Lulu Press Center

Lulu.com and weRead Bring the Power of Social Networking Communities to Publishing

August 5, 2008 (RALEIGH, NC) Now you can publish your book for free and the world will beat a path to your door to buy it.  Lulu (www.lulu.com), the world's largest marketplace for individual, educational, and corporate authors and publishers to bring their books directly to market, announced today an alliance with weRead (www.weread.com), the leading social networking application for books where readers can easily discover and recommend books to their friends on social networks and therefore, the world. 

weRead gives users access to an expanded library of all books in print, so self-published works can be compared favorably, or otherwise, with Shakespeare, John Grisham or J.K. Rowling. The possibilities are virtually limitless.

"A better way of matching writers and readers is created today with Lulu.com’s free self-publishing tools and distribution capabilities complimented by weRead’s discovery, independent ratings and reviews, and readership communities on social networks," said Bryce Boothby, President and COO of Lulu Enterprises.  "This clearly changes the game in publishing by bringing together traditional and self-published works in one marketplace."
 

weRead currently has more than two million registered members through social networking sites Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Hi5, and Bebo, including individual’s websites or blogs and there are over 40 million books on members' virtual bookshelves. The weRead community has written over 1.5 million book reviews.  Among other achievements, weRead is already one of the most popular applications on Facebook.  weRead's powerful discovery and recommendation engine allows search results to be sorted by social network proximity.

weRead is headed by founders Krishna Motukuri and Harish Abbott who will divide their time between Lulu’s US offices and weRead’s center of operations in Bangalore, India.  Motukuri serves as Senior Vice President of Product Development with Abbott serving as Senior Vice President of weRead Operations.

"The Lulu/weRead combination is the first step toward the democratization of the book," said Motukuri. "Anyone should be able to write a book and let the marketplace rate it fairly in a way that people can trust."

Lulu's worldwide print -on- demand capability ensures no book ever need go unpublished, or ever go out of print.  weRead's social discovery tools will ensure it is never forgotten – the unfortunate situation for many authors, publishers and readers.

"I was really glad to see that weRead did have my book available and that anyone could add it to their bookshelf," said Jennifer Stevens Madoff, who created the Lulu.com book Leukemia for Chickens. "Because it is so easy to do I would definitely recommend it to other creators. These two companies coming together makes perfect sense for anyone wanting to successfully position their book out in the marketplace."

# # # #

About Lulu: (www.lulu.com) Lulu.com is the premier marketplace for digital content on the Internet, with over 609,000 recently published titles, and more than 5,000 new titles added each week, created by people in 80 different countries. With just over 1.75 million registered members, Lulu is changing the world of publishing by enabling creators to publish their work themselves with complete editorial and copyright control. With free web storefronts provided, other marketing support and available distribution, Lulu creators are fully empowered to profit from their work.

About weRead: (www.weread.com) weRead, founded in 2006 as iRead, is a series of social networking site applications which make it easy for users to send and receive book recommendations.  In a world where anyone can publish their work, the value weRead brings to its rapidly growing community – currently 1.9 million- is as a trusted source for independent ratings and review.