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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2020 11:02:33 GMT
My post is quarantined until reviewed by a staff member...hope he/she is smart. Lulu's community has to think about that capital parameter. JMRS I think quarantining is a bad idea. Insulting. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2020 11:04:56 GMT
Hi everybody !
I've been struggling with Lulu's staff since months to explain that the removal of the "Look inside" Feature (books preview) is catastrophic.
They changed their platform and deleted this capital Feature.
I talked with friends, who are also publishing on Lulu, and their sales (royalties) completely dropped down since the new Lulu Platform was implemented.
There is ONLY one explanation : POTENTIAL BUYERS CANNOT LOOK INSIDE THE BOOKS, SO THEY DO NOT BUY THEM !
Think : a e-shop is completely virtual. How can you sell anything if potential buyers do not see what they buy, cannot read the first pages of your book, etc... ? They simply won't buy.
KDP (Kindle) Amazon offers the automated "Look inside" Feature (10% of the content) and all is fine there. I've been using Lulu for about 20 years and I was happy with them until this Preview Feature was removed.
Lulu's technical Staff does not want to understand that...maybe they want to find another job, in a new publishing company 
Without, at list, the implementation of an automated "look inside" Feature, it will be, soon, the end of Lulu.
How can people be that stupid ?
Jean-Michel René SOUCHE, Odessa
It's the be happy with what we give you mentality. Big on show. Nice videos. Nice people. But the company is not customer centric. |
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Post by Ken on Nov 28, 2020 11:25:24 GMT
 For what it’s worth my opinion it can be a two edged sword. If the first few pages are not deigned with sufficient care and attention it can provide a negative view of the publication. Also the subject mattter whether a novel, history or technical will have different areas of interest. A well composed description and a well designed cover can reap greater benefits.
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Post by Ken on Nov 28, 2020 11:32:07 GMT
Quarantine. A number of my posts were quarantined when I started posting here recently as no one knew who I was or the content of those posts. I did not find it a problem. This seems to be a Forum totally independent of Lulu and therefore there are no paid Staff members monitoring it 24/7. There should be no expectation of any Admin or other senior members to respond immediately to any new posts. Everyone understands the dangers of spam or ill thought out messages and should be grateful that folks care.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2020 12:59:41 GMT
I talked with friends, who are also publishing on Lulu, and their sales (royalties) completely dropped down since the new Lulu Platform was implemented. There is ONLY one explanation : POTENTIAL BUYERS CANNOT LOOK INSIDE THE BOOKS, SO THEY DO NOT BUY THEM ! I believe after you have spent a few minutes reading some of the other posts in this Forum you will see that not being able to preview a book is far from being the ONLY explanation as to why author sales have dropped since the introduction of the new platform. |
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Post by BlueAndGold on Nov 28, 2020 13:43:26 GMT
I agree that losing the custom previews we could make on the old Lulu is a serious loss. It was nice to be able to taste before biting and I agree that it is a great sales inducer.
Hopefully, in the coming months that feature will be restored.
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Post by benziger on Nov 28, 2020 15:17:37 GMT
For what it’s worth my opinion it can be a two edged sword. If the first few pages are not deigned with sufficient care and attention it can provide a negative view of the publication. Also the subject mattter whether a novel, history or technical will have different areas of interest. A well composed description and a well designed cover can reap greater benefits. In a bookshop I can pick up the book in my hand, turn the pages. If I happen to come across the few pages that are weak - yes, then I won't buy the book. But mostly I'm more interested in clarifying whether the desired contents and to what extent they are in the book. This can usually be estimated quite well from the table of contents and one or two chapters.
Even in the case of a literary work, I can recognise the style, language level, etc. from a few pages. I am 100% pro preview. I think, I suggested this in late spring, but as suggestions are no more public, I cannot check it again and you cannot support the suggestion anymore. Lulu became a black box. |
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Post by benziger on Nov 28, 2020 15:21:43 GMT
Quarantine. A number of my posts were quarantined when I started posting here recently as no one knew who I was or the content of those posts. I did not find it a problem. This seems to be a Forum totally independent of Lulu and therefore there are no paid Staff members monitoring it 24/7. There should be no expectation of any Admin or other senior members to respond immediately to any new posts. Everyone understands the dangers of spam or ill thought out messages and should be grateful that folks care. Every article that somehow fits into the forum will be unlocked as soon as one of our many moderators sees it. Until now this has always happened within hours.
To keep the spammers at the door, this happens with the first x posts. Unfortunately the technology does not allow us to unlock someone earlier with reasonable effort. |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Nov 28, 2020 15:34:25 GMT
Quarantine. A number of my posts were quarantined when I started posting here recently as no one knew who I was or the content of those posts. I did not find it a problem. This seems to be a Forum totally independent of Lulu and therefore there are no paid Staff members monitoring it 24/7. There should be no expectation of any Admin or other senior members to respond immediately to any new posts. Everyone understands the dangers of spam or ill thought out messages and should be grateful that folks care. Every article that somehow fits into the forum will be unlocked as soon as one of our many moderators sees it. Until now this has always happened within hours.
To keep the spammers at the door, this happens with the first x posts. Unfortunately the technology does not allow us to unlock someone earlier with reasonable effort. It should be noted that moderators using smartfons mat not be able to see how to approve a post since the technology varies based on fon architecture. One example would be processor resource hogging games crashing on a device with less robust processors while working well on better devices.
Now I need to go rescue the spouse from der kinder.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2020 16:31:38 GMT
Quarantine. A number of my posts were quarantined when I started posting here recently as no one knew who I was or the content of those posts. I did not find it a problem. This seems to be a Forum totally independent of Lulu and therefore there are no paid Staff members monitoring it 24/7. There should be no expectation of any Admin or other senior members to respond immediately to any new posts. Everyone understands the dangers of spam or ill thought out messages and should be grateful that folks care. Every article that somehow fits into the forum will be unlocked as soon as one of our many moderators sees it. Until now this has always happened within hours.
To keep the spammers at the door, this happens with the first x posts. Unfortunately the technology does not allow us to unlock someone earlier with reasonable effort. Benziger, do we just see it as a regular post? Or is there a special location for quarantined posts? |
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Nov 28, 2020 17:48:12 GMT
Quarantined posts will be in the folder the OP originally posted in. If you're a moderator using a fon, you need to check the headings just under the banner, from Home to Calendar. That's where you'll see a notification for a quarantined post.
If you're using a fon and you can't see all the headings and / or you haven't seen a notification for a quarantined post when there was a quarantined post, then your fon's processor or software may not be sufficient for the task.
Time for me to run drop off the week's garbage, fun times in a chill rain.
The Quarantine notification shows up between Calendar and Welcome.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Nov 28, 2020 17:50:02 GMT
My post is quarantined until reviewed by a staff member...hope he/she is smart. Lulu's community has to think about that capital parameter. JMRS Should you post enough you'll get beyond the quarantine staff.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2020 9:18:43 GMT
My post is quarantined until reviewed by a staff member...hope he/she is smart. Lulu's community has to think about that capital parameter. JMRS Our forum was started by Benziger who is our Admin. We are independent of Lulu, although many of us are Lulu self-publishers. Benziger started this forum because Lulu closed the Lulu forum. However we were getting so many spammers here that Benziger (Admin) realised that he had to stop them. He appointed several moderators from around the world to release the genuine new members from quarantine and delete the spammers. This has reduced the number of those annoying creatures considerably. Every new member is informed about this policy. After a few posts you will have no problem posting. If you have any questions about self-publishing or the updated Lulu, several of our members are very well informed and helpful. We welcome you. |
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Post by JesusNinja on Dec 2, 2020 23:55:25 GMT
I agree, since the lulu site update sales have dropped terribly. No look inside feature. Then the books disappeared from Amazon. When that happened I lost sales then rankings in searchers and then reviews. Amazon said I'd get them back but I never did. The lulu screwed up again and our books were removed from Scribd and Kobos. More money gone. This has been the most unprofessional approach to business I've ever seen. My rankings are usually at as good as 40k to 100k now their are almost 1,000,000. That is not good for sales. I had thought maybe the pandemic had something to do with it. But Black Friday has record high online sales for Christmas as did Cyber Monday. So I'm assuming it's lulu's fault we're losing money. Not to mention the trust we used to have for them.
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