Lulu.com, the premier marketplace for digital content on the Internet, is partnering with the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to showcase new creative endeavors launched through the ETC Press, a new academic publishing imprint. With Lulu.com, ETC Press has flexibility in publishing without the limitations encountered by traditional publishing.
ETC Press is an innovative experiment into the future of publication, and as such, authors and contributors who publish through ETC Press will retain ownership of their intellectual property. All ETC Press publications will be released under a Creative Commons license, and will also have associated websites to encourage and enable a community of collaborative authorship and discussion. ETC Press also has an agreement with the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) to place ETC Press publications in the ACM Digital Library.
"ETC doesn't just want to make a book. They want to open a dialog," says Rob Katz, Senior Vice President of Sales and Communications. "And with the options Lulu offers, like print-on-demand technology, texts available in print and download format, and multi-platform accessibility, ETC can accomplish just that."
ETC will be able to take advantage of Lulu's global marketing resources and network of international printers to foster discussions that span the world. "We believe this is the future of publication," says Drew Davidson, Director of the ETC in Pittsburgh and Editor of ETC Press. "Partnering with Lulu.com enables ETC Press to publish across multiple media and publish multiple additions, exploring what constitutes reading and writing."
Lulu and ETC Press are having a beta launch with two books -- stories in between: narratives and mediums @ play and Beyond Fun: Serious Games and Media -- and there are several other projects in development as well. For more information, visit: http://etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/
