirical Photographer consists of collected essays and articles about photography previously published in magazines in the U.S. and England between 1984-2000. The author writes for various publications, and his column "The Sunday Morning Photographer" appears on the web on The Luminous Landscape, Steve's Digicams, and Photo.Net.
 |
Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, June 13, 2005: Isn't That Bigamy, by Mike Vogel (mentioned in an earlier post), reviewed today in the print-on-demand blog POD-dy Mouth. Reviews on this on-demand blog appear to be in-demand, so congratulations are in order to Mike. Good work. I'd love to see this book take off. See also: Boston.com / A&E / Books / Getting the word out POD-dy Mouth (girlondemand.blogspot.com), an anonymous published writer from Washington, DC, recently set a goal to read 50 Print On Demand (POD) ... |
There's an interview with Matthew Frederick Davis Hemming, aka Darth Vader (the blogger who pens The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster), aka Cheeseburger Brown, posted on Maurice's Blog About Technology and News (nice, search-engine-friendly title, eh?).
Cheeseburger Brown's illustrated story 17 Drawings gives us StoryZoo Studios, the Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, May 18, 2005.
Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, May 12, 2005: Extreme Democracy, "a collection of writings by leading thinkers about the Internet's impact on media and politics" edited by Jon Lebkowsky, CEO of Polycot and blogger.
Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, May 9, 2005: The James Taylor Encyclopedia, a publication of the folks behind the web site James Taylor Online.
[Could this be a spin-off of the mini-wave of Rick Springfield-related publishing on Lulu?]
| Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, May 5, 2005: The books of David Warlick, including Classroom Blogging: A Teacher's Guide to the Blogosphere. |
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, May 4, 2005: The erotic fiction of Han Li Thorn, which includes a novel called Zendyne that boasts an entertaining plot summary:
Lee is an up-and-coming designer of seductive love dolls, until the day his sexiest product yet goes murderously wrong. Sent to the crime scene to defuse a delicate situation, Lee finds that the rogue doll has been infiltrated by a mysterious, self-aware entity called Lilith who can’t seem to make her mind up whether she’s a silky-smooth seductress or a state-of-the-art assassination system. Within hours, Lee's encounter with Lilith has escalated into a life-or-death race with her creators, the shadowy and relentless Elect, and ultimately into a battle for the very stuff of his humanity — a battle in which his best hope of salvation turns out not to be human at all.
Lulu storefront of the day for Moday, April 18, 2005: Stok Software, Inc., provider of tele-communications software (and documentation printed on demand).
Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, April 15, 2005: San Francisco Stories, by Derek Powazek. Derek-- who is the co-editor of JPG Magazine and the founder of Fray, among other things--has republished his book of San Francisco stories through Lulu. HIs SFstories web site also features reader submitted stories set in SF, which happens to be one of my old haunts. I should really sit down and record a story or two for my own sake as that lively period recedes in the mirror. My best yarn from San Francisco is probably "The Tale of Two Kisses," various versions of which my running buddies have heard many times.
Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, April 14, 2005: Amazing Grace in a Chinese Laundry in the Deep South, by John Jung, a book about his "family, the only Chinese in Macon, Georgia, [who] survived operating a laundry for over 20 years during an era of staunch segregation before moving to San Francisco." Mr. Jung maintains a web site on this topic, although for reasons unclear to me it doesn't look as if he has linked it to his book yet. I hope I'm not jumping the gun by promoting it here. I used to know a Chinese American national account executive at the healthcare company where I used to work whose family had a similar story. She used to talk about writing a book herself. |
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, April 12, 2005: JPG Magazine, Issue 2: Lost. Great stuff. You can also check out the JPG Magazine community at Flickr.
Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, April 11, 2005: Donut Magazine, the inaugural issue of a periodical with the slogan, "creativity, broadly defined."
Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, April 8, 2005: Hairless Dog World, a new journal published by Jennifer Young, the founder and former director of the International Hedgehog Registry.
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, March 22, 2005: Andrew Dickman - Comics! Early Times, the product of Starfield Creations, which is to say of Mr. Dickman himself. He also has a blog.
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, March 16, 2005: Jules Verne's lost novel, The Underground City, unearthed by Lulu (via the efforts of yours truly). You can read the Lulu press release here, but the more interesting material is elsewhere, in this story from The Independent UK and this one from The Scotsman.
On an unrelated note, I look forward to reading the new book by Dean Karnazes, "Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner," written about in today's NYT: "A Runner's Quest for the Ache of Life." As some of you know, much of my spare time is spent residing on the lowest rungs of the ultramarathoning culture doing 50k's and long trail runs (as well as more conventional marathons). I especially appreciated Karnazes' assertion, in defense of this mad activity, "Dostoyevsky had it right: 'Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.' "
|
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, March 15, 2005: Barbara J. Matthews, author of Administering Oracle Applications Releases 10.7/11.0 (or, Herding Cats Made Easy) and other technical books, and publisher of a small cluster of genealogy books including Whispering Mountains: A History of Lewis, New York. |
As usual, the curious titles being published through Lulu fly past me at a speed beyond my ability to capture them here. Just to get a few out of my system while I'm thinking about it:
| Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, March 14, 2005: The PinBotz Guide to the Greatest Pinball Machines of the 80's and 90's, by Kevin Strasser. [the Pinbotz slogan: Art + Science = Pinball] |
| Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, March 11, 2005: Industrial HazMat Technician Level Training Manual by John Sherrill. There's not much of a storefront, really, but I do love the cover of this book. Looks like I do when emptying the cat litter box. |
[On an unrelated note, those interested in copyright reform should remember that the coming week brings the deadline for public comment on Orphan Works.]
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, March 9, 2005: Puritan Publications, publisher of A Simple Overview of Covenant Theology and The Two Wills of God, by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon.
 |
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, March 8, 2005: Immersive Gaming, home of This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming (First Digital Edition), by Dave Szulborski, a book which "promises to be a how-to resource for the casual game developer and media strategists wishing to explore the genre of alternate reality gaming (ARG), also called immersive gaming. " (from the press release) |
Lulu storefront of the day for Saturday, March 5, 2005: Malcontent Games, home of Rêve: the Dream Ouroboros, a role-playing game.
[And more from the Games category.]
Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, March 3, 2005: Lions' Commentary on UNIX.
This one is a bit of a mystery to me. There's no real storefront on Lulu, but the book is still available via various sellers on Amazon.com, and the publisher, Peer to Peer Communications, still maintains a web site (where, curiously, no link to the book on Lulu appears). The Lions Book also warrants its own Wikipedia entry. [Not to be confused with Lions' Commentary on Eunuchs.]
|
Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, March 3, 2005: Rangefinder Photography: 25 Photographers, One Passion--a book of photographs taken entirely using Rangefinder cameras, and published by the folks behind the Rangefinder Forum. |
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, March 2, 2005: Operation: Blogfest -- A Novel of Bloggers, Terrorism, Love and Loyalty, by Lila Meyer (Mamamontezz). Interesting.
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, March 1, 2005: Hitherby Dragons: Primal Chaos, collected stories and columns by Rebecca Borgstrom, who is also the creator of a role-playing game called Nobilis.
[I posted a week or so ago about a growing number of RPG books on Lulu.]
Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, February 25, 2005: Lockett Books, from Brian Lockett of Air-and-Space.com, home of the Galeta Space Museum. It's a bit late for me to be posting about calendars, but I've been meaning to make this the storefront of the day for some time. My father will appreciate this one.
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, February 23, 2005: The Wildlife Habitat Journal
 |
The Wildlife Habitat Journal - Restoring and Exploring Wildlife Habitat in Your Own Backyard by Betsy S. Franz [also in the books-to-prepare-for-spring category: Venomous Snakes Of The Southeast, by Chad Minter] |
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, February 22, 2005: The Dark Side of River Heights: observations of the untold and the unflattering, by Renee Walker.
"Begin your own investigation of the untold and unsavory secrets in the world of Nancy Drew!"
Who would have guessed? And The Tampa Tribune ran a story on it today, too: "Sleuthing the Sleuth," by Ronnie Blair.
Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, February 17, 2005: The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship, "an international organization devoted to the scholarly study of the invented languages of J.R.R. Tolkien," and publishers of the journal Vinyar Tengwar.
[I have a great job, don't I?]
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, February 16, 2005: The art of Eric Moore, author of the graphic novel Gothic Rose: Origins. [While "erotic graphic novel" seems unlikely to take off as a marketing phrase, this is nevertheless an interesting enterprise.]
Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, February 14, 2005: Jimmy's Letters: The Correspondence of an American WWII Fighter Pilot , by Elizabeth Badenhausen
 |
 |
Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, February 7, 2005: Cinematography Mailing List: The Books. The publisher of a reference and discussion web site for cinematographers appears to have taken some of the conversations from his web site over the last few years and turned them into reference books. Well done.
On another note, I ran across an eclectic public domain e-book site today, xooqi.com, which includes Slips of Speech, by John Bechtel (1895).
Taste is a universal gift. It has been found in some degree in all nations, races, and ages. It is shown by the savage in his love of personal decoration; by the civilized man in his love of art.
But while it is thus universal, it is as different among men as their faces, complexions, characters, or languages. Even among people of the same nation, it is as different as the degrees of society. The same individual at different periods of life, shows this variableness of taste.
These diversities of taste imply a susceptibility to improvement. Good taste in writing forms no exception to the rule. While it seems to require some basis in nature, no degree of inborn aptitude will compensate for the lack of careful training.
To give his natural taste firmness and fineness a writer needs to read the best literature, not merely so as to know it, but so as to feel the beauty, the fitness, the charm, the strength, the delicacy of a well-chosen word.
For some odd reason the publisher appears to be using CafePress for print fulfillment rather than Lulu. There's no accounting for taste. [not that I don't think CafePress is great--they are--just not as good for books as Lulu. Which reminds me, if you're not familiar with it already, you should check out Zazzle.]
Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, February 4, 2005: Spiderworks--"quality eBooks" from the likes of Danny Goodman, author of Danny Goodman's AppleScript Handbook (Mac OS X Edition).
I have been derelict in posting the Lulu storefront of the day lately, but not by any means as a result of any slowdown in the amount of interesting content being published through the site. Quite the contrary--there are more books than ever before finding their way into the market through our little portal into the great publishing id.
We've been busy the past week at Lulu engaged in the interminable haggling that constitutes evolution in companies like ours that are built on new ideas. We call our annual debate a strategic retreat, but in some ways it's a more brutal exercise than you would expect. Large ideas are cast up onto the screen by the bright bulb of individual ambitions only to flicker and wilt as the theater doors are cast open and the audience forced to try to reproduce the story in the harsh glare of real life. This is the third such retreat we have engaged in at Lulu (three years!) and I am perhaps more cynical than I should be. Let there be no doubt, however, that our anything-but-humble little enterprise is growing.
Having opened this door a bit, I should also add at least something about our plans. My personal favorite, of all the schemes in the making, is the addition to Lulu of the tagging system known (oddly) as del.icio.us, also recently adopted by Technorati. This represents one version of the type of social categorization system also known as folksonomies. Stephen Downes recently poo-poohed this particular technology in the OLDaily newsletter, but I am hoping it will provide a way into the vast amount of Lulu content that currently is virtually unreachable through browsing. See Michael Feldstein's "Abandoning Taxonomies is the first ingredient of success."
[added on Sunday, Chris Anderson on why social tagging systems might not work.]
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday January 26, 2005: Packet Press, publisher of Network Security Using Linux, by Michael Sweeney. Sweeney is also the owner of PacketAttack.com.
Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, January 21, 2005: The Sum of Memory, short stories by Daniel Verastiqui. This author has put together a simple, but effective, site to market his book.
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, January 18, 2005: LiveModel Books, providing "over 170 high quality, accurate, detailed photographs of male and female nudes in full color- presented in interesting poses from a variety of angles suitable for drawing, painting, sculpture and other arts."
Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, January 17, 2005: Patrick O'Conner's The New Management of Engineering.
| After waiting a couple of extra months for the inaugural issue, it gives me great pleasure to introduce JPG Magazine as the Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, January 13, 2005. I have seen the first hard copy of this full-color photo magazine and it is the finest application of Lulu's on demand color publishing that I have seen. Really lovely photography and layout--edited by Heather Champ and Derek Powazek, a talented duo in San Francisco. The economics of publishing an on-demand color magazine will be difficult, but I am pleased as I can be to have them using Lulu for the time being. |  |
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, January 12, 2005: Rumored.com, home of the novels of John Konrath.
| Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, January 11, 2005: Cancun User's Guide, by Jules Siegal (and family). Interesting author and it looks like a terrific travel book. |  |
| Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, January 6, 2005: Chugworth Academy, publisher of Chugworth Academy: All Aboard the Mentalist Train . In related news, the comic site Newsorama recently published a story comparing Lulu and another publishing outlet called ComixPress as vehicles for self-publishing comics. |
 |
After an absence of several weeks, I'd like to reintroduce the Lulu storefront of the day.
Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, January 3, 2005: Pornnomore.com, source for of Clean of Heart: Overcoming Habitual Sins against Purity by Rosemarie Scott.
Happy new year, by the way.
Lulu storefronts of the day for Thursday, December 16, 2004: Unique gift ideas--books you won't find anywhere else. In the interest of coming up with a little something for everyone, here are a few unique gift ideas for the booklover in your life, all fruits of the Lulu marketplace for independently published books (& such):
 |
Cooking with a Serial Killer: Recipes From Dorothea Puente DORTHEA PUENTE has been accused of a lot of things... being a bad cook isn't one of them. |
| Hunting Decoys 2005 by Tom Matus |  |
 |
Vagabond Globetrotting 3: The Electronic Traveler in the New Millennium by M. L. Endicott The definitive how-to book for world travel. |
Female Domination by Elise Sutton Elise Sutton examines the prevalent male desire to be dominated by a woman. |
 |
 |
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams Caroline finds no meaning in this life of purposeless ease, and forgets her emptiness only in moments of violent and profane exhibitionism. |
Hardball Times Baseball Annual by Hardball Times A complete review of the 2004 baseball season, as seen through the eyes of an online baseball magazine called The Hardball Times. |
 |
 |
Almost a Year with Stereolabrat by Stereolabrat The rantings of the LiveJournal phenom Stereolabrat. . |
toycamera calendar by toycamera.com A collection of twenty-four toycamera photographs, favorites from toycamera.com in the last year. |
 |
Lulu storefront of the day: Redbird Nation, 248 pages of the ups and downs of the last two St. Louis Cardinals seasons by Brian Gunn, the author of the blog called Redbird Nation.
Obviously this was a book idea inspired by the brilliant Hardball Times Baseball Annual, but the general concept of turning a blog into a book is one that I continue to hope will take off. A lot of people --not me, mind you-- spend an enormous amount of time writing for their blogs and much of that writing is as worth preserving as letters might be, or journal writing, or other casual forms.
Even if it's only an author preserving the intellectual labors of his youth for his grandchildren, there may well be a demand for paper copies of work published on the web. To that end, software developer Fabrice Gadaud developed LJBook, an application that turns LiveJournal blogs into reasonably well-typeset books.
Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, December 9, 2005: Crossing An Ocean Under Power, by Ken Williams
 |
Crossing an Ocean Under Power Crossing an Ocean Under Power follows a retired software entrepreneur and his computer game designer wife, as they cross the Atlantic on their 62’ trawler. Although sailors have been crossing oceans for hundreds of years, the era of couples cruising the world in small powerboats is just beginning. |
| As the book begins, Mr. Williams frankly admits to serious doubts about his boating skills. Mr. Williams chronicles his journey across the Atlantic, as well as his personal journey from “coastal cruiser” to “ocean crosser”. Along the way, we learn with him. Sans Souci, his boat, made the trip as part of the historic first Atlantic Power Boat rally (18 small power boats, averaging only 50 feet long, owned and captained mostly by retired couples.) Best described as a “Dummy’s Guide to Crossing Oceans”, Mr. Williams’ honest, and entertaining, style will keep you turning pages as you take this important step in readying yourself for your own long-distance cruising. | |
Lulu storefront of the day for Monday, December 6, 2004: The erotic historical tales of Raven Breddelwyn.
Lulu storefront of the day for Sunday, December 5, 2004: Marie Winslow's Practical Manager's Guide to Open Source.
Lulu storefront of the day for Saturday, December 4, 2004: The photography of Luke Bosomworth, which includes a lovely calendar of Scotland.
Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, December 3, 2004: Aaron Santee's Saxophone Store.
Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, December 2, 2004: Gods & Monsters, "a fantasy game of high adventure and magic. Journey with a band of intrepid adventurers deep into uncharted territory. Solve intricate puzzles, fight strange creatures, and wield arcane power in a fantastic story of your design." See also, the official Gods & Monsters site.
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, December 1, 2004: Aikido Terminology
 |
An Essential Reference Tool In Both English and Japanese by Michael Taylor |
| More martial arts titles on Lulu... | |
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, November 30, 2004: Zem Books, home of the works of Indiana author/spiritualist medium Tom Baker.
Zem Books is dedicated to making available both the fiction and non-fiction works of Mr. Baker, as well as re-printing editions of obscure, antique volumes concerning spiritualism, paranormal phenomenon, UFOS, folklore, mysteries, and classic "gothic" and early science fiction works.
Lulu storefront (and web site) of the day for Monday, November 29, 2004: Toycamera.com. What a cool site--dedicated to photography produced by plastic cameras: "They're cheap, maddening, fascinating plastic pieces of crap. Many people hate them, they think they're junk, worthless, a waste of time. But we love them." The folks at toycamera.com have just published a calendar through Lulu.
On a related note, I just published a calendar yesterday for my father: The Art of Neil Fraser: 2005. If you're planning to make calendars as holiday presents, better get cracking. The $2 discount will disappear on December 1st, and shipping deadlines are looming as well.
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, November 23, 2004: Yesterday's Classics, a creative project that takes advantage of various public domain texts. Judging by the number of books still (as of this posting) in the proofing stage, the publisher has ambitious plans but remains in the early stages of developing his (her?) storefront.
Lulu storefront of the day for Saturday, November 20, 2004: Voices from Beyond, books by Isaac Nwokogba.
Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, November 19, 2004: Chief Cook & Bottle-Washer: The Unconquerable Soul Of Wilkie Clark, a biography of Wilkie Clark of Randolph County, Alabama, written by his daughter Charlotte A. Clark-Frieson.
On another note altogether, I'm off to Philadelphia today to run the Philadelphia Marathon on Sunday. Wish me luck.
Lulu storefront of the day for Thursday, November 18, 2004: Mark Knebusch, author of Fierce When Roused.
Described only as "a novel of the Scottish wars of independence," the author has not yet posted a preview, so I can't tell much about the book. Nevertheless, I'm going to go out on a limb (based, in part, on what appear to be the author's ample credentials) and give this one a thumbs up.
Worthy of mention, too, is the recently published Dream of Cassandra: A Phone Sex Story by Cassandra Winters.
Lulu storefront of the day for Friday, November 12, 2004: Paul Proux, expert in prehistoric languages.
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, November 10, 2004: A Guide to Afternoon Tea in Britain's Finest Hotels
Lulu storefront of the day for Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004: The Hardball Times Baseball Annual, courtesy of The Hardball Times. This looks to be a Lulu bestseller in the making. Just in time for Christmas.
|
Lulu storefront of the day for Wednesday, November 3, 2004: Light Keeper Photography I thought I'd post a calendar storefront for a change. Looks like good work. |
