Back then I was very naive about publishing. As a result my book languished on their site, as well as on Amazon and Apple eBook, for over 2 years. After only 3 sales in 2 years I had finally had enough.
In I requested that my book be taken off the market and close my Lulu account. I thought that was it, but then I noticed my book still on Amazon. I contacted Lulu and asked them why it was still there. They said that the copy being listed on Amazon was from another book dealer that they had no control over.
Since the copy this book dealer was selling was listed as used I just assumed that when that copy sold it would finally be completely off the market. Now roll ahead to today, June 12th, While doing a search for my book title to see how it was displaying on a site called TaleFlick where I was trying to sell it now I discovered in the search results it was still listed on Amazon.
I clicked the link and saw that it was being sold as NEW by Amazon. The publisher was listed as LULU. For some reason Lulu was now selling my book again even though I told them to take it off the market years ago.
I sent LULU an email demanding it be removed or I would take legal action for copyright infringement. So I tried Chat. How about emailing customer support? This must never happen again. Wow, I am shocked by this article, and the negative comments.
Having published a number of books all through Lulu, not only have I never paid up front except for my first set of ISBNs, I have been paid every month since for sales in multiple channels. Marketing… Lulu, like any publisher will never market for you, you have to put in the work yourself. Customer services … rarely needed, but I had a query this week, emailed them, got a reply within 24 hours.
Research, yep, done that on both fronts publishers, and my market …I spent a long time researching self publishing companies, and my niche, and still choose to use Lulu, and self hundreds of books every month. Where are they? Then go do it. I did magazine articles, radio interviews, blogging and more to get the sales I get. The rest is done mostly by the amazon algorithm. Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
The global book market is worth well over billion dollars. Are you ready to publish your own book and get a piece of that market. Self-publishing is a form of entrepreneurship. It requires time, effort, and business management. You may. Skip to content. Reviews Are Misleading Once upon a time, this company may have been credible, but that is certainly not the case now. Customer Complaints Stack Up Lulu publishing reviews are not very positive at all.
One user waited 6 weeks on formatting and had heard nothing despite trying to get in contact. Another even reported waiting 10 weeks and more for their books to be printed. Distribution Delays — Weeks and weeks without books being delivered to either the author or the distribution site means no money coming in.
Website Confusion — A few customers complained that the website is not easy to navigate and can be confusing. Additional fees seem to be a common problem with Lulu Self-Publishing. Ebook Conversions Unsatisfactory — Ebooks were not formatted correctly in many cases. The icons are not where they should be, the print was cut in half on the page and ebooks were even published with the wrong title.
Poor Print Quality — Some of the quality issues include dark or low-quality photos, lopsided print, headers and margins not formatted correctly and using the wrong font or the font is so small you cannot read it. No Customer Support — This is probably the biggest complaint in all the reviews I read! I found over and over that customers experienced slow responses to their requests.
No matter whether they used phone or email, customer support responses were no less than 4 days and sometimes more than 2 weeks later! What Can You Do? Share on facebook. Share on twitter. Share on linkedin. Share on telegram. Share on pocket. Share on whatsapp. Share on email. Christine Mokoginta. Leave a Comment Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published.
Related Articles. How MagLoft Works MagLoft is a complete digital publishing solution that eliminates all the technical requirements for creating publishing apps. Start Trial. Book Demo. Subscribe to Our Newsletter. Profit per book if sold on Lulu. Ease of Use Easy Difficult Easy. Customer Service Excellent Good Good. When dealing with print on demand platforms, two of the most important factors to consider are distribution and print quality.
While all three platforms produce books of high quality with Ingram Spark being a notch above the other two the distribution options and the amount of profits made from each platform vary widely. CreateSpace is one of the largest and most popular self-publishing platforms for a reason. They charge no set-up costs, offer great customer service and have a system that is easy to use. They offer a lower per-book print cost than Ingram Spark and Lulu.
This is because CreateSpace uses an outside distributor for sales outside of Amazon. Books published on CreateSpace are also not returnable, which means authors will have a hard time convincing their local bookstores, schools, or libraries to purchase them for author events. Bottom Line: CreateSpace may be the best option for authors who wish to publish a paperback and sell it primarily on Amazon.
Of the three platforms discussed in this article, they offer the highest print quality. They also offer authors the option of publishing a hardcover book, making them a good choice for picture book authors. Given how much effort goes into writing and publishing a book, be very, very careful with who you give access to your files to. With Lulu, I learned my lesson and I will sure remember it.
The problem with such companies is that they can start as legit businesses and built their reputation before turning rogue for whatever reason. People, however, often recommend something without having enough information or ever trying out the service for themselves. My advice would be — if you see a combination of many 1 star and 5 star reviews with little or nothing in-between, play it safe and trust those 1 star reviews over the 5 star ones.
Also, if people who have never personally used a service recommend it, be very, very careful. Their intentions might be good, but do they know what the are talking about? Keep that in mind. Update Aug 23, : I just received a response from Lulu , here is what they say:. In regards to your revenue, please note your book cost will increase when you have an ISBN attached to it.
Note: I suffered quite a few assaults in the comment section here. Do check the number of followers the writers who spitted venom here have for most that would be 1— It seems that many of these account were created for one purpose alone — to publish a nasty comment on this, so keep that in mind when trying to make sense of it all. Update August 25, — The Writing Cooperative notified me today that they were forced to remove this post from the publication due to the controversy it caused.
Here is my response :. Go back to the Part 1 of this series or go to the next post in the series. Live to explore, for secrets abound.
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