In the last few weeks, it has come to light that Lulu, a self-publishing platform at times berated in the indie community for partnering with Author Solutions, has created a separate platform for self-publishing academic authors: Glasstree Academic Publishing. [Editor’s note: Lulu’s academic publishing arm no longer seems to be branded as Glasstree.]
We’ve confirmed with Glasstree’s management that it has no connections with Author Solutions (and that Lulu’s connections with the vanity press continue). Instead, Glasstree is using MPS, an India-owned company with offices in North Carolina, where Glasstree is headquartered. Nevertheless, we question how much call there is for academic self-publishing. Lulu’s rationale for establishing a platform for academics is, managers say, that academic writers have used the Lulu platform for many years for this purpose.
Obviously, a scholar can be turned down by his or her own university press and others, just as commercial authors can be turned down in efforts to find trade publishing. But how much actual traffic this might produce in terms of supporting an academic-specific platform remains to be seen. Glasstree reflects the 70 percent royalty plan of most platforms, and it offers all formats from ebook to hardback, while mixing in some academic-specific elements, such as peer review and options in open access.
Bottom line: There’s a long-running group of services for academics working in monographs and article formats. Research Square and its American Journal Experts (also in North Carolina) provide discipline-specific editors for scholarly papers, for example. But as far as we know, Glasstree is an anomaly in offering full-book self-publishing for the academic sector. You can read an account of a debate on this with Glasstree and Lulu speakers from London Book Fair here, if you’re interested, and news of the UK’s Cambridge University Press partnering with American Journal Experts to offer article editing here.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
