Hmmm...

[cleolinda]

Holy shit, I had no idea that you could sell/publish books through CafePress. Where have I been? I have a damn store for the Digest!

The attraction of CafePress in all areas of merchandising, of course, is that they never require funds up front to do anything. And obviously this isn't the same as getting a book published with a real house (see also: "Thou shalt not boast to thy Cleo that poetry.com hast 'published' thy work and expect thy Cleo to fall down with admiration"), but it would be a great way to get your work out to friends and friends-of-friends and so on. You've heard of starving writers selling self-published books out of the trunks of their cars? This is that. Only with no money up front. I like. I'm not in any position to throw together a pdf file right now or anything, but with some revision, I could see putting Black Ribbon out in single-chapter installments with the material from the website, or in a single-volume version... seriously, once this becomes more feasible, I will definitely run a few polls to gauge interest levels. Which, hell, might be nil. But the possibilities are exciting.

Comments

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

CafePress is pretty exciting. I liked it better when they sold panties, though. I had had some cute ones done up.

There was some controversy a while back about laws on their site, and whether they meant that CP "owned" whatever logos and information people were putting onto things.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yarrr... I remember that now. That is not of the cool.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Ahhh--I double-checked. (http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/help/memberagreement.aspx) They own all rights to the CafePress service, and just because you sell things through them doesn't mean you get any of their rights, etc. You keep all the rights to YOUR stuff:

You will retain all rights to your Member Content. You hereby grant to CafePress.com a royalty-free, worldwide, nonexclusive, right and license to use your Member Content in connection with the advertising, promotion, production and sale of the Products you choose to sell in accordance with this Agreement. You grant CafePress.com permission to reproduce your Member Content in CafePress.com marketing and advertising, provided CafePress.com credits you as actual owner of the Member Content. CafePress.com will not represent that it owns your Member Content. If you or CafePress.com terminate your account, CafePress.com will cease its use of your Member Content as soon as reasonably practical.

Whew.

[edda.livejournal.com]

I am chronically broke, but might spring for this anyway. Awesome-ass idea, methinks.

You still got those "Frodo Is My Babydaddy" t-shirts? Just wondered.

[disgruntledjenn.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, I so did not know till now Cafe Press did that either. I've been writing stuff for YEARS and have wanted it to be published SOMEPLACE. Thanks for posting the info!

[idan-cohen.livejournal.com]

Are you denigrating poetry.com? Are you denigrating poetry.com? (I was 'published' there thrice. And one of them was a avant-garde poem titled 'Boogie booga biiil'.)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I do! I'm going to restructure my store, though, so I don't have to pay the premium charge ($5) every month. I mean, yeah, it means you have a separate store for every little thing, but--dude, that's $60 a year I don't have.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hey, I got taken in by those National Library of Poetry people to the tune of $50 something. At least your fake publisher was free.