Ceallaigh's Blog
Revised for accuracy on October 20, 2011.
So, I read my last blog post to my genius engineer husband, who had something of an epiphany when I finished.
Genius Engineer Husband: Can you revise the projects you have on the Lulu.com site?
Me: I think so.
Genius Engineer Husband: Why don't you replace the contents of those projects with your blog entries?
I'm prefacing this longish post with something of a longish apologia. You see, I'm somewhat embarrassed to be seen with Lulu.com in the same way one might be embarrassed to be seen with a high school bully at the prom. I feel an almost reflexive need to explain that we didn't arrive together, that I'm not Lulu.com's date or anything and the only reason I was talking to the company at all is because its mother sells Tupperware and one of my aunt's Wonderlier bowl lids melted in the dishwasher.
Yes, the company's services have their place, but as a writer building a career in traditional publishing with a bouncing baby novel on the way, it's somewhat important to me that readers of these posts understand my use of those services was for the creation of private keepsakes only. Vanity publishers like Lulu.com are stigmatized for good reasons; they're predatory, and they set unrealistic expectations about the potential for self-published books.
Several years ago, I printed two books for myself via Lulu.com. They were mementos of my early writing, intended for me alone, and I made sure they were private. Today, as part of a personal data sweep and planning session, I checked in with Lulu.com and found they had both been made public and were both for sale on the web site. Not only that, an 'author' page had been created for me (I need a Lulu.com 'author' page like I need to be shot in the foot), and the books were listed on it.
Naturally, I made the documents private again and even tried to delete them. But Lulu.com won't let me delete the completed projects or the files they were created from. I can't find a customer support phone number anywhere on the site, and I've read through various web searches that the company doesn't answer e-mail inquiries (though I do intend to try e-mailing customer support this evening).
I've completed the "Things to Read" side bar on the front page of my web site, which links to a selection of poems and stories you can either read online for free or buy in digital edition back issues of the magazines they appeared in. I had originally intended to re-publish some of my printed stories through Kindle and other venues, but I think I'd rather point you to the original publications where I can. The digital editions aren't very expensive, the work in them is beautifully-presented and if you buy one, you'll get the whole issue to read.
I've listed all the poetry I've published online but only a few of the stories available in PDF. Of the poetry I've listed, I like the Strange Horizons poems best, and of the stories, I like The Longest Road in the Universe best. So if you're interested in browsing just a few pieces, you might start there.
You can find the whole list at: csmaccath.com.
I've uploaded my rebooted web site to our server, and it's accessible now at csmaccath.com. Please note that it's not quite finished yet, but I wanted to close my Flickr account today and point folks to my own image galleries, so I jumped the gun a bit and finished all but one or two things this afternoon. Here's what's changed:
Miscellany
For the most part, this reboot takes the long-running, somewhat personal site I had and turns it into a professional web site for my writing career. There's more information about the Petals of the Twenty Thousand Blossom series, the theme has changed, the menus have changed, my social networking links are more prominent and I've provided a site map so folks can find the old content I don't link to anymore.