Talk:Lulu.com

On April 28, this article was nominated for deletion. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Lulu.com. The result was keep. —Xezbeth 16:38, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

• I am glad this has been kept, I came here specifically to look for it and would have been disappointed to not find it.
  • Me too
    • Me three. Danny

NPOV

The pricing process was not correct and there is no "exclusive publication contract" for Global Distribution through Lulu. A "Published by Lulu" ISBN names Lulu as publisher, but a "Published by You" ISBN lets the creator be the publisher. Also, "Lulu-owned ISBNs" may be used to distribute the book outside of Lulu on databases and online retailers. A "Lulu-owned ISBN" just means that the content is associated with a Lulu-ISBN (just as the ISBN of a book published through a traditional publishing company would be associated with that company).

This article has had some problems with POV recently. In particular, user Carolynhack inserted an extremely long apologia for Lulu's handling of the UK issue. I've trimmed it back to a short paragraph, to put it more in proportion to the rest of the article.--24.52.254.62 04:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

lulu pdf support issues

I'm not sure about the paragraph claiming that lulu has support issues with pdf files. I personally created a book on lulu for global distribution using "cutepdf" and have had no problems. At any rate, it sounds like somebody wanted to vent ...

I recently read the site and it appears they had some problems with files generated by older versions of Ghostscript. Since Ghostscript come bundled as a part of some applications they may use an older version. Anyway, I've added a fact tag for it. // Liftarn

I've provided citations for all the statements in that paragraph.--24.52.254.62 20:17, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I create my PDFs using Open Office and have had no problems whatsoever with these. I think the statement regarding open source PDFs is, at the very least, misleading. It seems to me that the vast majority of open source PDFs upload successfully.Cornovia 00:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any contradiction between your statement and any of the statements in the article.--76.81.164.27 22:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

vandalism, npov

This article has a history of inappropriate edits that seem aimed at astroturfing for lulu. On October 18, 2006, user Carolynhack inserted a long, argumentative, pov section titled "Lulu's Right of Reply," which I later edited down so that it made the same points in a couple of sentences, and in a more appropriate, encyclopedic way. (The Carolynhack account was never used to edit any other article except the lulu.com one.) On April 9, 2007, user 172.159.96.168 deleted almost all of the article, left it in a state where the formatting was messed up, and inserted the nonsense string "ejw." I've reverted the article to its state before that edit.--76.81.164.27 18:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Production Locations

This section was removed because though Lulu has print partners worldwide, the information below isn't valid.

"including Colorcentric in New York, Publidisa in Spain and the UK, and Lightning Source."

Should this read "including Colorcentric in New York, Publidisa in Spain and Lightning Source in the UK." ? Publidisa http://www.publidisa.com/inter_ing.html don't appear to have a UK opperation, whereas Lightning Source does.

It looks to me like the article originally stated this correctly, but later edits mixed things up and introduced the error you quoted. I've reinserted the earlier, correct version of the text.--76.81.180.3 22:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Page move and rename

This page needs moving and renaming, the company isn't called Lulu.com, it's simply called Lulu. I propose a move to Lulu (publisher). Ben W Bell talk 08:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Be bold and do it! UnitedStatesian 11:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. Just wanted to check with others. Ben W Bell talk 16:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Acrobat Required? No Open Source?

I have to question the accuracy of the claim that no open source derived PDF's will work. I do not have acrobat and generated my PDF's using Open Office software, and Lulu had no trouble publishing the book I wrote. Besides that, Microsoft Word may be far from open source but its not Adobe Acrobat and Word *.doc files can be accepted or converted (whether generated by Microsoft of open source software). Obviously, the claim that only open source derived PDF's are not supported and Adobe Acrobat is required is simple not true. --68.84.95.166 23:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

If you look back carefully at the article, it's not saying what you think it's saying. The statements in the article are also all carefully sourced.--76.81.180.3 23:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

This may be some sort of ongoing game, but "carefully sourced" is not the same as reliable sources. The author of the website may be argued to be as an expert, but he has no other notable mentions other than his association with lulu. And I found the paragraph confusing as well. Flowanda | Talk 02:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Reference [5] is to the information on lulu's own site. I would consider that a reliable source for information about lulu's policies.--76.81.180.3 22:27, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

More discussion of this below. The source is lulu's own web site.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 01:53, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Added better description of services

I have added a sentence indicating that Lulu Publishing provides printing and distribution services to small publishers based on the fact that CD Publishing uses Lulu for these services and this is evident from their website: cdpublishing.org. Robert 12:13, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I've removed it as completely unnecessary. Lulu will provide these services to anyone so having a statement that it provides them to small publishers is completely unnecessary. Ben W Bell talk 12:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Negatvity

In my opinion, the critisims are basically the basis of this article. Can't find much positive stuff here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.109.13.174 (talk) 01:03, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the new "Short Margins for Bookstores" section is probably what was fostering this impression. It was written in a very POV, argumentative, unencyclopedic tone, and its length was out of proportion to the facts it presented. I've drastically shortened it, and rewritten it with a more NPOV flavor. I think this takes care of the concern expressed by the person who added the { { tone } } template, so I've removed the template.--76.81.180.3 14:38, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Tone

Very un-encyclopaedic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Equal Enjoy (talk • contribs) 06:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

See comment above, under "Negativity."--76.81.180.3 14:38, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Vanity press

Given that Lulu specifically address the vanity press issue on their site, and that they don't charge the author for multiple copies of the book (just the first copy), self-published or print-on-demand seem to be more appropriate descriptions, without employing the derogatory and marginally POV vanity press term. - Bilby (talk) 00:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course it's a vanity press--here's where they charge for publication--[link deleted]--it's such a notorious site that WP won't even let me post a clickable link! Qworty (talk) 02:06, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I gather that the site is blacklisted due to authors using Wikipedia to spam links to their books. This doesn't speak to Lulu as such. Nevertheless, I'm saying that the term "vanity press" is POV as it is used as in derogatorily manner (I'm not referring to you here, but to general use of the term), Lulu specifically refute the claim that they are a vanity press, and that other terms, such as "self-publishing company" and "print-on-demand" are all equally descriptive. Even if we ignore those points, the central description of "vanity press" is that they publish books at the author's expense. Lulu charge the first copy of the book, and will sell additional copies to the author, so it that sense they are similar to vanity press. However, they rely more on print-on-demand - they don't require the author to print multiple copies of the book, but instead print when a customer requests a copy, and shares profits with the author. This is a significantly different model. The "self-publishing company" covers both models - "vanity press" does not. - Bilby (talk) 02:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

What this vanity press charges

WP won't allow their link, since even their home page is considered spam. But here are the prices this vanity press charges:

Starter Pack, $500.00

Advantage Pack, $650.00

Marketing Pack, $350.00

To call this company anything but a vanity press is to lie about what they are doing. Qworty (talk) 02:11, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

• All three packs you mention aren't for printing as such beyond the standard one copy of a book: they specifically address marketing, review, formatting, cover design and promotional materials. They are selling services, not printing. The question is what do they charge for printing, which is the cost of one book for the author. Additional books can be purchased by the author, but the author doesn't need to - instead they rely on print-on-demand to sell copies straight to the public. - Bilby (talk) 02:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Here and in your comments above you are unwittingly doing nothing more than repeating the company's lies. My god, I don't want to get into a ten-year debate with you on this. But you are using all of those terms falsely. POD, for instance, is a printing technique--it has NOTHING to do with vanity versus self-publishing. You are even using "self publishing" incorrectly--"self publishing" occurs when a writer publishes himself directly, doing all of the publishing work himself, NOT when he goes through a third-party such as Lulu. The bottom line is that any entity that charges a writer for publication is a vanity press, period period period. They can lie about it all they want and throw around terms that are misunderstood by people like you. It doesn't matter. Lulu CHARGES people for publication (and the other things you mention, "marketing, review, formatting, cover design and promotional materials" are all part of PUBLICATION, for god's sake). So what are you going to do, make me repeat all of this to you and everybody else over and over and over and over and over again? We don't need to have this "debate" or any kind of edit war. They're a vanity press and that's all there is to it. Qworty (talk) 02:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

But it's not just a vanity press, it's much more accurately a Print on Demand publishing company. Many companies print through them as it is cheaper to use a POD publisher for smaller runs of books than a traditional printing press. Vanity Press implies that it's a company that is only used by people wanting to print their own books that no one will buy. Canterbury Tail talk 02:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I can see that indeed I'm going to get into a spiral of repeating myself over and over and over and over again here. Print on Demand is nothing more or less than a technology. It has NOTHING specific to do with vanity presses, self-published authors, or traditional presses. All three of these can use POD as a technology, and all three do so from time to time. POD is NOT the issue here. Except, of course, that modern vanity presses like to lie about who they are by calling themselves "POD." There's no reason to repeat their lies here. Qworty (talk) 03:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I must ask how you are defining vanity press, as as has been mentioned it isn't just individuals who use Lulu's services but companies, corporations and other organisations who actually use them to print profitable books and materials. Canterbury Tail talk 03:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

A vanity press is any entity that publishes any individual who pays for publication. That is what Lulu does. You or anyone else could use them right now--so long as you paid. Do you deny that this is the truth? It IS the truth. Qworty (talk) 03:07, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes they are like any printers that are not inhouse printers in that they will print materials for anyone who can pay what they ask. I don't deny that, but by your definition any printers can be called a Vanity Press as anyone can pay to have stuff printed. Canterbury Tail talk 03:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not interested in an edit war or anything silly - my interest here is being fair and accurate about a company when it is included in Wikipedia. And I am aware of the distinctions you mention. I'm not arguing that the term "vanity press" doesn't describe some of what Lulu does. I'm suggesting that the term is derogatory, doesn't fully capture their business model, and can be reasonably replaced with "self publishing company" (as opposed to "self publishing"). The Wikipedia entry on self publishing includes vanity press, but it also distinguishes that from POD. In the entry linked above, it states "vanity publishers make the majority of their money from fees charged to the creators for publishing services, rather than from sales of the published material to retailers or consumers." The POD model moves the focus from the author as the primary market to the readers, as Lulu make much of their money from sales of the books to consumers, not to authors. At any rate, this article has had numerous POV issues, so if one term that is POV can be reasonably replaced with one that is not, yet captures the same content, it seems to me that it is a reasonable change. - Bilby (talk) 03:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

You are not being fair or accurate. Most of their sales are to authors, not to the book-buying public at large. There's no reason to censor that fact from the article. Shall we take this up a notch to WP:RS, or will you edit war to scrub out WP:RS as well? Qworty (talk) 03:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to with the WP:RS points. That aside, there's no wish to censor that out - I'd like a source that supports it, but I don't see an issue with mentioning it. My issue is only with strongly POV terms that can reasonably be replaced with less POV terms that serve exactly the same purpose and may be more appropriate. - Bilby (talk) 03:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

If that's really what you believe, then you should revert your own edits, because all you've done is throw in extremely POV terms that are not only inappropriate but false. Qworty (talk) 03:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that you're a tad confused - I've made one edit, and that edit was to remove a POV term. At any rate, I've sourced an RS that distinguishes Lulu from vanity publishing, so it should be all good now. - Bilby (talk) 03:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

• I've been able to confirm that they don't charge authors to list their books or to publish them. They do charge for optional related services which would normally be provided by publishers as part of the agreement. Although the Merriam-Webster defines vanity press as "a publishing house that publishes books at the author's expense", which isn't the case with Lulu, I don't think it is a clear-cut case, and am willing to go with sources arguing that they lie in between vanity press and mass-market. Either way, I've added the debate to the article, as it seemed relevant and was mentioned in some way in many of the sources. - Bilby (talk) 11:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you a source for your claim that most of their sales are to the authors? That seems to be the crux of the argument here. I know for a fact that many RPG publishers sell quite well through Lulu which is perfect for their niche market small print run needs. In fact many of the top sales ranks are indeed sales from these RPG companies. Also vanity press tends to charge a heck of a lot more than Lulu. I think Lulu probably actually falls into the area of third party small press publisher and are simply a digital printing and fulfillment house. That some people use it for their own vanity publishing is true, but that can actually be said of any printers, but it is not the entirety of their business. Remember Lulu charges the customer a fee on each book they sell to customers (which can be someone completely different) to cover printing expenses, not charge the author a large fee to print X copies which the author then has to sell themselves. Canterbury Tail talk 11:54, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

• I haven't seen accurate breakdowns on their figures, with one of the better references stating that a reliable breakdown might be almost impossible to get. However, The News & Observer quotes sales of 167,000 per month, off 45,000 titles for sale on their website. It doesn't mean much, but it suggests that they sell multiple copies. I've seen a few people mentioning that they believe sales would be mostly to authors as well, but not yet with any support. - Bilby (talk) 12:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I know Redbrick Limited sells all their books either electronically online through various sources, or for print only exclusively through Lulu. They are a company with many titles, several of which are in the top hundred sales and being bought by people all over the world. They actually published their sales figures for 2007 only for four products as

• Softcovers (Earthdawn): ~610 books
• Softcovers (Fading Suns): ~130 books
• Hardcovers (Earthdawn): ~750 books
• Hardcovers (Fading Suns): ~50 books

These are for their sales in 2007 only, with Fading Suns being a late set of releases in the year. They sold ~450 print books in 2006 with a limited range and being new to Lulu. I know from conversations they've had on various online forums that this isn't their total lifetime sales, and they have been doing relatively well this year. This is a proper company that pays their freelance writers and artists. Canterbury Tail talk 12:45, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

• They seem like reasonable figures. Most (reliable) sources refer to "only dozens" of copies being sold per book (with some notable exceptions being much higher than this), but that is a tad higher than the author and immediate family only, so it seems that they are generating revenue from sales to the general public. As far as I can tell, arguments that they are a vanity press tend to boil down to their lack of editorial oversight, which seems to be a valid point. But they don't behave like a traditional vanity press, either. So I'm inclined to agree with you and say that they are a digital printing and fulfillment house, or something else along those lines, unless I can see a better argument to the contrary. - Bilby (talk) 14:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Page move

I think the page should be moved to a different name. As Lulu themselves state they are not actually a publisher, they are a printing and fulfillment house (who now happens to offer some other optional services) not a publisher. Canterbury Tail talk 15:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

• Could just go generic - Lulu (company), as per Transworld (company) - Bilby (talk) 15:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

• Makes sense to me. Haukur (talk) 20:39, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems a reasonable name. Canterbury Tail talk 21:13, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I support the name change, as the assertion that this notorious vanity press is in any way a legitimate "publisher" is completely absurd. I would support a "neutral" term such as "printer." Qworty (talk) 22:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

They do do more than just printing though, the other primary component of their business is as a fulfillment house something vanity presses don't do. They also do editing and marketing as an optional service. Lulu (company) is probably the best version. Canterbury Tail talk 22:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead with the move to 'company'. Haukur (talk) 07:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Vanity press

Qworty I must ask what you have against Lulu, as you seem to feel very strongly that it can only be a vanity press (despite others evidence and comments to the contrary) and not anything else. It does printing to those who pay, as does any printer they are just in a price range that all can achieve. Also a major component of their business is fulfillment. In addition they do editing and marketing which a vanity press also doesn't perform. Canterbury Tail talk 22:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

This really is a dumb argument going on whether they are a vanity press or not. It is clear to any one with half a brain that LuLu is a POD printer that also offers vanity publishing services.

Yes, the publishing and distribution they offer is vanity publishing, and the fact that they have a non-traditional pricing structure for it (where the author does not pay up front) doesn't change that.

That said, it seems most people who use LuLu are self-publishers who are usinging it as a printer 24.193.126.175 (talk) 17:52, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

pdf, acrobat, and open formats

Ben W Bell reverted my edit about support for open formats, I think because the link in the reference to lulux.com made him think it was fishy. The reason the link is to lulux.com is because WP's spam filters are automatically disallowing links to lulu.com. I've requested that the blacklisting of lulu.com be removed. I'm going to re-revert.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 01:52, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I posted on Ben W Bell's talk page and told him I was opening a discussion here on the talk page, but he re-reverted without discussion. Can we please discuss this on the talk page rather than getting into a revert war? Re-reverting. --76.167.77.165 (talk) 02:01, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, my mistake, he didn't delete it, he just put in a cn tag.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 02:05, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Faked links should not be added, as that's viewed as a form of bypassing site policies about blacklisting, and therefore a form of disruption to Wikipedia. Note also that forums rarely if ever qualify as reliable sources. The link to the policies may be permitted, but the specific link should be submitted to WT:WHITELIST, to allow the specific good link, rather than opening the entire domain. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 02:19, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I've initiated the process of requesting that the blacklist on lulu.com be removed or modified. The article is about lulu.com, and already includes, naturally enough, a large number of references that link to lulu.com. If we need to add more references to lulu.com, it's clearly not correct for the blacklist to be preventing us from doing that.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 02:59, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Which is why the whitelist exists - to permit specific links. To initiate the process, you should submit specific links that you want to permit to WT:WHITELIST (as had been done with the references that are already included in the article that point to lulu.com). Submitting a request to de-blacklist is not the correct procedure, and will almost certainly be declined (just as prior requests have been treated - this isn't the first - far too many spam links created towards that domain to do this the other way around). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:13, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Ben W Bell's complained (in his edit summary) that a cite was needed to show that this was actually something users had criticized lulu for. I've added two of them. We now have three links in the ref:

1. a link to lulu's policies, on lulu's site
2. a link to an independent site that describes how this is a problem for a lot of users, and discusses ways to deal with it
3. a link to a lulu forum discussing the problem, with comments by one of lulu's engineers

Although Barek's point about forums not ordinarily being good sources is well taken: (1) lulu's forums are the only place users typically would go to complain about this kind of thing; (2) this particular link gives comments by a representative of lulu; and (3) if you look at the references in the article, there are already a whole bunch of them -- that's just where the information is. I think I've addressed Ben W Bell's concern, so I've removed the cn tag.--76.167.77.165 (talk) 03:07, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

• While I think this is probably a good point to make, I don't belive that we can use any of the citations you've provided. The two that are to luluxyz are, first, possible broken and don't seem to load, but if they did I'd be really uncomfortable about using them, as they aren't technically reliable (I'm assuming that it is a mirror of Lulu's site, in which case they would need to be an official, acknowledged mirror, and even then is is still (much) better to go through the process of getting the actual links whitelisted. The second link, while working, isn't to what I'd regard as a reliable source. I'd recommend leaving the cn tag in place for a bit, leaving the content in place, and just see if someone can come up with a better source. If not then it might be worth getting one of the two whitelisted, and thinking about the third again. But it won't hurt to have a cn for a bit. - Bilby (talk) 05:39, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I've done some digging and found a few sources, but nothing that supports the entire line. As far as I can tell, Lulu doesn't dictate that users employ Acrobat for anything other than Global Distribution, (which is in keeping with the material in the article), and it seems (based on both the sources added and everything I can dig up) that this has nothing to do with supporting or not supporting Open Source, but because pdfs produced with Acrobat are the only ones which are guaranteed to work on all computers. They do accept non-Acrobat pdfs for print versions, of course, although their strict requirements (all fonts included in the file, no duplicates, etc) mean that there's a fair bit of work involved. At this stage I'm thinking it may be better reduced to a sentence and dropped in the Overview section, as giving it a full subsection under criticism seems like undue weight. I'm open to alternative views, though. - Bilby (talk) 08:27, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I think part of the problem is also that only ones created with Acrobat are guaranteed to fully meet all the requirements of the full PDF specification and features. Many of the open source and third party PDF creators don't produce fully compliant PDFs. With Lulu it's most likely a case that other PDFs may work, and they'll take them, but they can only guarantee the conversion to print 100% if produced with Acrobat due to the non-100% compliance of some third party ones. Canterbury Tail talk 11:48, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds about right - they don't seem to have an aversion to open source, and will accept PDFs from anything for printing, (and will produce PDFs), but won't accept them for direct distribution. So presumably they want to know that the files for distribution are fully compliant. - Bilby (talk) 12:02, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

npov swung the other way

It looks like from these comments, that this page used to be an advertising tract, as evidenced by one comment that seemed to claim lulu.com was astroturfing with contributions toward this page.

If this is true, at it's current state, it has swung too far the other way and needs a lot of work. It's way too negative toward lulu.com. It needs to be neutralized.

Fredsmith2 (talk) 21:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I have two publications through Lulu. One went smoothly and lulu was heavenly, the other had small problems and lulu was hellish. I have learned a great deal about them. I spent a great deal of time on revision of this article, with thanks going to the assistance of an unknown editor, and based my knowledge of lulu I have to say it is by far a positive description.

Things can go very wrong at Lulu because of the way they do support, and this is barely hinted at in the current article. Also, Lulu often misses their quoted times to shipping. I was told by lulu the times quoted on their website were *guidelines* only, and they were extremely evasive and non-apologetic. Though in response to my hissy fit before an important meeting where I needed the boo, and nothing less than a hissy fit would do, I did get one order shipped on time.

In general the chat people can simply make you go away or ignore you entirely, as there is no visibility into the company. You can't call and ask the operator who to talk with and then go over their heads -- and they know it. Apparently they will even lock authors out of chat, as I have been locked out over the last two days probably because of my pesky-ness that they fix a problem that is now getting rather old. I am only pesky as that is what is required not to bring attention to a matter, though they took blown off to a new level now and locked me out. And no, still the matter has not been completely addressed.

Working with them when things don't go right has been highly confrontational. Their chat people appear to have the goal of getting you to read the directions on the website, period, so one is forced to argue that the problem is not related. This is an endemic problem to the way they are doing things, and it stands in stark contrast to how it is done at other publishers where everyone views the product as the source of income for all that it is. Though this problem could easily be fixed. A more accurate article (one that is much more negative) would do their company some good as someone in upper management might read it. There is no other way to give lulu feedback. They have completely isolated themselves.