PluggedIn: Web offers a marketplace for budding Hemingways

By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The marketplace for bad poetry, purple prose and the occasional artistic treasure has never been so vibrant, thanks to Web sites that let budding Hemingways, Plaths and Steichens reach their tiny yet adoring publics.

Bad experiences with the mainstream publishing, filmmaking and recording industries led entrepreneurs to launch the self-publishing sites Blurb.com, CreateSpace.com and Lulu.com in hopes of sparing other artists the agony of rejection.

Less than 20 bucks, and a couple of hours online, gets users a softcover copy of their memoirs, cookbook, photo album or Great American Novel, and lets them offer their literary progeny for sale worldwide. Prices increase with the number of pages and options for color and hardcovers.

LULU.COM

Dictionary.com defines a "lulu" as "any remarkable or outstanding person or thing", and Bob Young felt he had just that when he started Lulu.com in 2003.

Young, co-founder and former CEO of Linux distributor Red Hat Inc, had been searching for a second act when a bad experience with his memoir opened a new entrepreneurial path.

The book, "Under the Radar," sold about 20,000 copies, but netted Young just $2,311 after costs were deducted.

Realizing that authors with small audiences probably failed to get published at all, Young set out to help bring those works to the ultimate marketplace -- the Web.