Lulu Review: Legit or Scam

Lulu is a self-publishing company that offers writers, teachers, photographers and nonprofit agencies as a way to publish their book and sells them around the world. At Lulu, it is easy to sell your books on Amazon, Kindle, Barnes & Nobel, iBooks, and Scribd. The company offers writers xpress printing, an e-commerce solution, author service, bulk discounts, free publishing, distribution, and teaches you how to publish your books. This is a great opportunity for anyone who is looking for a way to publish a book without all the expense and overhead that is involved.

How Does it Work?

1. When using the service you’ll be responsible to determine your own book’s format and design particulars. This means that you’ll need to know about choosing a trim size, what paper stock to use, and the different aspects of publishing a book.
2. The first step is to upload your files and get started with the publishing process. This process requires you to know about book design and how to set up a file for production and printing. In this process, you’ll be able to edit your files and set them up in your book format. Keep in mind that this is one of the hardest processes for a new self-publisher to complete. Many times a first-time publisher will fail to meet the traditional standards of a book publisher. You’ll basically need the knowledge and know-how that is associated with designing a book for the first time.
3. When publishing a book, you’ll need to design your book cover. If you’re a graphic designer this step is easy. If you can’t design a great book cover, then it is best to have a professional design this for you.

Copyright and Publisher Information:

1. If you decide to use Lulu’s self-publishing services, you’re both the publisher and copyright holder of your book. Lulu only supplies you with the publishing tools to do this yourself.
2. When creating your book online, you’ll need to create a copyright page for your book. On this page, you’ll list yourself as the copyright holder and also the publisher of the book. Furthermore, you’ll have the choice to list Lulu.com as your distributor. This isn’t an obligation and you are free to choose if you want to add the company or not.
3. Lulu has a free ISBN that you can use. If you choose to use the ISBN, the company will register your pertinent information with the bibliographic services.
4. If you want your ISBN registered with the United States of America Library of Congress or any other copyright officer, you’ll need to do this yourself.
5. If you purchase your own ISBN, you’ll be responsible for entering the bibliographic information that is required to associate your book with this number. Furthermore, it is important to use the same information for registering your ISBN on the copyright pages of your book.

Choosing the Right Product Line For Your Book:

1. When printing and ordering your book it will take 3 to 5 days to fill your order. The company works on a Monday to Friday schedule.
2. You have 4 different color product lines to choose for when printing your book. This is important if you are using color images in your book.
3. The Standard Paperback printing is for the US markets only. This is the lowest cost and affordable way to print black & white images, graphs, line drawings, tables, and small graphics. However, this option is not suitable to print full-page color or photo quality images.
4. The Premium Paperback option is used for bookstore-quality books that you wish to sell. If you have full-page images, graphics, or other types of high-quality images, then this is the best option to choose for your printing needs.
5. The Professional Hardcover option gives you both linen and case wrap with a dust jacket format. Your dust cover will be printed on 80# photo quality paper.
6. The Photo books and Calendars option will give you the professional look for all your images. The company prints your images on 80# paper for all perfect bound and 100# for any hardcover photo books. Furthermore, the company uses 100# stock to print your calendars.

What Others Are Saying About Lulu.com

1. The sales team from the company will call you multiple times a day trying to sell you a premium package. Once you purchase this package there are multiple hidden costs that were never explained to you in the beginning. You’ll end up spending more money to publish your book because of these costs.
2. After signing up for a premium package with the company, paying for the service, the company refuses to answer your emails and will hang up on you when you call.
3. The company will suspend your account for no reason at all. If you’ve earned royalties on your book they will refuse to pay you. Furthermore, they will claim that you’ve infringed upon the copyright of another book that isn’t in your account.
4. The company allows Google Book search to display 60 pages of your book online for free. If you are writing a technical book and there aren’t a large number of pages in your book, you’re basically giving this book away for free.
5. If you contact the company to discuss publishing your book, you’ll be harassed with hundreds of phone calls. Even if you block the number, the company will use a different number to call you from or they will ask another person to call you.
6. The company doesn’t pay out royalties to you. There are many hidden clauses in their contact and when you agree to their terms of service, you are agreeing to forfeit your royalty payments.
7. Many people have requested a full refund because of the hidden costs and the company calling them to ask for more money. In the end, the company won’t refund the money you’ve paid them. You’ll be lucky to receive half of your initial payment back.

Conclusion:

On the outside, Lulu looks like a fantastic way for authors to self-publish their books. The company seems legit and there are many positive comments and reviews about the services it offers. However, when you start digging deeper into the company, you’ll find many unhappy customers who were harassed; their accounts suspended and they never received a dime for their book sales.

There are many self-publishing companies online today. It isn’t hard to find a legitimate company who is upfront with you, pays you your royalties, helps you to promote your books, and works closely with you during your publication process. Before signing up and investing in Lulu.com, I’d suggest checking out a few other self-publishing companies first. This company has a very low rating and customer satisfaction. It is hard to call this company a SCAM because they are offering you a service, they provide this service, and also will pay you royalties when one of your books sells. Unfortunately, this company has too many hidden clauses and costs to make it a cost-effective way to self-publish one of your books.