ReadWriteWeb

Have you every wanted to run your own magazine, but never had enough money or a large enough audience to make it worthwhile? Well, if there's one thing that the self-publishing industry can cater to, it's the long tail. Now, thanks to a startup called MagCloud, even the smallest of ventures can produce their own, professional, full-color magazine and without the costs normally associated with hiring traditional publishing companies.

A new service from HP's IdeaLab is HP BookPrep, a print-on-demand service. With BookPrep, consumers can order any book, whether current or out-of-print, and have it prepared for them as a print-ready PDF eMaster file. What's more, the HP technologies used in the imaging process can restore older, damaged copies of books back to their original form.

Last July, while the seventh Harry Potter book was setting sales records, we wrote a post detailing how to write and publish a book from start to finish. At the time, Lulu was easily the best self-service print on demand option available to fledgling authors. With limited fees, a thriving community, and distribution options that made it easy (relatively speaking) to get your book on store shelves, it was a no-brainer for many writers. Since that time, though, things have changed, and the burgeoning print on demand industry is starting to come into its own.