What are the pros and cons of paying to publish a book with Lulu?

Question

I am especially concerned with speed, quality, and loss of rights for future publication. Cost is a secondary consideration. Any good or bad experiences to relate???

Answer 1

Self-publishing is not a complete scam. But it's only appropriate for a couple types of people:

People who just want a few copies of their book bound up to share with friends and family.

People who have written a book that has a very small niche market--maybe it's really important to a couple hundred people, and all of those people will buy the book, but it's not enough people to make it worthwhile for a publisher. The author can make her or his investment back, and maybe a bit extra, but the primary purpose is to share information with a select few people.

If you are not one of these people and you're hoping to sell lots and lots of copies of your book to strangers far and wide, then it's a losing proposition.

Digital print-on-demand (which I think is what Lulu does), looks a bit different from a traditionally printed book, but the quality should be OK. Check the Web site and see if they offer to send samples; alternatively, you could buy a book from them and judge based on that. The Web site should also have someplace that talks about how quickly you can get books, based on the various options they offer.

The rights will remain with the author.

Answer 2

Go with the above for a best answer, it couldn't have been put any better.

Lulu is seriously just a giant scam that is taking money from unsuspecting writers who never bothered to do any research.

Here's something to remember, if you have to pay the publisher to get your book published, do not use them as a publisher.

Answer 3

There are only cons - no pros.

1) It costs you a great deal of money. Not only do you have to pay for the services, you also have to pay for the ISBN, all advertising and all marketing of the book. They do NOTHING for you.

2) Your book will NEVER be on sale in bookstores. It will be on sale online at their store and perhaps at Amazon but only if you have an ISBN number.

3) Unless you invest heavily in marketing, at great personal expense, nobody will know about your book to order it. So you can expect to sell about 2/3 as many books as you have friends and family.

4) The average number of books sold by a self published author is less than 100.

5) As for future publication, being self published doesn't count as actually being published in the eyes of traditional publishers and agents. Self publishers will print anything just as long as your check clears the bank. You can print the San Francisco phone book if you want to - self publishers - or VANITY publishers as they are really known - could care less. Your book doesn't have to be edited or accepted by anyone. You don't have to be a great writer or a good writer or any kind of a writer at all. Most self published authors are terrible writers and are self published because traditional publishers rejected them.

6) Your book is cheaply printed with horrible cover art. They LOOK self published. Many authors complain that their books are full of errors. I know of a self published author whose book was printed with entire chunks of it missing. They didn't do a thing to correct it.

7) Many self publishers are so embroiled with lawsuits from angry authors that they will likely end up out of business. At Absolute Write Water Cooler's Bewares and Background Checks forum, there is an entire forum dedicated to complaints about Publish America - the worst self publisher. There are 56 THOUSAND posts in the threads there. There is not a self publisher I can think of who has not gotten dozens of complaint letters sent to writers forums.

8) Recently, as a test, someone asked me to randomly check the sales figures on a book featured on Lulu's home page. They figured if the book was featured, it must be selling like hotcakes. I checked with Ingram, the major distributor of books in the United States. The book had sold THREE copies.

9) In the history of self publishing NINE books have made it to the best seller list. One was The Celestine Prophecy. The others were non-fiction text book type things.

Speed is a silly way to judge the way you decide to publish your book. Sure, traditional publishing takes time. You can expect a lot of rejections and perhaps two or three years before you get a break. Maybe more. Maybe never. That is a chance all authors take. Stephen King, James Patterson, Margaret Mitchell - all of them got a ton of rejection letters before they sold a book. But they hung in there and didn't give up and pay a self publisher.

If you believe in yourself and your book, do you think you deserve better than 3 book sales and a cheaply made book? My best advice is if you truly believe your book is worth it, and if you really put your heart and soul into writing it, you owe it to yourself to spend twice as long as it took to write it trying to publish it. Learn how traditional publishing works and work your heart out sending queries and trying your best to make a breakthrough traditionally. If, after that, nobody is interested, then go ahead and pay the money to self publish. At least you will be able to show your grandchildren a book with your name on it. You will have one of the three copies of it. Pax - C

Answer 4

Sing it out, Sister Persiphone!

Amen.

I have nothing to add and agree absolutely with Persiphone's reply.