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Post by Ken on Apr 28, 2021 13:33:35 GMT
in those cases I believe it’s a condition of their taking a case that one takes out an insurance policy as well.
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Post by Rachel Martin on Apr 28, 2021 15:36:02 GMT
This isn't a question of whether to sue or not. I happen to have a lawyer who would do this work pro bono for me. That's not what I'm after. When you consider that this is not the first time Lulu has outright lied about problems that they know full-well about...and telling us that it's our readership that's having problems - it simply erodes the trust. You NEED trust with your publisher.
The first time they lied to me is when I called them on missing numbers due to their systems upgrade - which they knew was an absolute nightmare - but chose to blame our readers until we were able to provide enough evidence that it couldn't be our readers. Now, they pull the same thing, initially saying that our readership dropped, that's why the numbers are bad...and then it turns out they knew about reporting issues, because they made the change with CoreSource without telling anyone...and then lied about it having an impact. Now, they're telling us that the reporting is correct, but leaving out the part about the change is still reducing our revenue. It's all deception and it's very aggravating.
I'd like to know if other folks are experiencing the same shifts in their income (those who had consistent CoreSource income).
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Apr 28, 2021 17:19:33 GMT
This isn't a question of whether to sue or not. I happen to have a lawyer who would do this work pro bono for me. That's not what I'm after. When you consider that this is not the first time Lulu has outright lied about problems that they know full-well about...and telling us that it's our readership that's having problems - it simply erodes the trust. You NEED trust with your publisher. The first time they lied to me is when I called them on missing numbers due to their systems upgrade - which they knew was an absolute nightmare - but chose to blame our readers until we were able to provide enough evidence that it couldn't be our readers. Now, they pull the same thing, initially saying that our readership dropped, that's why the numbers are bad...and then it turns out they knew about reporting issues, because they made the change with CoreSource without telling anyone...and then lied about it having an impact. Now, they're telling us that the reporting is correct, but leaving out the part about the change is still reducing our revenue. It's all deception and it's very aggravating. I'd like to know if other folks are experiencing the same shifts in their income (those who had consistent CoreSource income). Lulu Press isn't actually a publisher, it acts as a facilitator between an author / small press and printers / distribution services. If you use the ISBN Lulu Press provides it is listed as publisher because it paid for the ISBN -- if I bought an ISBN and gave it to you to use I would be listed as publisher.
If you look at some of the posts where different members are discussing revenue going down since the Lulu Press "upgrade", even with some catch-up payments it appears either 1] every author who had steady sales suddenly had readership drop or 2] changes made by Lulu Press caused the sales decreases. When other factors of the last year are considered the second scenario is rather unlikely.
Perhaps others who had steady sales before the "weekend upgrade" will chime in about before and after, as I've had other, priorities, the last few years.
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Post by Ken on Apr 28, 2021 18:35:09 GMT
Rachel, Out of interest what titles are you referring to please?
Is it quantity of sales being down or the revenue?
When you say that your readership hasn’t changed how do you measure that other than sales.
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Post by Rachel Martin on Apr 28, 2021 20:22:29 GMT
Rachel, Out of interest what titles are you referring to please? Is it quantity of sales being down or the revenue? When you say that your readership hasn’t changed how do you measure that other than sales. It's quantity of sales...here's how I know, it's not readership (aside from the fact that Lulu has finally admitted they have problems): I looked at my sales numbers for the months of Jan-Dec 2020 and compared them to the average sales for the same months over the prior 3 years. - From Jan-Nov 2020, my sales were consistently 12-19% higher than the 3-year average for the same months.
- In Dec (when Lulu changed), my revenue dropped, originally 89% solely because my CoreSource volume dropped to ZERO (and there were no other channels added because Lulu messed up (they eventually admitted they were missing sales data - although they originally claimed my readership must have dropped 89%!)
- The volumes for the other channels, other than coresource, remained 18% higher than the 3 year avg. in Dec 2020.
Once Lulu "Fixed" their revenues (in April), and claimed to have now correctly reported their numbers: - Dec 2020 through Mar of 2021 now shows a flat to 15% increase in channels that did not change - and if I total the NEW channels (which replaced CoreSource) that were now being reported, they combine to 39% LOWER than the avg CoreSource numbers from the prior years. So non-coresource replacement was up an average of 19.98% and sum of all replacements were down an average of 39.7%.
If the problem was my readership dropping, you would expect ALL channels to drop...but that's not what's happening. The non-coresource channels are continuing to reflect growth, as they did in Jan-Nov of 2020 ... but the replacement channels are not performing anywhere nearly as well as the CoreSource channel did. The problem is in the "reach" of the replacement channels...and not a change in readership (unless this is the strangest coincidence in the world). For whatever reason, the new channels are not listing, not selling, or not reporting sales...or...there are channels that still have not been captured, that used to be reached via CoreSource. I asked Lulu to do the same analysis for all of their authors who had consistent CoreSource sales numbers...to see if it's a trend - and to rule out the possibility of that ridiculous coincidence. The answer is what I posted above - "We've done the analysis, but will not tell our authors if we have a problem or not". Today, they admitted they still have a problem and are continuing to look at it. I mean...really.
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Post by BlueAndGold on Apr 28, 2021 23:26:44 GMT
Rachel, I would invite you to join the forum so your posts will stop getting quarantined. (Guest posts are automatically quarantined from view until approved by a moderator.)
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Post by rachel on Apr 28, 2021 23:51:44 GMT
Rachel, I would invite you to join the forum so your posts will stop getting quarantined. (Guest posts are automatically quarantined from view until approved by a moderator.) Done! Thank you.
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Post by BlueAndGold on Apr 29, 2021 0:24:06 GMT
Welcome aboard! By the way, new members' first three posts are quarantined as well, but after that you're good. We had a rash of spammers a while ago who would join the forum then start making posts in oriental languages advertising Asian sports gambling sites. The 3-post quarantine rule has been very effective at cleaning that irritation up. Thank you for your patience!
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Post by Ken on Apr 29, 2021 8:14:58 GMT
Rachel, thank you for your response and also welcome now as a member.
You didn’t mention your titles or genre of your publications. Is it just one title or a family?
There have been other reports of reduced sales but often with unsubstantiated evidence for reasons why. I sometimes wonder if it’s just a case of having saturated ones target audience.
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Post by rachel on Apr 29, 2021 14:00:07 GMT
Rachel, thank you for your response and also welcome now as a member. You didn’t mention your titles or genre of your publications. Is it just one title or a family? There have been other reports of reduced sales but often with unsubstantiated evidence for reasons why. I sometimes wonder if it’s just a case of having saturated ones target audience. There are three in a series - non-fiction One is a book of short stories - fiction One is an anthology of essays - non-fiction My writing tends to continually attract a new audience. There are always people interested in the subject matter and are getting involved for the first time. I've been lucky, in that my readership is very loyal and that there are always fresh faces...so my sales numbers have trended upwards for 13 years. My best selling book is still the first that I published, but each new book increases the overall readership. Post 2 of 3 for lifting the quarantine ban!
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