Amazon Goes Lulu

I'm a big fan of Lulu.com, the self-publishing company, not least because the man behind it, Bob Young, also co-founded Red Hat, and is one of the most passionate defenders of the open source way I have come across.

So the news that CreateSpace is going into the on-demand publishing business is interesting - especially since the company is a subsidiary of Amazon, which means that self-published authors will be able to hitch a ride on the Amazon behemoth. But as far as I can tell, Lulu still offers a more thorough vision, with its global reach and finer-grained publishing options. But if nothing else, Amazon's entry into this space will serve to validate the whole idea in the eyes of doubters.