Yes, dear friends, it's come to pass. I'm now a traitor to the community of published authors out there everywhere.

Did I plagiarize? No, heavens no.

Did I burn books? No, God no.

Did I kill someone by papercutting them to death? No. (Well, there was that one time, but . . . no.)

So, why oh why would I make a comment like that?

One word . . . or, uhm, three words . . . heck, one word made up of three words and two hyphens: print-on-demand.

The writers out there gasp in an "oh the humanity" sorta way, while everyone else simply says, "Uhm, what?"

Okay, let's back up . . .

In the publishing world out there, the typical business model works something like this: You write something, then you shop it around, then you shop it around more, then you shop it around even more, then you pray a little bit, then maybe some publishing company picks it up, you have your work published, and you make a teeny weeny bit per copy sold. Such is the lot of "real" writers.

See, that's the thing. I'm not a "real" writer in my own eyes. Sorry, nuh-uh. I'm a teacher (which I think should mean I deserve ten lashes for just spelling out and using "nuh-uh," but that's beside the point).

My "appearances in print" pretty much all adhere to Star Wars (with the exception of some award-winning stuff in my high school days, but that's high school level writing, so we'll pay it no mind) and go something like this:

1. I was thrilled in 2002 to see my name show up in two Star Wars publications. I had an acknowledgement in Dan Wallace's "New Essential Guide to Characters," which was cool, and I'd been an interview subject for the unofficial cultural anthropology study that Will Brooker released under the title "Using the Force: Creativity, Community, and Star Wars Fans," so I was quoted a few times in there. (Though, granted, I was mislabeled as the director of the early version of Prelude to Hope rather than its writer, but whatever. Devon Read never came to burn my home down, so no harm, no foul, I guess.)

2. I was dumbfounded and shocked in 2004 to be contacted by Jeremy Barlow with an offer to write a story ("Equals and Opposites") for Star Wars Tales. Within that whirlwind of activity (well, for me anyway), I found my name in Star Wars Insider, on StarWars.com and DarkHorse.com, and in my hometown paper. I then discovered that the Rebel spy in "What Sin Loyalty?" (Barlow's issue of Empire) was named "Krono Relt" after me (Krono for ChronoRadio and Relt from reversing the last four letters of my last name, Butler). Then, of course, Tales #21 saw print in October with a couple of different covers. It was a heck of a year for me, as a fan.

3. Jump ahead to 2006, and Tales #21 gets collected in Tales Vol. 6, and then later in the year, I'm contacted and asked about submitting a five-page chronology segment for The Star Wars Super Collector's Wish Book, 4th Edition. Toss that in with having a chance to have a databank entry made from one of my submissions to "What's the Story?" and that's a pretty good year too.

But, see, all of this is based in and around Star Wars. To me, that makes me a "fan who got extremely lucky," not a "real" writer. Some would argue that point, and do when I bring it up in front of them (so I often don't), but that's my personal perspective on myself. I'm not a writer by profession. I'm a teacher, and that's where my career path lies, not to mention my paycheck, my retirement plan, and day-to-day grind.

So, it's 2006. After almost nine years of working on my Star Wars Timeline Project and four years in the Star Wars fan audio community (making four different fan-made radio shows, eight fan-made audio dramas, taking on numerous roles and interviews, and creating starwarsfanworks.com to promote SW fan audio) . . . I decided to step back and follow my own creative "urge." To that effect, earlier this year, I wrote an original novel-length story called "Echoes," which is basically a blend of the "feels," I'm told, of "The West Wing," "The X-Files," and "Law and Order."

I wrote Echoes just because I wanted to get an original story out there. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, and I wanted to provide something new and original for all of those people that have spent so long following my other fandom works. As such, I produced Echoes as an audiobook (or "podcast novel" or "podiobook") and released all twenty chapters online, for free, as MP3s. It got enough positive feedback that I decided to make a print version available.

At first, I wanted to do the print version as a downloadable PDF, but enough people said they wanted a "real book" of it that I started looking into that. By the time ConCarolinas had come around, I'd followed Rich Sigfrit's advice (that's Rich of the awesome Outcast Multimedia) and looked into services like Lulu.com, known as "print-on-demand."

Basically, "print-on-demand" (POD, ironically, given that Echoes began as a PODcast novel) bypasses the middle man and lets you just publish something on an order-by-order basis. Instead of going through the process of shopping a manuscript around, hunting down an agent, hunting down a publisher, making deals for massive numbers of books for tiny royalties . . . you go through Lulu.com or some similar outfit, craft the book yourself (for the most part), provide them with the files for it, and then *poof* there's your book.

In the case of Echoes, I chose to make the book 6" x 9" (the size of Orson Scott Card's classic "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy") with a body that I formatted myself put onto one of their 6" x 9" templates, bearing a cover that I created myself in Photoshop, using a picture of the U.S. Capitol that I knew would have no copyright issues (because, well, it was taken by my father during a recent trip to Washington D.C.).

Now, at ConCarolinas, I asked Davey Beauchamp (author of "Agency 32: The Chelten Affair") and Stephen E. Cobb (author of "Bones Burnt Black") their thoughts on POD. Davey was rather vocally against POD. Steve, on the other hand, suggested that it's fine if you just want a few copies or copies for yourself, but it's not a way to get it out for massive sales or anything like that. (It was also suggested, throughout the weekend, by various people, that because print-on-demand doesn't require anyone to approve or accept your work before you print it, it's considered the pansy, traitorous, wannabe, frowned-upon, fatherless child of writing. So, you can imagine the taste all that left in my mouth about my plans to go through Lulu.com.)

Upon arriving back from ConCarolinas (which you can hear all about on The Butlerniverse #5 or July 1 on ChronoRadio #27.5, by the way), I thought long and hard about what I intended with this. My fandom side, the side that appreciates my longtime online audience and remembered my promise to try to get a print version out there on the site at some point, won out. I decided that I was going to go ahead and get a print version out through Lulu.com.

Now, if you'ore unfamiliar with Lulu.com, your format sets your base price. What size is your book? How many pages is it? What type of cover will it have? Is the interior black and white or color? After that, you decide how much profit you want per copy sold, then Lulu adds in a commission that's equal to 25% of your profit.

So, let's say your base price (for just publishing the copy of the book) is $5. You might be greedy and want, say, $4 profit on each copy. Lulu would then see that, determine that 25% of $4 is $1, and add on another $1 to the price, so your total price for a copy of the book would be $10 (5 + 4 + 1 = 10). A downloadable ebook copy of your product then, would be the same price, minus the printing costs, so, in this case $5 (10 - 5 = 5).

Now, me, being the listener-friendly gent that I am (and not wanting to mess with profit coming in from Lulu when I do my income taxes), I made my profit ZERO. When you do that, Lulu.com also makes their commission ZERO as a courtesy, so I basically decided to make Echoes available to listeners/readers for zero profit whatsoever. People who want a text version of Echoes can go to Lulu.com and download the ebook for FREE (but it for some reason won't have the cool covers, so I made them available on the Echoes website), or they can buy the book for just the printing cost ($6.59) and whatever the cost of shippping is for their chosen shipping method. That's it.

So . . . I'm pretty happy with that decision. I can have a printed copy, as can my family, friends, listeners, etc. I was able to still make an online PDF ebook version available for free as I'd once suggested I'd do, and I'm not charging people a profit for me for something that they have already been able to listen to online for free earlier this year. (And, hey, no extra forms on my income taxes. Heh.) I look at my copy of Echoes that's on my desk right now and think, alright, that's pretty cool. And that's that.

But there are still those out there that will pitch a fit, gripe and moan, raise all kinds of hell, about the "evil" bane of publishing known as "print-on-demand," that will call those of us who go that route traitors, cheaters, or perhaps just something other than "real" writers.

Well, y'know what, folks? It worked for me. I don't consider myself a professional writer, just a professional educator who enjoys writing on the side and has had a couple of lucky breaks with a saga I adore. Does that make my work "lesser" than others? Perhaps. The key is that, as Dennis Miller once said, "My self-opinion is decided by fiat, not consensus."

So, if you have a story out there that's been brewing, something that doesn't violate any copyrights that you can really call your own, and you want a copy of it sitting in your hands, if only just to feel a sense of closure for your own work . . . perhaps print-on-demand is for you as well. Do what satisfies *your* creative impulse, not someone else's biased opinion.

I mean, after all, isn't that one of the lessons we fans can take away from George Lucas' example?

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"Echoes" on Lulu.com
Official "Echoes" Website
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P.S. Yes, a sequel to "Echoes" *is* in the works. More on that some other day.