Lulu

[Cheehwawa]

I just heard someone mentioned getting published through lulu. I went to the website and it seems kind of confusing.

Have any of you gone the lulu route? If so, what would you suggest? Im an aspiring writer but I dont have a novel anywhere near ready yet, so this is just info for down the road.

Ive also checked out authorhouse. That seems pretty solid, how would you say that the services stack up against lulu's?

Thanks

 

[Sylvetra_Snake]

I tried one of my novels from my younger days to see what it would look like, and basically, you decide the layout, font, cover, everything, and they will put it together for you into a book, (no editing or anything) then you can buy copies of it (i don't see how you can make a profit on lulu.com at all). It goes up for sale on their website, but there are tens of thousands of other books on there, and most of no real good content and probably need editing like crazy (that is not to say all but most), so people just don't buy copies from them cos of the lack of quality. The good thing with lulu is if you just want a copy for yourself to edit, (cos it can be a hassle to print off a full novel) you can buy one usually around £8 and have it delivered in a few days.

Now authorhouse, don't really know them but from what i hear they expect huge sums of money upfront, which is always a bad idea IMO.

Now remember, these are NOT traditional publishers so if you are looking at normal publishers and normal rules, then i would buy the writer's and artist's yearbook 2009 as it tells you most of what you need to know and lists down all the publishers and agents in the UK and elsewhere.

There are other threads here i think about lulu.com.

 

[mercs]

I found the lulu site to be fantastic. I got a great looking book within 20 minutes of clicking and uploading and it was fine. I also have to disagree about people not buying lulu books. Ok, i fail to believe that there's people wandering around their site looking for novels -that's just stupid!- but their items are on amazon, barnes and noble and other sites. if correctly edited and professionally produced you won't know it's a lulu book. i have several in my collection. the only way i knew was the "lightning press" print on the back cover and then researching the author myself...

some drawbacks i will mention is the delivery time and postage costs. basically both are obscene! you can wait close to a month from order for the book to arrive -alarming if you are self publishing and need to meet an order but don't have the cash flow or resources to keep up a high stock level. also the postage costs are a joke. if i did that on eBay i would be banned. it ranges from the expensive £5 standard no insurance p+p all the way up to the eye watering £100 express service...

However, it's worth checking out as they are the best of a bad bunch if i'm honest...

 

[Perpetual Man]

I have to agree with mercs, Lulu was very useful, and I was delighted to have a copy of my own novel sitting on my book shelf - it does not look out of place there!!!

It's even more fun to see it on Amazon (US not UK). It does not really matter if it sells or not, it's just seeing it that makes it fun! (I did not ask for it to be sold there it just appeared a few weeks ago)

I did have a look at Authorhouse to and did not enjoy the experience, after one simple enquiry I had a run of (polite) phonecalls trying to make me follow on and publish something with them, and the fees were more than I could have afforded.

At least with Lulu you pay for what you need, one book at a time!!!

 

[mercs]

Another option that someone on absolute write uses is to go direct to Lightning Press themselves. This makes the book extremely cheap but you have to REALLY know what you are doing. the cover, the resizing, the converting and other stuff is all done by yourself and if there's an error, too bad, it's in print!

lulu is a good option and the books look great when i get them -just need a few bugs ironing out!

 

[chopper]

our anthology is done thru Lulu, and for a first project (give or take the odd typesetting issues, which i take full blame for....) it looks pretty damn professional.
yes, you really do need to do it all yourself, and no, don't expect to make much money by doing it.
but: postage costs for ordering 20 copies aren't that different from ordering a single copy. so what you could do - as we are doing - is have the account-creator order 20 copies, then sell them on to interested parties, thus keeping costs as low as possible.

Perp - yep, it's nice to be on Amazon! (even though they take a higher cut, you have a snug feeling of legitimacy!)

 

[kcartlidge]

I've done a few books through Lulu, including paperback and coil-bound of various sizes. For one-offs or POD via Amazon and the like it's excellent.

The only things I'd note however are that the per-book prices, whilst being great considering the likely low volumes, can lead to higher retail prices if you want a reasonable profit and also, as has been mentioned, delivery speed (to the UK at least) is less than exceptional.

When it comes to other companies, my own rule would be to not go with anybody asking up-front payments unless they are an actual printer/binder and the cost is just for the product and not for any ancillary services - personally speaking I'd say traditional publisher, POD with no upfront costs (eg. Lulu) or totally DIY directly with a printer/binder are the only options I'd choose. Anything that falls between those three I would consider very carefully.