Wondrous things in the CyberWorld leave Keegan scratching head

Curiouser and curiouser. Anyone who's "in the pipeline" knows that when you whack a book onto Amazon, you can either go with an outside printshop -- like Lulu.com, if you're in a "foreign" country (few other print on demand companies will work with us "foreigners" ... for instance, forget about Lightning Source and Booklocker) -- or you can go through Amazon's wholly owned subsidiary, CreateSpace, and the road to Amazon, though long and soporific, is also automatic.

So far, so good: here's where the plot thickens. And I'll tell you, you could stand a spoon up in this one!

If you use Lulu.com as your printer, you pay a very hefty whack of cash to get a global distribution package for your title, which gets you onto the Big A. It costs about A$140 (US$100) for this service -- which I never optioned, because I have no need of it, and (!!) because in any case it's only available to writers residing in the USA! Being downunder, I always curled my lip at this as yet another door closed in the face of "foreigners" ... even though I admit, it didn't want to go through it in any case. Ahem. (Suppose I'd wanted to.)

So, there is no way in any world that one of my books could show up on Amazon as PUBLISHED by DreamCraft, and SOLD by Lulu, right?

You'd think so. But something weird is going on -- click this image to get the full-size, readable one, and notice where it says, Seller: LULU PRESS.



And meanwhile, here's the listing from lower down the page in the details:

No mistake there. Published by DreamCraft.

Does anyone have the slightest inkling as to what what's going on? Lulu (the printer!) is out there selling at least one of my books, which is something that isn't supposed to happen, can't happen, couldn't happen until the day arrived when Satan skated to work --

Anyone looked outside lately?

As I began: curiouser and curiouser. Not that I'm complaining ... so long as I get paid, if they want to get on the stick and sell copies for me -- kids, go for it!

In fact, let's give them a little help. If you've been wanting the classic second edition cover but didn't want to order from Lulu direct, well, order from Amazon and Lulu can ship it (which is exactly what they'd do if you ordered from Lulu direct!

Here you go:

And speaking of things Amazon, take a squizz at this:
http://seattlest.com/2008/06/18/amazons_vanishing_buy_buttons.php

Goog golly.

Cheers,

MK