My Lulu.com Report (One Monkey's Experience)

[GregS]

So I've been promising a report on my Lulu.com experience for weeks but, due to some initial irregularities, I wanted to get a second copy in my grubby little paws before I sounded off.

    The Book:  Valherjar: The Chosen Slain Core Rulebook
    The Stats: 233 page, color soft cover, b&w interior, $19.99
    The Storefront (which I am effectively ignoring): http://www.lulu.com/gmpress
    The Product Page:  http://www.lulu.com/content/93237

    The Experience:
Setting Up My Book:
If you've never done anything like this before (and I hadn't), you may be a bit surprised to find that you actually construct the product through their interface, and you should expect a few hours of confusion and browsing through help files your first time in.  Not that it was hard by any stretch, but it is not particularly new-user friendly, so if you don't know when and where to put everything you'll spend quite a bit of time backing up, redoing sections, and generally wondering how, exactly, it all goes together.  For example, your cover can't be one giant image-it instead has to be composed of a front and back set of images, with the spine created on-line through their interface (which is basically just a choice of text types).  It also requires that you upload a couple of pieces of info a couple of different times.  But, that all said, I did actually like the process by the end and was able to build a book I was happy with.

My Storefront:
If you're familiar with RPGNow, the process will seem fairly straightforward.  You set up your storefront, design a product's page, and get selling.  It includes a synopsis, links to a sample, and the front cover image in thumbnail with links to it and the back cover in larger, though still not really legible, size.  What was disappointing was the rather significant restriction on total text allowed on the product page (I wasn't even able to include all the text from the back of my book), the Spartan user tools (yes, I can see how many books I've sold and how much money I've earned, but I can't track any kind of stats about my customers at all--which is a shame), and the absolutely asinine "personalized storefront" I'm restricted to.  If that's a professional company storefront then my basement guest room is the Ritz Carlton. But I digress...

Order Time and Shipping:
Unfortunately, since the first book came in right around Christmas and things were chaotic I didn't notate exactly what day I got it, but with the slow (and reasonably priced) USPS shipping it took 12 business days (M-F) and 18 days over all to receive my 2nd copy...and that seemed about the same.  Not horrible, but not exactly lightning either.

One rather significant shipping issue, however, is that Lulu evidently disabled standard USPS media shipping over the holiday.  I know this because I got a bunch of emails telling me that customers "would have bought the book, but the shipping was only four bucks less than the cover price."  That pissed me, and a bunch of people on Lulu's forum, off in a big way.  Lulu claimed it was because "it was the only way to guarantee delivery by Christmas," but, as far as I'm concerned, if that was a problem they should have just noted it like Amazon (et al) does...not taken away your option to get it later.  Of course, the pessimist in me thinks they did it just to try and squeak out the extra money in handling, but you be your own judge.

The Product in Hand:
Overall, I have to say, I'm very pleasantly impressed with the base quality of the book.  Having been "sold" on heavy stock paper by the myriad of printers I've spoken with during development I was terrified of the light weight paper and cover stock Lulu uses...but when I got the actual book in hand I was perfectly happy with it.  The quality of print is high, with the myriad of interior image styles (from ink wash to some really detailed pen and inks) all represented professionally.  A few of the pages are slightly off centered or tilted, evidently from the paper sliding around in the printer, but it's not overly noticeable and certainly doesn't detract too much from the overall aesthetics.  The cover printing is clean and pretty, though the glossy laminate seems to be of truly craptastic quality and began to peel up around the edges within the first few days of mere "show and tell" with my family and friends and won't possibly stand up to the typical wear and tear that a normal gamer will dish out.  But that's the only disappointment about the printing and it's something I'm reasonably comfortable living with.

I did also have a few small color matching issues, having to do with the printers' black vs. my personal printer's black, but it only took me one draft to sort out and I'm intending to use the one flawed cover as a filing proof anyways.

The Verdict:
All in all, I have to say, I've been pretty darned pleased with Lulu as a whole.  There are a couple of issues I have had with most every aspect of design and vendoring, but they certainly haven't been heinous enough to scare me away and the decent quality of the product, coupled with the fact that I currently have a $0 inventory cost, has sold me enough that I'm happy with the product and I'll keep using them.

[Keith Senkowski]

The cover printing is clean and pretty, though the glossy laminate seems to be of truly craptastic quality and began to peel up around the edges within the first few days of mere "show and tell" with my family and friends and won't possibly stand up to the typical wear and tear that a normal gamer will dish out.  But that's the only disappointment about the printing and it's something I'm reasonably comfortable living with.

Wow.  I would contact them about it.  I have the first copy I printed back in June and it has gotten some heavy use and I've had no problems with the laminate at all.

Keith

[greedo1379]

Thanks for this!

[komejo]

Greg,

Thanks for the very detailed review! I'm the QA geek here at Lulu and wanted to address a few things.

One rather significant shipping issue, however, is that Lulu evidently disabled standard USPS media shipping over the holiday. I know this because I got a bunch of emails telling me that customers "would have bought the book, but the shipping was only four bucks less than the cover price."

We never deactivated USPS Media Mail shipping, we simply changed it from being the default shipping method, and added warnings to the cart that if you were selecting a slow shipping method, you were likely going to receive it after the holidays. Sorry to hear that this confused some of your customers - we may take a different tack next year, but to be fair, we managed to deliver every holiday order we received on time. Pretty cool stuff for a print on demand company.

As for your orders being slow, your first one shipped in 48 hours, but your second in 8 business days. Awful! This was likely due to your book not being in the "Oh man, we gotta get these out by Christmas" group of books. Normally (that is, any time except for those two weeks), orders ship in 2-3 business days. Sorry about that. We'll try to keep orders flowing more smoothly next year.

As far as the laminate peeling, I've never seen that happen to one of our books. We'll happily replace it for you (or any other customer that had that problem). I'm kinda curious about that, being the QA guy... Pics?

Yes, our storefronts need work. Boy howdy, do they need some work! If you're handy with CSS you can tweak 'em out yourself, but we hope to add some tools, some more templates, etc...

Customer tracking tools are slated to roll out this year, as is a modest redesign that should (hopefully) make it easier for first-time users. Also, full-wrap covers - you will be able to load one giant image.

I'm glad to see that you stuck with us through the myriad of glitches - looks like publishing your first book over the holidays is good way to stress-test the system. :-)

Regards,
Joe K

[Space Cowboy]

Hey GregS,

Thanks also for this well-written, detailed, and informative review!

Cheers

[Del]

Getting listed with Lulu doesn't guarentee you at least a few sales like the front page pushing of new books at RPGNow, but I'm happy with Lulu.

Their software works, you get an online distributer, and there ya go. Just make sure to order coil binding if you have any pull-out visual component/map aids with your material.

[Scrubilicous]

Getting listed with Lulu doesn't guarentee you at least a few sales like the front page pushing of new books at RPGNow, but I'm happy with Lulu.

Their software works, you get an online distributer, and there ya go. Just make sure to order coil binding if you have any pull-out visual component/map aids with your material.

How many sales does RPGnow guarentee you?

[Del]

I got around 10 sales shortly after Cyber-Sea released on RPGNow. Wetwar launched as an entirely better design, professional web-enhancing, hell I even splurged for a layout job. However Lulu doesn't promote like RPGNow, so as is I only got one sale to name.

It's the front page listing for products on RPGNow's much visited website that makes the difference, and their monthly e-zine.

[GregS]

We never deactivated USPS Media Mail shipping, we simply changed it from being the default shipping method,

That's good to hear.  I was out of town and so never actually had a chance to check myself, I just got a bunch of irate emails and took a quick look at the Lulu msg boards, which were filled with people who had the same misconception.  

As far as the laminate peeling, I've never seen that happen to one of our books. We'll happily replace it for you (or any other customer that had that problem). I'm kinda curious about that, being the QA guy... Pics?

http://www.gmpress.com/CoreBookLaminate/100_0205.JPG
My apologies for the poor quality (a photographer I ain't).  What you're looking at is the the rear cover's upper left corner and left-side edge of the book.  These are the two worst points of laminate peeling (note the corner laminate peeling and rolling backwards and the laminate on the left side simply coming up and away from the edge).  The bright yellow flame looking bit on the bottom right side is just lens flare from my crappy camera work.

I'm glad to see that you stuck with us through the myriad of glitches - looks like publishing your first book over the holidays is good way to stress-test the system. :-)

It certainly was interesting, but again, I've been quite pleased with the overall experience.  I'm very happy to hear that the laminate issue on the cover is an isolated incident and that the shipping thing was a misunderstanding, which makes me even happier with the over all process.  I'm also very pleased with your quick attention to this post, Joe, even though it was "off site", and am excited about the upgrades the service is getting.