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Post by rickyvernio on Nov 19, 2023 3:40:15 GMT
How long does it normally take for a print book to move on from the "distribution pending" status?
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Nov 19, 2023 18:07:19 GMT
How long does it normally take for a print book to move on from the "distribution pending" status? If you're talking about distribution pending status at Lulu Press, it can take six to eight weeks, or longer when approaching the end of year holidays. This would be due to people trying to make sales due to the holidays.
If you feel your book has been is pending status too long, I'd suggest you try contacting Lulu Press.
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Post by Deadshot on Jan 10, 2024 21:14:48 GMT
Hi.
Talking of which, I submitted my book on October 15th 2023 for Global Dist. Today is Jan10th 2024. I had to contact their support and this is the reply I got:
Good morning! Happy New Year–I hope you're well.
My apologies for the confusion; I can confirm that this project was successfully submitted and was just added to our approval list. At this time, we are manually approving all projects for global distribution. The submission process typically can take a few weeks for submission (and thus, for the pending distribution notice to be bypassed). Once approved, it should take up to 4 weeks to update/list the project with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and so on.
I have also reached out to our team to ensure that this is on our list for submission to distribution–they have confirmed this to be the case. I hope this helps, and thanks for your understanding! Let me know if you have any further concerns.
Warmly,
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Jan 11, 2024 0:04:24 GMT
Hi. Talking of which, I submitted my book on October 15th 2023 for Global Dist. Today is Jan10th 2024. I had to contact their support and this is the reply I got: Good morning! Happy New Year–I hope you're well. My apologies for the confusion; I can confirm that this project was successfully submitted and was just added to our approval list. At this time, we are manually approving all projects for global distribution. The submission process typically can take a few weeks for submission (and thus, for the pending distribution notice to be bypassed). Once approved, it should take up to 4 weeks to update/list the project with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and so on. I have also reached out to our team to ensure that this is on our list for submission to distribution–they have confirmed this to be the case. I hope this helps, and thanks for your understanding! Let me know if you have any further concerns. Warmly, |
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Post by Mag2024 on Jan 11, 2024 1:51:38 GMT
Hi. Talking of which, I submitted my book on October 15th 2023 for Global Dist. Today is Jan10th 2024. I had to contact their support and this is the reply I got: Good morning! Happy New Year–I hope you're well. My apologies for the confusion; I can confirm that this project was successfully submitted and was just added to our approval list. At this time, we are manually approving all projects for global distribution. The submission process typically can take a few weeks for submission (and thus, for the pending distribution notice to be bypassed). Once approved, it should take up to 4 weeks to update/list the project with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and so on. I have also reached out to our team to ensure that this is on our list for submission to distribution–they have confirmed this to be the case. I hope this helps, and thanks for your understanding! Let me know if you have any further concerns. Warmly, KDP distribution is the absolute worst. Lulu, the best. Ingram Spark, excellent distribution but moderate sales. Free to set up a book now. |
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Post by Deadshot on Jan 11, 2024 8:36:21 GMT
To be honest, KDP is going backwards. I miss the CreateSpace days where it worked great. When they stopped their partnership with CreateSpace, they accepted fewer languages (mainly RtL scripts) and made it more cumbersome to submit books for print.
I had decided not to publish with KDP and then the sales suffered. However, I am still not publishing with them. In my experience, Lulu is one of the best services these days - once you have understood the way they do things.
However and on a similar note, I received an email from Lulu a month ago advising me to change the specs (cover design and interior file) of an old book that has been in publication for years. Their excuse is that Amazon (as a Global Distributor) suddenly objected to the way my book was published and that Amazon would stop selling it on their platform. The advice from Lulu also stated that I could just ignore the Amazon ultimatum - which I did.
From my experience, almost every online service is getting more complicated and more expensive and restrictive.
I have come to conclude that many people are just publishing books now to make a quick buck by publishing blank journals/diaries and AI generated stuff of mediocre quality. This could be a factor for reviewing books manually?
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Post by Mag2024 on Jan 11, 2024 16:53:04 GMT
To be honest, KDP is going backwards. I miss the CreateSpace days where it worked great. When they stopped their partnership with CreateSpace, they accepted fewer languages (mainly RtL scripts) and made it more cumbersome to submit books for print. I had decided not to publish with KDP and then the sales suffered. However, I am still not publishing with them. In my experience, Lulu is one of the best services these days - once you have understood the way they do things. However and on a similar note, I received an email from Lulu a month ago advising me to change the specs (cover design and interior file) of an old book that has been in publication for years. Their excuse is that Amazon (as a Global Distributor) suddenly objected to the way my book was published and that Amazon would stop selling it on their platform. The advice from Lulu also stated that I could just ignore the Amazon ultimatum - which I did. From my experience, almost every online service is getting more complicated and more expensive and restrictive. I have come to conclude that many people are just publishing books now to make a quick buck by publishing blank journals/diaries and AI generated stuff of mediocre quality. This could be a factor for reviewing books manually? Lulu is just following the standard set by Lightning Source/IngramSpark who have always examined every book before allowing you to Approve for distribution. This is a good thing. Lulu is also using similar cover templates to Ingram Spark. There is zero chance of error with these. |
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sirram
Senior Printer
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money
Posts: 269
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Post by sirram on Jan 11, 2024 18:32:51 GMT
In 2014, our local history society published a facsimile series of 12 booklets, with identical front-cover designs, but with their own individual titles. The original authors were not identified on the covers, but in the frontmatter.
The booklets were fine and have sold many hundreds of copies. But Lulu initially rejected one of the twelve (Part 2) for Global Distribution because the front cover (as Lulu told me) didn't show the name of the author.
On that basis, Lulu should have rejected all twelve, but eleven got through, I took a gamble and re-published Part 2 with no changes. This time, unchanged, it went through for Global Distribution.
It was quite clear at the time that Lulu was only sampling, rather than rigorously checking each and every book.
Perhaps Lulu is more rigorous today?
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Post by Mag2024 on Jan 11, 2024 19:59:17 GMT
In 2014, our local history society published a facsimile series of 12 booklets, with identical front-cover designs, but with their own individual titles. The original authors were not identified on the covers, but in the frontmatter. The booklets were fine and have sold many hundreds of copies. But Lulu initially rejected one of the twelve (Part 2) for Global Distribution because the front cover (as Lulu told me) didn't show the name of the author. On that basis, Lulu should have rejected all twelve, but eleven got through, I took a gamble and re-published Part 2 with no changes. This time, unchanged, it went through for Global Distribution. It was quite clear at the time that Lulu was only sampling, rather than rigorously checking each and every book. Perhaps Lulu is more rigorous today? People are looking at your books. One person might find fault with it, the other understands your objective. So you just got unlucky that one time. |
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Post by Deadshot on Jan 12, 2024 10:51:00 GMT
Hi. Talking of which, I submitted my book on October 15th 2023 for Global Dist. Today is Jan10th 2024. I had to contact their support and this is the reply I got: Good morning! Happy New Year–I hope you're well. My apologies for the confusion; I can confirm that this project was successfully submitted and was just added to our approval list. At this time, we are manually approving all projects for global distribution. The submission process typically can take a few weeks for submission (and thus, for the pending distribution notice to be bypassed). Once approved, it should take up to 4 weeks to update/list the project with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and so on. I have also reached out to our team to ensure that this is on our list for submission to distribution–they have confirmed this to be the case. I hope this helps, and thanks for your understanding! Let me know if you have any further concerns. Warmly, Update on this. This morning, the aforementioned book has been approved for global distribution and the status turned to green colour, from purple. Now, the book is available on Amazon. This happened in the span of two days from me contacting support. This goes to show that the advice I read on this forum to chase up Support does indeed work. |
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Jan 12, 2024 23:53:06 GMT
Are Lulu staff actually reading each book to Approve it now? I recall that it was the creator who Approved it. One makes the PDF files for the printers using the Wizard tools, buy a Proof to see if it's what one wanted it to look like, if so, click Approve. Often it took a day or two for a Proof to arrive, once Approved by the creator it was ported out to the world (if an ISBN is used) It could take up to four weeks to be fully listed at places like Amazon. It sounds as if now it could take months in total! I would suggest publishing directly to Amazon via KDP. KDP distribution is the absolute worst. In what way? I have found it quite fast, and worldwide eventually, but I do only publish ebooks via it.
But do you mean actual distribution out across the world once a book has been Approved?Lulu, the best. That's a worry, nowadays ... Lulu used to be the best for everything. Apart from sending ePubs to Amazon, which get converted poorly to MOBI. Hence why I never used that option and published ebooks direct using KDP.Ingram Spark, excellent distribution but moderate sales. Free to set up a book now. No idea, not looked at them. But can it not be confusing the same book created at many places at once, and therefore multiple listings of the same book? |
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Jan 13, 2024 0:04:09 GMT
To be honest, KDP is going backwards. I miss the CreateSpace days where it worked great. When they stopped their partnership with CreateSpace, they accepted fewer languages (mainly RtL scripts) and made it more cumbersome to submit books for print. Createspace was also Amazon, all they did was merge it with KDP. I guess they also simplified it.I had decided not to publish with KDP and then the sales suffered. However, I am still not publishing with them. In my experience, Lulu is one of the best services these days - once you have understood the way they do things. Lulu used to be amazing, then for no apparent reason they changed all the excellent DIY software. They also removed the forums, in my opinion so they could sell more services, instead of us telling people for free how to DIY. Lulu became very mercenary. Everything began to point to "let us do it for a fee ..."However and on a similar note, I received an email from Lulu a month ago advising me to change the specs (cover design and interior file) of an old book that has been in publication for years. Their excuse is that Amazon (as a Global Distributor) suddenly objected to the way my book was published and that Amazon would stop selling it on their platform. The advice from Lulu also stated that I could just ignore the Amazon ultimatum - which I did. From my experience, almost every online service is getting more complicated and more expensive and restrictive. Amazon etc., quite a while ago, did try to remove the dross, so got stricter with what was allowed.
I have come to conclude that many people are just publishing books now to make a quick buck by publishing blank journals/diaries and AI generated stuff of mediocre quality. This could be a factor for reviewing books manually? What do you mean "now"? they always have. Not AI stuff though, although even some famous writers may as well as well it the way some of their fiction seems to be created via Find and Replace tools. But there used to be some appalling stuff published via Lulu, giving SP a very bad name, or a worse name. Maybe that's why the Preview option was removed ... |
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Jan 13, 2024 0:05:09 GMT
Hi. Talking of which, I submitted my book on October 15th 2023 for Global Dist. Today is Jan10th 2024. I had to contact their support and this is the reply I got: Good morning! Happy New Year–I hope you're well. My apologies for the confusion; I can confirm that this project was successfully submitted and was just added to our approval list. At this time, we are manually approving all projects for global distribution. The submission process typically can take a few weeks for submission (and thus, for the pending distribution notice to be bypassed). Once approved, it should take up to 4 weeks to update/list the project with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and so on. I have also reached out to our team to ensure that this is on our list for submission to distribution–they have confirmed this to be the case. I hope this helps, and thanks for your understanding! Let me know if you have any further concerns. Warmly, Update on this. This morning, the aforementioned book has been approved for global distribution and the status turned to green colour, from purple. Now, the book is available on Amazon. This happened in the span of two days from me contacting support. This goes to show that the advice I read on this forum to chase up Support does indeed work. That should not really be the case. |
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