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Post by adrianallan on Jun 10, 2020 21:29:35 GMT
Looking beyond the corporate spin, the past few weeks have been a complete disaster for Lulu.
If this was my business, I'd be panicking after a week - but after six weeks, I'd not be sleeping at night.
If Lulu made an announcement that they were pausing all business activities indefinitely, I would not be completely surprised.
Even if they declared bankruptcy. I would be shocked, but not compeltely taken aback - as they must surely have lost thousands of customers.
The Lulu brand is fast turning toxic and after a certain point - maybe three months, there will surely be no way back.
Would you be shocked if they folded, declared bankruptcy and ended up keeping all our revenue?
Stranger things have certainly happened.
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Post by benziger on Jun 10, 2020 22:27:40 GMT
as they must surely have lost thousands of customers. On Facebook, I read in a comment: "They are begging authors to come back. Everyday a new email with incentives."
The Lulu brand is fast turning toxic and after a certain point - maybe three months, there will surely be no way back. The memory of many people is very short. It wouldn't surprise me if two or three weeks after everything is going really well again, Lulu would be rebranded. That is common. We had a leading cable TV provider known for poor customer service. A new owner invested in friendly and competent support, people were happy and it was rebranded... Would you be shocked if they folded, declared bankruptcy In such a case, there should actually still be something tangible: a few customers and a whole series of books. The trustee or liquidator must then exploit these as well as possible. In such a case, this would probably mean selling clients and their projects to competitors. Then we could only hope that this migration would be completed within two days and that not too many trim sizes would fall by the wayside. But I don't think so far today. |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Jun 10, 2020 23:13:20 GMT
Okay, with bankruptcy in the U.S. a few things happen depending on type of bankruptcy and the intent behind it.
Liquidation under [Chapter 7] can be filed for by a corporation intending to stay in business, but the assets used to pay its debts to creditors have to be assets actually owned by the business. Lulu Press doesn't own the Intellectual Property Rights to the books its clients list on its site, nor does it have a saleable license to sell the rights to those books fo9r a specified duration. A Chapter 7 liquidation wherein the business is going under is also limited to sale of assets it actually owns. Chapter 11 or Chapter 13 is a way to reorganize debts and get a repayment plan that allows a business to stay in business. Suppose Lulu Press was bought out by another company, it still can't sell the books of its clients [self-publishers] to the purchasing company because it doesn't own the Intellectual Property Rights nor does it have a saleable license to sell the rights to those books for a specified duration. The new management could take over Lulu Press operations, but those operations would fall under the original terms & conditions until clients agreed to new terms. |
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