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Lulu POD service gets rave in PC Mag—and is taking e-books more seriously, with iPhone and Sony options
May 18, 2008 | 8:07 pm
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By David Rothman
“For those you who have a wide variety of creative projects to produce, Lulu offers the most complete self-publishing solution I’ve seen.” – Errol Pierre-Louis in PC Magazine.
Detail: Besides offering a broader range of services than before, Lulu is now letting writers “optimize” their e-books for the iPhone and Sony Reader, rather than simply offer the usual PDF option. ePub in time? See Digital Media FAQ.
Top five “all-time” Lulu bestsellers: e-Start Your Web Store with Zen Cart, How to Become an Alpha Male, You Can Beat Prostate Cancer, Java/J2EE Job Interview Companion – 400+ Questions & Answers and Getting Real: The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application. No novels appear among the top ten titles. As a reader or writer, what are your own experience with Lulu, good or bad?
Related: Wikipedia article with pro- and con-related details on Lulu—and some handy links. Also check out publishing consultant Marion Gropen’s thought on E and POD for novels.
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Comments:
Although my primary focus is eBooks, I also offer paper books. My authors like having a physical book on their shelves so they can show friends and relatives, paper books do better at book signings, and some readers just don’t read electronic books (yet). When I decided to get started with paper, I used LuLu because they have no setup fees. I have no complaints about their quality and found they had a number of tools that make it easy for authors to publish with them. One key advantage for me, because I have authors (and readers) around the world, is that they have printers on multiple continents, meaning that shipping costs to Europe and Asia are less painful than some other publishers.
I’ve been shifting my POD publishing from LuLu to CreateSpace, however. CreateSpace doesn’t have as nice tools and their international shipping is expensive, but their printing costs are lower and, because they’re owned by Amazon, their integration with Amazon is far better. (To sell LuLu-printed books through Amazon, I have to join Amazon’s Advantage program, purchase the LuLu books, have them shipped to my home, inventory them and ship them to Amazon when Amazon orders them, all to receive 45% of the cover price from Amazon. The combination of two separate sets of shipping charges, LuLu’s high costs, and Amazon’s high commission means that I lose money on every LuLu-printed book I sell through Amazon.
This said, LuLu is not really set up for publishers. It’s designed for people who want to produce a book for their grandchildren and it does a great job at that.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com