Friday, February 29, 2008

Borders Personal Publishing -- Dusk Peterson

Emily Veinglory wrote here on February 17 about a partnership between Borders bookstore and self-publishing service Lulu.

I've had a look at information on the partnership, particularly the FAQ, and it looks as though Borders is simply setting itself up as a subsidy publisher. In other words, it's the middleman between the author and Lulu, while Lulu in turn is the middleman between Borders and Lightning Source, which actually prints the books.

This strikes me as being no different (other than in its level of complexity) than the deal between iUniverse and Barnes & Noble, which people report is meaningless in terms of greater distribution than with, say, Lulu's regular distribution program. However, I've noticed that subsidy-press authors have a somewhat better chance of being regarded as "previously published authors" than self-published authors.

Dusk Peterson writes fantasy stories on friendship, gay historical fantasy tales, and contemporary gay fiction. Occasionally, a heterosexual love story will appear as well. Peterson's stories are often placed in dark settings, such as prisons or wartime locations. Romance and friendship, especially male friendship, are recurring themes.

1 comment:

veinglory said...

It does seem much ado about nothing to me....