Here’s an interesting email that landed in some Lulu’ers box last night.  If you were having trouble finding your book in Lulu’s Search Option, apparently they were under attack by Gremlins but have now got it all sorted out.  I have no idea what the 25% off at the top means, when they later say they’ll be sending you a 15% off special in a few days.  Oh, and is it just me or does Lulu suggest you forward the special email to a bunch of people who drink.  Why not nurse maids, dog groomers, and trash collectors? Just saying.

(Your Book’s Title)

Take 25% off

You recently published (title of book) and made it available to the world in the Lulu Marketplace. Thank you. We’re thrilled to have such a remarkable work in our catalog!

Unfortunately, the world didn’t get to see it as quickly as they should have. A hiccup in our system kept your book from showing up in search results immediately after you published.

The short of it is the gremlins got us. Fortunately, we found them – big, hairy devils with beady red eyes and the complexion of toad – and dispensed with them. (We’ll spare you the details). Our systems are back to the Lulu standard and all books in our catalog now appear in our search results.

We want to give you a new start on your sales. In the next few days, you’ll receive a custom e-mail from us that will display your book’s cover and a 15% discount on the list price. We’ll design the e-mail so that you can easily forward it to friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, coffee shop baristas, waiters, bartenders and anyone else you meet. It’ll be a handy way to encourage them to buy your book. And don’t worry – that 15% discount will come out of our profit, not yours. We just want to make things right.

Thank you again for choosing Lulu.

Sincerely,

Your Friends at Lulu

It took several months for the book to become available on Amazon. Six months in fact.  Having emailed Lulu support several times during that wait period and after getting no help, I decided to give up on the project and I retired the book immediately.  It loaded to Amazon anyway though and while I have never promoted it, I did go ahead and load it to the Kindle where it has been downloaded enough to gain a sales rank in genres such as Writing Skills and Authorship.

Since the project was retired, but live on Amazon, I also expected never to collect any royalties from the sale of hard copies.  My fault for letting my anger get the best of me. But that’s where good ole Lulu didn’t fail me…at least I hope they didn’t fail.  To date, I’ve collected royalties for a total of just 5 copies: 3 in the US and 2 in the UK!

After much inner debate, I’ve decided to “unretire” the book.  With that decision, I’ve lowered the list price of the paperback to just $9.50 on Lulu and the E-Book to just $4.50, cutting most of my royalties. This may or may not affect the current list price at Amazon where the book is $12.50, but can be purchased starting at $9.50 from third party marketplace sellers. I don’t care.  More than anything, I want the book to be available to those who need it most…indie authors who may not have a lot of money to invest in their work, but have a lot of heart already invested in it. And may just need some help in the right direction.

The information presented in this book has not been changed.  In fact, I have reviewed it against Amazon and the information is still as current today as it was a year ago when I compiled it.  While I’m sure I could build upon the material, the purpose of the book was always to be a “quick” reference for indie authors.  I do not feel the need to broaden it, and I believe it can be a very important “go to” book for authors who are out of money and looking for quick ways to market their own book on Amazon.com, the world’s largest online book seller.

So, to kick off the “rebirth” of my POD Pocket Guide, I’m offering ten free copies!  That’s right!  Ten free copies!  To be eligible, just leave a comment with your email address on this post. On June 30th, I’ll pick ten winners at random. Yes, there’s a catch.  First, you must live in the United States.  Second, you must commit to leaving a review of the POD Pocket Guide on Amazon.com once you’ve read or used it.  If you can meet these two requirements, then leave a comment on this post to enter the raffle.

Can’t wait till June 30th for a free copy?  Buy or download it right now at Lulu.com!

In a few weeks, all books will have the option to assign either a Lulu owned ISBN or your own ISBN to your Lulu books in the publishing wizard. This means you won’t have to create your book, wait for approval, and then create a new revision to add the ISBN information. Like the Published By Lulu (PBL) package we used to offer, if you assign a free Lulu owned ISBN, Lulu will act as the publisher on your behalf to retailers and wholesalers. If you assign your own ISBN, then the publisher listed with your ISBN will be used.

I personally think this is a step backwards for Lulu because having used their PBY option for my own book, I felt it was the best fit for me and the most economical and time efficient.  It made getting an ISBN registered through Lulu, paying for the ISBN through Lulu, and creating my book all through Lulu much easier.

So far, comments on the announcement are few, but mixed. Read the full announcement at the Lulu Blog.

Hi all, when comparing apples to oranges to limes, one must make color and texture adjustments for the differences in fruit. I have more experience with Createspace than with either Lulu or Lightning Source but have reviewed price specifications for print-on-demand contracts from Lightning Source, so I can tell you a bit about those costs. For the purpose of this discussion I will reference only print-on-demand services because I assume most people considering Lulu or Createspace are not planning on having thousands of books printed for warehousing purposes.

1. POD PER-BOOK COST. Createspace does small print runs via print-on-demand. They do not do offset printing for mass-market volume discounts. Lulu may offer discounts on volume, but I don’t know for sure. Lightning Source offers both POD and offset printing. For POD, the cost per book is virtually the same as the cost for producing the same book on CreateSpace under the PRO plan. Lightning Source does offer graduated discounts on bulk POD print runs, starting at 5% for 50 books. Last time I checked on Lulu three months ago, the per-book production price was consistently higher for the same product under any plan than the cost would be from either Createspace or Lightning Source.

2. TITLE SETUP. Createspace charges nothing for you to set up your title and provides an ISBN for free, but that ISBN marks them as the publisher, not you. With their PRO plan you can cut your per-book cost by about 1/3 by paying $39 upfront and annually thereafter to keep the book in print. Without the pro plan the book remains in print for free. You can provide your own ISBN under either plan with no extra charge and no discount. Lulu has a similar program and a distribution program that costs $99 or more the last time I checked. Lightning Source charges $37.50 for cover file setup and $37.50 for text (book interior) file setup, for a total setup fee of $75 for a book digitally uploaded for production. You provide your own ISBN. Also LS charges $12 annually to keep your book available. By far Createspace is the cheapest route to produce a book when considering startup cost.

3. PROOF & REVISION COST. Createspace charges the per-book production cost plus S&H to send a proof. Additional proofs after changes are the same cost. There are no revision or file replacement charges. Generally speaking a proof for a 300-page book would be around $12 or $13 including S&H. I don’t know what it would be on Lulu. On Lightning Source a proof copy is $30 including Express mailing cost. LS charges a whopping $40 per file upload, meaning if you make changes to your cover and upload a revised file, they’ll charge you $40. If you also make changes to the text and upload, that’s an additional $40.

4. SHIPPING CHARGES. Createspace since January has appeared to offer more options for shipping. The first proof I ordered was via UPS and cost over $6.00. By the time I had my second title ready for proof, USPS media rate was available at $3.85. I don’t know if those choices are now consistently available, but they were the last time I ordered a proof. I don’t know what Lulu charges for shipping. Via Lightning Source, they say they charge the ‘going rate’ for mailings of the book itself to you as the publisher or to distributors, plus you will be charged $1.50 handling fee per book. For a box of 50 books, that would include $75 handling fee above the shipping rate.

5. DISTRIBUTION. The one HUGE drawback to Createspace is that distribution is only on Amazon. Lulu and Lightning Source offer distribution on Amazon plus other channels. The biggy for LS is the Ingram catalog. Note Lulu charges a fee for distribution but then has some exclusions so that maybe foreign rights are not included. LS distribution for UK is included only if you choose that POD contract in addition to the US POD contract (you have several options you can mix and match).

So, let’s look at comparative costs to get ONE book done without any revisions. For comparative book cost between Lightning Source and Createspace, I will use Createspace PRO plan and no pro plan. Because I am not dealing with Lulu right now I will leave it out of the comparison. Their prices are available online, so you can check them out yourself. Just be sure you use the same page count for your book when making comparisons.

LS
$75 file uploads
$30 proof
$12 Ingram catalog annually
$40 cost of your ISBN if purchased in block of 10
TOTAL $157 for a small paperback
Cost per 360-page book ($0.90 + $0.013/pg) $5.58 direct to distributor (slightly higher if direct to you the publisher)

CS
$13 proof
TOTAL $12 for a 360 page book
Cost per 360-page book ($1.50 + $0.02/pg) $8.70

CS-Pro
$39 Pro fee
$9.57 proof
TOTAL $48.57
Cost per 360-page book ($0.85 + $0.012/pg) $5.72

Comparing the three pricing structures you can see that distribution via Ingram’s catalog you will pay about $110-135 showing you as the publisher. Add your ISBN to CS and that lowers the difference to $70-95. NOTE that just because you have the opportunity to reach additional distribution sources through Lightning Source, there is no guarantee that anyone will buy your book if they don’t know about it. So MARKETING is your number-one priority at this juncture. Note also that generally POD books are non-returnable, and if you opt with LS to have them returned to you, they will charge you a fee per book as someone else already pointed out.

Clear as mud?

-Penumbra Publishing

I shared this with fellow reviewer LK and she pointed out the issue some might also have as far as your ISBN is concerned: “CS has that one huge downside being linked ONLY to Amazon, which is why I went with Lulu for Misfit McCabe.  Plus, they also have the other downside of owning the ISBN instead of you.”

So when you are choosing a direction for your book, ask yourself these questions?

1. Do you want to own your ISBN?
2. Do you care about getting your book into bookstores?
3. Do you want your book available through other channels than Amazon?
4. How much money are you willing to invest in the project up front?