Anyone know this alternative POD publisher?

Hello benziger - I keep humming that old Doris Day song ... the silly old ram keeps butting that dam ... that's funny, but there comes a time in every ole girl's life when she has to simply walk away and not turn back. I still have my private cookbook up (but its private), so will keep the account open, as I said.

Occasionally, during ad-breaks on TV I'll open the laptop next to me on the sofa, and just out of curiosity, check on things in Lulu-Land (which at present could be termed 'Lala-Land'). This entire episode with Lulu is one big wake-up call about how to keep digital art/works alive when someone pulls the plug.

An oil painting is physical - it may be burnt, like books can be burnt, but the chance of a physical presence enduring through the ages is far greater than that of a digital presence. Electricity supply, server maintenance, national sovereignty issues (for example, servers in Switzerland cannot be forced to hand over data to a foreign entity, like the US for reasons of war on terrorism, which means those digital data are safe, especially if they're end to end encrypted) - all amounts to one thing: digital stuff can only be viewed, not touched, not smelled; at least with vinyl, that music has a physical presence, downloadable music does not. Digital works only exist because someone somewhere thinks it is a good idea to facilitate storage and distribution of either digital or physical copies of that work, but if they chuck a wobbly, that work is gone if no one has 100 copies, for example, on a shelf in a store room.

For that reason did I create those huge photo books - they contain my (to me) most valuable digital works (they are on Redbubble - Redbubble will can the account if the account holder dies - Lulu will hand over (or once assured me they would) the account with the books to the heir of the holder of the account). Hence those photo books. I did have the presence of mind to spend the money and order one copy of each of those photo books - my digital art made physical. And I actually sold a couple of them via Lulu (hooray).

Even if I can recover the PDFs, they again are only a digital copy of my art, not a physical one. I would have to find a place to which I can upload the 12inch x 12inch giants, full colour hard cover, and available to purchase. As it is now, all of my digital art contained in those photo books still exists on Redbubble (strewn here there and everywhere, of course, available in various merchandise options - but where do I store 7000 mugs, for example?)

There is a thing called copyright (what happens now with those books? At whose mercy are they?) and there is a thing called intellectual property right, as well as moral right, and the right to be recognized as the creator of those works. Do Lulu et al not have the obligation to keep safe those works with which the artists entrusted them? In whose hands will the files end up? ...... that brings me to that ram butting the dam - when does wasting one's precious time on spilt milk become futile?

Well at least this forum doesn't text me a one-time password each time - and I then have to hunt around the house for my mobile phone 

I'm trying all morning to log into KDP to upload a client's files. Now they have done away with One Time Password!!!! It's a new system!! They want a verification within the email, A double one, so when you click on continue setup you have to do it again. So, my client, halfway across the world is staring at his computer and I'm waiting to get into his account. How annoying. How slow. How disturbing. I will never ever refer clients to KDP. What a pain. A whole day to upload files.

Oh, Maggie and benziger - I can feel that [insert floral language in four letters of your choice] verification barrier - and I feel for everyone who has to battle this for a living. If this forum would put me through the spanish inquisition to log in, I would long since have ignored it. But there are some nice people here, writers who publish for the right reasons.

I was introduced to computers in 1983, with FLOPPY DISCS !!! And the wonderful means of storing lots on a very small gismo was the bees knees - until I got my next computer, which no longer had a floppy slot - gone my valuable texts and images (the first wave of vanishing digital works).

Then, I came to the internet in 1999, just before the Y2K timing annihilation, when the experts were convinced that none of the world's digital clocks would automatically switch from the 1000 to the 2000 count ... doh ... anyway - I rode the silicone valley wave on the crest of it, before the bubble burst, having no idea what the difference was between an email address and an internet address ... also doh ...

Then came the nice 'naughties' where everything was free, everyone gave you everything on a silver platter on the web, out there in cyber space - the forums in their beginning phase were still humane and polite - until the inception of trolls (I experienced some doozies...), and here we are - digital extinction in full swing with verification-mad platforms that cater for the obsessive compulsive server operators.

My labour of love was done in 2017 - THANK GOODNESS. I couldn't cope now. The last two translations were the best experience ever ... but by 2019 I had a feeling in my waters, and rescued all my translations and handed them over to a brick and mortar publisher. None too soon, either, as it turned out.

And I don't even operate a 'proper' mobile phone - we have an oldie with a flip up (beam me up Scottie Star Trek communications device from way back when), in use only during car trips (switched off, sitting in the hand bag, just in case ...), and being used for a 'verification code' only when absolutely necessary for 'official' things in Australia. Anti-social things, interrupting actual person to person conversations during a meal in a restaurant (where permitted nowadays - minding the virus).

If looking for a POD in Australia, you soon give up, too; pay up vanity publishing all and sundry - and past Australian-printed books from Lulu speak volumes (definitely not the US quality from the beginnings, with packaging doing more damage than keeping the books safe in transit - for the price I expected more). That's just an aside. Only time will tell what mijnbestseller.nl will turn out like - at least their system is easy and smooth, and for the time being houses my small collection of Tasmaniana and artyfarty things.

Time for a holiday and for reflecting on the evolution of it all - so far it's not very positive and inspirational. Thanks for the link, benziger - I'll now go and read up on that conversation.