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.