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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on May 12, 2020 22:03:07 GMT
It's probably a very good way of gauging public opinion and feeding back to his bosses. I suspect everybody here is quite serious about what they do and are long-term Lulu customers, so it will be instructive to know how we are feeling and if there seems to be move towards competitors in the self-publishing world.
The one by "SV" is interesting in that so far no reply has been given anyone at Lulu Press, last updated 8 hours ago.
It would be safe to say the longer the "upgrade" remains a slo-mo train wreck, the less patience people will have and the more likely they are to find a different platform to do business with.
The sad part is his bosses, if they actually cared enough to take the time and make the effort, could look at all the comments here themselves. Two weeks after the start of this mess is way too long to be trying to jolly people along, it's time to actually start giving people an idea of if and when things might be straightened out. Otherwise it's a bit like taking your car to the mechanic and when you get it back you get told: "Yeah, I know the speedometer and brakes aren't working right now and you just paid $3500 but we have the parts ordered and they'll be in sometime so just drive your car as is until we call you someday."
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Post by adrianallan on May 12, 2020 22:18:43 GMT
Agreed totally.
They have pressed the self-destruct button and I need to find alternatives. I'm losing money, but thankfully this is only a pocket money business for me. Those with a lot at stake must be furious.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on May 12, 2020 22:34:52 GMT
As Herr Benziger has noted before, the collective of serious author / self-publishers who utilize the Services of Lulu Press aren't actually customers, they're business partners.
Lulu Press doesn't really make squat off the one-off photo albums or the random person printing an autobiography for family, instead it's the steady business of the small independents who help drive Lulu Press' income or those wannabes who pay for the assistance of Lulu Press' "partners", and without the majority of those small independents who do have good sales, Lulu Press won't be in business much longer. I've know some wealthy people, and they know when to cut their losses which is before a business starts failing and losing money.
My earnings from my sales since 2013 don't amount to pocket change, in fact after factoring in paying for Global Reach years ago and so on, I'm still deep in the hole. But the people who depend on those sales, those are the ones who will get tired of being jollied along pretty quickly.
Perhaps this is what it takes for the mere mortals who run Lulu Press on a daily basis to wake, as opposed to an entrepreneur like Robert "Bob" Young who is merely a CEO and doesn't have to worry what the scummy little insignificant people think.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2020 14:09:48 GMT
But the people who depend on those sales, those are the ones who will get tired of being jollied along pretty quickly.
That's why I am prepared to be so patient, I give a lot of my books away ffor free just to get my messages across, but I agree those who depend on sales will not be so patient.
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Post by reinholdbehringer on May 14, 2020 18:57:39 GMT
I can now post here something positive: my project covers are back, as shown correctly on my projects page. At least one positive step in the right direction!
Sales data are still incorrectly at $0... there should be at least one sale. But I can wait...
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Post by markcbrown on May 14, 2020 19:18:26 GMT
I just checked and yes all my covers are now displayed, however one book cover has someone else's book design. So at least it's a step to fixing what was missing. I still have the pending book issue on all previously published books,but hope is rising.
Still not good practice as we are inching toward the 4 week mark.
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Post by benziger on May 14, 2020 19:27:07 GMT
The one by "SV" is interesting in that so far no reply has been given anyone at Lulu Press, last updated 8 hours ago.
SV has put it so well: factual, complete and as short as possible. But the accusations are massive. That is probably why it took a little time (two days) to get an answer. It has now been there for two hours. Absolutely worth reading. What we have been expecting for days. On the blog, on Facebook, here. Not just when Trustpilot is going down.
Reply from Lulu Publishing 2 hours ago Hello SV,
Thank you for your feedback. We remain confident that while the release has not gone as smoothly as we would have liked, it is making good progress and we do have hundreds of thousands of users and projects on the new platform and thousands of orders are being processed.
We continue to work through and make daily progress on the issues that are still impacting some of our users. With each passing day things are getting progressively better. While sometimes these improvements aren't always seen, I can encourage you they are happening. It is these important structural components that will improve the functionality of the website and create a better user experience for everyone.
We are migrating sales and revenue data still and we understand that the sales and revenue page is very important. If you or any other author has any questions about their sales and revenue, they can reach out to us and we can provide a report on their sales and revenue.
The order page does work and you can see the status of your order. Also we will continue to email customers when an order finishes production and is ready to be shipped out.
New projects are able to be published and many new projects are being published daily. If you or any author runs into a glitch we encourage that you to reach out to us so we can determine what is going on. The more examples that are reported find the easier it is for our development team to uncover what is going on and correct the issue.
At the moment it is not yet possible for users to delete a project in draft or retire a published project. However, if they reach out to us we can process the request internally for them. If you have any projects that need to be retired please contact us through our support page.
Author discounts are another feature we plan on bringing back and expanding upon. It will just take time for us to do since we are currently focusing on making the user experience much better.
Authors can approve projects for distribution, but we have run into some cases where they are unable to approve their project. As mentioned previously, if you run into this kind of issue please let us know.
We are diligently working on a new cover tool right now, but it does take time to develop. While Flash may be still supported until the end of the year there are many known security vulnerabilities with Flash. Most web browsers by default already have it disabled because of those vulnerabilities. If the option is to have a less feature rich cover tool for the short term or risk the safety and security of our users, then we will gladly take the former over the latter.
We understand that what we have shaken the confidence of many of our users with the role out of our new platform. We will try our hardest to regain that trust as we continue to improve upon our new platform. If you have already submitted a case with us we will get to you as quickly as possible. Due to a high volume of emails it is taking us longer to respond. If you'd like to reach out to me personally, please let me know your case number and I'll email you as soon as I am able to so we can resolve these issue for you.
We do sincerely apologize for any frustration this experience has caused you.
Warm regards,
Tim S. Lulu Press, Inc.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on May 14, 2020 20:26:30 GMT
SV's Comment from Trust Pilot Self-Inflicted Chaos Lulu was a great service to self-published authors and small presses for many a long year. Everything has changed at the end of April 2020, when what was announced as a "site update" turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. After two and a half weeks, 1. No Sales and Revenue data has been migrated, so the customers are being held in the dark. At the moment, most of the accounts show zero revenue no matter how many books have been sold. Lulu says that they keep all the data and the customers will be paid what they are owed (and the customers don't even know what they are owed!); let's see what will happen. 2. The information about the orders is not being updated. The customers can only guess if their orders were printed and shipped. 3. New projects still can't be completed due to multiple website glitches. 4. There's no option to delete/retire a draft or a project, so Lulu is trying to hold on to the books against their customers' will, even if Lulu doesn't own the ISBN for them. This is illegal and will probably result in lawsuits. 5. After creators' discounts on their books have been cancelled, prices for many books have gone up significantly, however the customers are still unable to lower/adjust the price of their books. Why? 6. No one can obtain Global Reach distribution for their books that haven't yet been approved by the creator (and it isn't possible to approve a newly-created book). This means that new projects will be only available on Lulu for the time being and won't appear on Amazon, etc. I wonder for how long. 7. The current cover-creating tool is a joke. The old one required Adobe Flash player, which will be retired, but not until December 2020, so Lulu could use that old tool for their covers until they come up with something that works. There's also an issue with trust. Lulu keep saying that they are "working around the clock" to sort out the mess, however I can see that absolutely no changes have been made to the site in the last twelve days; all the glitches are still there. Regular "Lulu updates" on Facebook are reposts of the same old update from two weeks ago and seem to have the sole purpose of deleting older posts together with all the negative comments left by dissatisfied customers. These updates are aimed at reassuring everybody and buying time, but Lulu will need plenty of time, as this self-inflicted chaos will probably go on for many long weeks, if not months, and no one knows if they can ever sort it out. I would love to say something positive in the end, but I am unable to. It is a pity to see the downfall of what has been working so well for years and years. ********
Personally, I'm at the point I just have no real reason to trust Lulu Press.
In the advertising copy about all the great new splendiferous features of the new system it says if you have to edit some of your book's details or edit the price there's no need to order a proof, yet when I attempted to fix some details Lulu Press screwed up in the migration as well as get the price back down to a reasonable level, the new system let me know in a heartbeat I have to order a proof copy in order for changes to reflect at other outlets, meaning whoever wrote the advertising copy was full of feces.
About now it will be easier just to get the print versions of my work deleted since Lulu Press apparently doesn't want us listing a press name any more, because of course Lulu Press has control. As for ebook versions, I've sold more Kindle versions, and I put those on Amazon myself since Lulu Press didn't offer Amazon distribution back when I started.
Between submitting new work to Trad venues and getting new ISBNs I own for older work is a better business model, it's easier to just write off my costs at Lulu Press as a learning exercise.
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Post by Stiilpissedoff on May 14, 2020 22:12:15 GMT
I just checked mine. Most covers and projects seem to be working but still have one cover that is corrupt and it says pending. Been on Amazon for five years now. The two books I needed fixed got fixed but wanted to buy a proof but there are now files for the book cover or interior, now it's back to a friggin draft..No delete option for that. Who thought that one up? Still no report. Nothing from Paul on here and no updates since the 11th. Many are depending on this money and Lulu doesn't even care enough to leave a daily update. The new book creation wizard is still iffy at best. Still need a cover wizard instead of the crap it's got now. Was better before. But to answer some above, I've been able to log since day one. Still no revenue showing although payee info is showing finally. There's not even all time sales report or anything. If I were their PR I'd at least tell people their sorry and they are doing the best they can. And promise some compensation. They've lost so many people, if it keeps there will be more.
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Post by JesusNinja on May 14, 2020 22:23:28 GMT
So Lulu is basically saying that if we try to revise a book and end up with a draft, we contact them and then wait three weeks before we can finish the book? Why no retire or delete option? That decision was pretty stupid and time consuming. Authors who need money don't have time to wait three weeks for support to delete a draft so they can get their books to Amazon. We make no money selling on Lulu.com. It's the Global Dist that sells things. Everything Sphinx mentioned above is true. Also they said we could go in changes things and not have to buy proofs? I end up with a draft each time. Then have to contact support and wait a week or so. We don't have time for that nonsense. KDP is working fine and the profit is much better. None of this bullcrap we're dealing with now. But I'd rather stay with them but they are not giving me incentive to do so...And Paul logging in without giving us something to go on is pretty much telling me that we don't matter that much to them. The fact we can't delete or retire projects does make me wonder if they intend to just crash and keep our work. If so I will my lawyer will be contacting them. Many I've talk to already have sent theirs.
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Post by mickmercer on May 15, 2020 13:46:05 GMT
So Lulu is basically saying that if we try to revise a book and end up with a draft, we contact them and then wait three weeks before we can finish the book? Why no retire or delete option? That decision was pretty stupid and time consuming. Authors who need money don't have time to wait three weeks for support to delete a draft so they can get their books to Amazon. We make no money selling on Lulu.com. It's the Global Dist that sells things. Everything Sphinx mentioned above is true. Also they said we could go in changes things and not have to buy proofs? I end up with a draft each time. Then have to contact support and wait a week or so. We don't have time for that nonsense. KDP is working fine and the profit is much better. None of this bullcrap we're dealing with now. But I'd rather stay with them but they are not giving me incentive to do so...And Paul logging in without giving us something to go on is pretty much telling me that we don't matter that much to them. The fact we can't delete or retire projects does make me wonder if they intend to just crash and keep our work. If so I will my lawyer will be contacting them. Many I've talk to already have sent theirs.
"At the moment it is not yet possible for users to delete a project in draft or retire a published project. However, if they reach out to us we can process the request internally for them. If you have any projects that need to be retired please contact us through our support page. " Hopefully this part of their explanation means we will again be able to retire or delete things. I will want all my previously retired works, and private works (gifts for family etc) permanently deleted, because who knows when we'll suddenly find them popping up unexpectedly?
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Post by richard on May 15, 2020 14:06:18 GMT
The problem with contacting them through their support page is that they don't reply. It is two weeks now since I first raised a ticket with them and I have had no response to that, or any others. That is, aside from the automated response which you have to reply to in order to keep a ticket open.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2020 14:19:06 GMT
It's probably a very good way of gauging public opinion and feeding back to his bosses. I suspect everybody here is quite serious about what they do and are long-term Lulu customers, so it will be instructive to know how we are feeling and if there seems to be move towards competitors in the self-publishing world. I think you are right adrianallan we are mostly long term customers. I think we are all serious about our work and in the last email that I received from Lulu ii was the same story------"We are doing all we can to get it right." I am prepared to give them more time but for others (who rely on sales)----- they are getting very impatient and some have left Lulu and moved to competitors. There are several out there. My big concern is that all my books have Lulu ISBN numbers and if they go down so do my books. sigh!
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Post by uptimejim on May 15, 2020 16:11:00 GMT
It's probably a very good way of gauging public opinion and feeding back to his bosses. I suspect everybody here is quite serious about what they do and are long-term Lulu customers, so it will be instructive to know how we are feeling and if there seems to be move towards competitors in the self-publishing world. I think you are right adrianallan we are mostly long term customers. I think we are all serious about our work and in the last email that I received from Lulu ii was the same story------"We are doing all we can to get it right." I am prepared to give them more time but for others (who rely on sales)----- they are getting very impatient and some have left Lulu and moved to competitors. There are several out there. My big concern is that all my books have Lulu ISBN numbers and if they go down so do my books. sigh! Just who are competitors that offer a similar service? I've found plenty of DIY and Self-publishing sites, but so far they all seem to conventional publishers with a more web-based front end for uploading your content.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2020 17:01:17 GMT
I think you are right adrianallan we are mostly long term customers. I think we are all serious about our work and in the last email that I received from Lulu ii was the same story------"We are doing all we can to get it right." I am prepared to give them more time but for others (who rely on sales)----- they are getting very impatient and some have left Lulu and moved to competitors. There are several out there. My big concern is that all my books have Lulu ISBN numbers and if they go down so do my books. sigh! Just who are competitors that offer a similar service? I've found plenty of DIY and Self-publishing sites, but so far they all seem to conventional publishers with a more web-based front end for uploading your content. I use lulu, KDP print and Ingram Spark. All three are free right now. Coupon code INGRAMSPARK2020 for free setup. Just used it today for a client.
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