sirram
Senior Printer
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money
Posts: 269
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Post by sirram on Jun 17, 2020 9:11:44 GMT
One of my books is "Private Access" - which is correct. However, if I search for it in Google using the exact title, Google is finding it with the following link: www.lulu.com/shop/<my name>/<my book title>/paperback/product-<nnnnnnnn>.html?ppn=1 If I click on the link, I'm taken to the Lulu website but, of course, as the book is "Private Access", Lulu thankfully doesn't display it. Instead, Lulu displays the following message: "Internal Server Error
Someone tripped over a cord. We're working on getting everything plugged in again." I don't know if this a new bug or also happened on the old platform. But surely Lulu should set a flag on "Private Access" books to tell search engines not to index them. |
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Post by benziger on Jun 17, 2020 10:57:22 GMT
Was the book available earlier, and you later set it to "private access"?
Then this could be explained: The search engine has indexed the book. That's why we got the hit. But since there is no access anymore, Lulu shows an error page (in the past it was 404, today it is a bit more capricious and in your case it is just wrong). |
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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 Jun 17, 2020 12:44:44 GMT
No. It was always private access. It was a book to celebrate 20 years of a local club where I am on the committee. It contains personal data about members and was only handed out to them personally. The one and only print run took place in 2014. It has always been "private access" and, even on the new troublesome Lulu platform, it still is.
But somehow, Google has detected it!
If anyone reading this has a "private access" book, perhaps they could try Googling it to see if its identity has also become public.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2020 12:52:48 GMT
Thanks for the info both. I'm off to Lulu to check my books. I have several private access books and I wouldn't want them to evem appear on google, even though Lulu is showing an error. This never happened before, I think it's disgraceful. Also I don't remember it taking so long for a book to be delivered. Winteriscoming self-published a book on Lulu and it was placed by the company on Amazon, where i bought it. My purchase was on the 30th May. I received an email telling me it would be delivered at the end of June----a whole month. I also bought a book from Amazon (not published in Lulu) for my grandchild. I received an email telling me it would take a week! So it's not covid that's causing the lengthy delivery time, it's Lulu's incompetent upgrade.
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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 Jun 17, 2020 14:28:45 GMT
A couple of my other books (which I'm pretty sure were always private access) have appeared on the new platform as public access.
So, just now I clicked on "Revise", went through all the revision pages and, right at the end, was able to change them back to Private Access. I only mention this because the new Revision Wizard is far from intuitive - but after ages fiddling about, I reached the screen where I could make them private again.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2020 14:44:02 GMT
I'll try that
Edit It won't let me change it when I press "revise."
I've used the blue question mark---- we shall see if I get a response.
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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 Jun 17, 2020 15:33:22 GMT
To change the distribution setting of an existing project, here's what I did:
1. Click on "My Projects"
2. Click on "Revise" against the particular book. This takes one to the Wizard with six steps
3. Step 1 ("Start") - Scroll down this page, make sure "Global Distribution" is unchecked, then scroll to the bottom of this page and click "Add Copyright Info"
4. Step 2 ("Copyright") - Scroll to the bottom and click "Design Your Book"
5. Step 3 ("Design") - Scroll to the bottom and click "Add Book Details"
6. Step 4 ("Details") - I had to fill in a couple of fields on this page including something called BISAC which I had never heard of. I picked the most suitable entry, then scrolled to the bottom and clicked "Add pricing and payee"
7. Step 5 ("Pricing and Payees") - I ignored the warning at the top of this page, which said "Design step needs to be completed before setting the prices.", then scrolled to the bottom and clicked "Final Review".
8. Step 6 ("Final Review") = Finally, check each of the very tiny tick-boxes.
Once you've checked them all, wait a few seconds and a "Retail Options" section should appear - where the available options include "Private Access"
Note: You need to have made at least one change (e.g. enter something in the BISAC field) before these Retail Options become available.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Jun 17, 2020 15:55:11 GMT
I just opened another support ticket to get all of my print projects deleted or retired, regardless of access or distribution. The epubs can remain, for now.
I see absolutely no reason to jump through hoops since the "upgrade" wasn't ready to be rolled out when it was.
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