Lulu was founded in 2002 to let independent authors self-publish their books. But, with the e-books market now taking off, self-publishing is a space rapidly being joined and redefined by larger outfits like Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and book publishers themselves.
So, at the World E-Reading Congress in London, Lulu CEO and founder Bob Young, who recently declared Lulu’s model “obsolete“, told me how he is changing emphasis…
“We started, as all startups do, with a huge manta of arrogance,” Young told the congress earlier. “The one thing I have learned is that publishers are really, really good at what they do, and they provide an amazing amount of value.
“What do we have to do? We have to go from being an open publisher to being an open publishing platform. It turns out we’re not good enough to be publishers.”