I’m actually kind of excited about CafePress getting into the print-on-demand business. Unlike other p-o-d companies like iUniverse (which charges at least $199 per book — and has a lame dot-com name anyway), CafePress charges no setup fees upfront, the same business model as with their t-shirts and mugs.
So as long as you’ve got software that generates PDFs (which includes anyone running OS X or anyone with a recent vintage Adobe product), you can publish short-run books at a reasonable (although not cheap) price. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of bloggers printing up their best posts. I might pull together a few collections of my better newspaper articles. Power to the people!
Comments
24 July | 11:00 | Alex
OpenOffice — a free alternative to MS Office — can also export to PDF. You can also use it to load Word files and export those to PDF. It’s available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX.
Post a comment
Joshua Benton is the director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, among other things. Before that, he was a staff writer and columnist for The Dallas Morning News. (More.)
Links
About | Archives | Contact | Writing | Photos | Links | Wish
RSS feeds 
Recently played tracks
- Songs: Ohia – Farewell Transmission
- Pulp – I Spy
- Pulp – Common People
- Pulp – Pencil Skirt
- Pulp – Mis-Shapes
- Afghan Whigs – Now You Know
- Afghan Whigs – My Curse
- Afghan Whigs – What Jail Is Like
- Afghan Whigs – Fountain And Fairfax
- Afghan Whigs – When We Two Parted
Archives
Search
Disclaimer
Any opinions expressed here are solely mine, and not those of my employer. In many cases, they may not even be mine.
Comment Preview
said: