This is a piece of news that can have a pretty wide impact in publishing. From the press release:
Lulu, the open publishing pioneer, today announced that it has opened its platform to developers, giving them direct access to its publishing engine and creating new opportunity for publishing innovation.
The Lulu Publication API lets individuals, publishers, businesses and other organizations create a new breed of Web application enabling on-demand publishing through Lulu, marketed under their own brand names. Using the API, a software company, for example, could instantly publish hundreds of manuals and gain worldwide distribution. Or a publisher could build and host a branded application letting independent authors publish and distribute under a new imprint.
“Two words define Lulu: open innovation,” said Harish Abbott, Chief Product Officer of Lulu. “We have built an open publishing platform agnostic to both the type of content creator and the type of content created. We can’t wait to see the kinds of applications our ecosystem of innovators develop using the Lulu publishing engine.”
