Lulu.com

Lulu is great for printing up things like the odd copy for proofreading. Anyone looking to actually publish something with them needs to take a serious look at their business plan, though, because Lulu's prices are sky high.

Keyan said:

Ken, do you have anything further on Lulu?

Particularly the ability to delete the files? That shouldn't be rocket science to implement.

I'm waiting for Fedex Kinko to come up with a competing service!

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No, nothing new. I just tried again to delete an old project, and again got this message: "[title redacted] was retired because it could not be deleted."

Because I had bought one copy of that book, the files cannot be deleted. And for that matter, as near as I can tell, no file associated with a project can be deleted. (Loose files uploaded but not in connection with a Lulu-numbered project presumably can be deleted, but I'd not bet on it.)

I am disappointed by Lulu's lack of responsiveness to my concerns.

--Ken

I'm going to do a one-year retrospective on a Lulu book that I created. The Confessions of Peter Crossman is a chapbook containing three of our published stories. I created it for a class I was teaching, because it was cheaper and faster and more attractive than loose photocopying (for the class it was a free download--I adjusted the price upward later when I made it public).

The cost to me was zero. My wife (and co-author) did the cover. The text inside was a dump to .PDF out of WordPerfect (my word processor of choice), from the original manuscripts. I didn't buy copyright (all the words were already copyrighted when they first appeared). I didn't buy an ISBN because I had no intention of taking this to bookstores.

The class was a couple of years back, so those sales/downloads won't skew the results.

The only advertising and marketing I've done is a link on my web page (the main page, and the Crossman sub-page). And the occasional link in posts like this one.

Okay, let's see what I have (Lulu gives exact dates of sales).

Starting with 01JAN09 and running to date. Dollar amounts are my income:

29/03/09 Download $1.00
20/06/09 Download $1.00
26/08/08 Rack size $1.00
24/09/09 Trade size $1.00
25/09/09 Rack size $1.00
28/10/09 Rack size $1.00
19/11/09 Trade size $1.00
07/12/09 Rack size $1.00
08/12/09 Rack size $1.00
08/12/09 Rack size $1.00
08/12/09 Rack size $1.00
09/12/09 Trade size $1.00
10/12/09 Download $1.00
11/12/09 Download $1.00
12/12/09 Rack size $1.00
12/12/09 Download $1.00
13/12/09 Rack size $1.00
15/12/09 Trade size $1.00
15/12/09 Trade size $1.00

So much for 2009.

In 2010, so far:

15/01/10 Rack size $1.00
22/01/10 Trade size $1.00
02/02/10 Trade size $1.00
02/02/10 Download $1.00
08/02/10 Trade size $1.00
11/02/10 Trade size $1.00
15/02/10 Trade size $1.00

Which takes us up to today.

So, what happened on or about 07DEC09? Why did sales suddenly surge?

The reprint of an earlier Crossman novel, The Apocalypse Door, hit the bookstore shelves on 08DEC10.

What else can we glean from this?

Total income, 2009: $19.00 (not gonna get rich on that, but it's found money).

Of those 19 sales:

Rack size: 9 (@$7.95)
Trade size: 5 (@ $7.47)
Download: 5 (@$1.25)

The 2010 numbers so far:

Total: $7.00

Rack size: 1 (@$7.95)
Trade size: 5 (@ $7.47)
Download: 1 (@$1.25)

Thanks for sharing this information. I just uploaded my first e-book to Smashwords, and I haven't put together a marketing strategy, as I've been figuring out exactly what such a strategy could be (besides an Internet wormhole into next week, when I'm still wearing the same pajamas, and somehow stuck to my laptop keyboard).

I'm curious about book pricing, too. Do you think sales would have been higher or lower with a higher-priced e-book? Did you notice a big gap in the number of page views vs. downloads?

Thanks in advance.

New low-low for Lulu?

Good grief.

London Book Fair New Title Showcase

by LuluServices | E-mail this provider

(1 Rating)
Lulu Service

$399.00


2010 London Book Fair
London, England-April 19-April 21, 2010

The London Book Fair represents one of the best opportunities (literally) in the world to market your books in a business to business atmosphere. LBF generates an average attendance of 25,000 decision makers in the international distribution, publishing, bookselling, library, and other publishing related industries.
Registration & Display Copy Deadline: Tuesday, March 9, 2010

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I'm sorry, but they are now well into vanity-publishing territory. Paying $399 to have your book lost in a sea of thousands of equally obscure books? They should be ashamed of themselves.

--Ken

ResearchGuy said:

Good grief.


I'm sorry, but they are now well into vanity-publising territory. Paying $399 to have your book lost in a sea of thousands of equally obscure books? They should be ashamed of themselves.

--Ken

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Well, at least they're still doing POD, so it's not all bad.

I think they're learning that there just isn't enough money in taking a percentage of sales of POD books, when they take anything that's uploaded and charge nothing up front, to keep the lights on.

Xlibris went down this same path a decade ago. (And look where Xlibris is now.)

I always assumed the inflated production and shipping costs were what really kept the lights on.

I've had two titles listed through Lulu for over three years now. They continue to sell, virtually every month, mainly via Amazon. But, and I've said this before in this thread, Lulu's pricing is way too high. I'm still astonished that total strangers cough up $17.99 & $21.99, respectively, for my trade paperbacks, when the competition (traditional publishers) set prices several dollars less. I'm convinced that I'd be selling more books if only Lulu could allow us to set prices competitively. BTW, I set my royalty rate at a mere nominal level in order to keep the retail price as low as I can. My cut of sales is a pittance. My agent and I are pursuing traditional publishers for my latest book.

The only issue I have with LuLu is the shipping costs to Canada. They're outrageous.

Angkor said:

. . . are pursuing traditional publishers for my latest book.

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Just beware of vanity presses that call themselves "traditional publishers." The notorious vanity press PublishAmerica practically trademarked the term (not used by legitimate commercial publishers) "traditional publisher" as a cover for its sleazy practices.

--Ken

I'm not familiar with Lulu as are many here, but it sounds like they may have scored a bit of a coup: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Literary-Lion-Chooses-prnews-3383622619.html?x=0&.v=1

Here's Wideman's Lulu page: http://www.lulu.com/john_edgar_wideman

This is a nice little torpedo in the hull of the mighty dreadnaught Commercial Publishing.

Using Lulu for reprints and unmarketable works is pretty common amongst authors who have already broken through. I have found a few of my old favorites there. I don't think it suggests Lulu is an alternative to mainstream commerical publishing, more like an adjunct.

Angkor said:

But, and I've said this before in this thread, Lulu's pricing is way too high. I'm still astonished that total strangers cough up $17.99 & $21.99, respectively, for my trade paperbacks, when the competition (traditional publishers) set prices several dollars less.

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Yep, same thing here. Lulu were great when they first started (well, I certainly thought so), but they have been tumbling downhill ever since. The list price for my own novel is $20.95 on Amazon. OW! It's cheaper elsewhere - $14 - but I've had people moan to me about the price.

Angkor said:

My cut of sales is a pittance.

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Same again. I wanted to keep it as competitive and attractive as possible, but £9.95 vs £6.99 (and no 3-for-2 eligibility) moves you out of the spontaneous purchase arena.

Not that it sort of matters right now - After finishing the second book in my series, I've decided to rewrite the first (33% done), whilst, at the same time, serialise the first one online (as a Creative Commons licensed download). I'll see what opportunities this year brings me. Fingers crossed.

Re: Lulu's High Pricing
An addendum: plenty of my books, often listed "Like New," are sloshing around the used book market, selling at deep, deep discounts. I've even encountered them at library sales. While I get nothing monetarily from these sales, at least I know that interested enterprising shoppers can turn to these sites to get my books at affordable prices. Sometimes they even take the time to do a review on Amazon.

You know, in recently months I think Lulu has started to cross the line into becoming a vanity press.

I follow their blog and I've noticed that they are starting to offer more and more high priced services.

London Book Fair New Title Showcase
https://support.lulu.com/Question.jsp?title=London-Book-Fair&id=bed301f470cbd0016eade34ef147f99a

Wow, what on Earth is that all about? £250 to have my book shown on a stand, where it'll likely be lost in a sea of other works from publishing giants such as Random House and Harper Collins?

eBook ePUB Creation
http://lulublog.com/2010/03/12/ready-to-join-the-epub-boom/

$350??? Are they kidding me?! Sure, ePub conversion is not easy, but that's A LOT of money.

Lulu VIP
http://lulublog.com/2010/03/14/lulu-vip-services/

Is this a commercial publishing venture, where Lulu has chosen to take on the responsibility of editing, proofing and distributing the book themselves? Or is the so-called VIP expected to stump up all the money themselves?

Lulu, you're disappointing me.

Disclaimer: I published my book through Lulu just over a year ago. I paid only for the ISBN and did everything else myself (with the exception of editing). I don't think they were a vanity press when they started out, or up until recently, but I see them going that way.

StephenJSweeney said:

You know, in recently months I think Lulu has started to cross the line into becoming a vanity press.

. . . .

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I agree.

--Ken

The slide to Full Vanity Press continues

From the latest Lulu email:

Do you have an event coming up?
Quote with Lulu and Save
Pricing Example:
(6x9, Perfect Bound, 200 B/W pages)
1 - 4 Books: $8.50/book
500 Books on Lulu:
$5.95/book
Save even MORE with
a bulk quote.
Receive $150 off the
book fair registration
of your choice

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Note the part I bolded . . . good grief. What a racket. It is still an extra charge, for something with no benefit, if you take them up on it.

--Ken

LuLu sells your books on Amazon. But you probably know that already.

marcel said:

LuLu sells your books on Amazon. But you probably know that already.

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They even sell two of mine that have no ISBN (as Amazon Marketplace sellers for those).

--Ken

Has anyone used Lulu for self-publishing?

I recently came across the web site for Lulu, which claims that you can self-publish for free. This seems too good to be true.

Has anyone used them? What were the standards of print?

Where is the snag- surely nothing good comes for free nowadays?

Just curious as I have a book I completed last year that, although I wouldn't want to forward to an agent, I would like to have it in print for my husband and friends who are eager to read my work. Plus for sentimental reasons for myself, I'd love to have a copy of my first ever novel.

I would suggest looking further down the forum for threads about Lulu. In short, it is free if you don't want distribution beyond the Lulu website, and don't count their mark up on your cover price. The books are standard POD quality on the whole.

There a thousand and one things to research before self-publishing, which I'm sure some others on this site who have more experience would be happy to point out.

As far as your actual question though Lulu is free to use as long as you do all of the work and don't choose any additional options or services. When the book actually goes up for sale they take the majority of the sale price and you get a percentage of the sale price as a royalty.

For it to be totally free you will have to do the interior formating, cover design, and marketing. I also believe this will only allow you to sell through their store and not through other merchants unless you sign up for their distribution services and purchase an ISBN.

Another similar company is createspace. Much like lulu you would have to do your own setup for it to be free, and they will still take their cut of the sales price, but they also include one of their isbn's for free and list your book for sale on amazon as well.

A last alternative for a free method of publishing would be to publish it as an e-book. There are services out there like smashwords and amazon's kindle e-books. Both services allow for you to sell your book online as an e-book and they both are free for you to use as long as you will let them take their cut of each sale.

I would definitely recommend that you do plenty of research on POD self-publishing before making any decisions so that you can determine how much work it will take to put out a book you can be proud of. Then you can decide on whether or not it would be worth it for you to go through the whole process.

Remember once you publish, self-done or traditional, that book will be out there with your name on it forever. Make sure it's something you will be proud of.

Can anyone tell me how the .doc should look like before we upload it, should it have the front cover and back cover in the .doc ?

The .doc file should look exactly how you want it to look in a printed book. It should have all the internal text (including copyright info, library of congress number if applicable). The book cover is separate.