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Lulu Sucks
May. 22nd, 2007 09:20 pm
Yes, they do. I do not recommend them to anybody.
Hilltown is approved, with the IBSN, so it's good to go. But now I can't recommend that anybody buy it.
You see, I signed a distribution agreement with Lulu.com. And they imposed their retail discount policy on me-- which they never told me about at the time. At least not in any way I noticed. I'm reasonably sure it wasn't even in the fine print.
What it means is that a book that ought to cost $24 and change, and give me $2 back toward the $500 or so I spent putting it together (which costs aren't complete yet, come to think of it-- I really should send two copies to the Library of Congress, law obligates me to do so--) it now costs nearly $40, and gives me $13 back. That's if you buy it from Lulu.com directly, from the Lulu Marketplace.
Which is fine for anyone to whom $40 is not important. Knock yourself out. Go to http://www.flankers-tale.com , follow the link in the News posting to get to my Lulu storefront, and get yourself a copy. But understand you're paying Lulu and me way more than I ever intended.
Lulu says they do this so prices in their Lulu Marketplace will be the same as prices in retail bookstores. That's the theory anyway.
Here's how it works. If any bookstore DOES buy my book, I still get the $2 profit I asked for. Well, actually, now it's $2.08 to make the price come out to an even dollar amount.
The retail discount is the kicker. About $15 of suggested retail is actually the difference between suggested retail and the bookstore's cost.
When they sell at the Lulu Marketplace instead, with the price set at suggested retail, that $15 discount becomes extra profit. Lulu takes some and gives the rest to me, whether I wanted it or not. Any discounting that gets done will be done by the bookstore owners, or Amazon, god help us.
This is fine, except it assumes there WILL be some bookstore sales. There won't be, mainly because I have no money to promote the damned thing-- tonight, I wish I had never put it up for sale, perhaps that I'd never written it-- and I don't know how anyway.
Worse, because the price is now insane, there won't be any Lulu Marketplace sales either.
They didn't screw with the .pdf download, at least. So that's still a much more reasonable $2.50. I get $2 of that, just like I wanted from the hardcover. Whatever format, $2, that was the plan, except that you can also always go to my website and read it for free. I don't much care which, as long as you enjoy what I wrote.
I want the prices set to a reasonable level again. It looks like in order to get prices to a reasonable level I'm going to need to revoke the sales agreement and probably the IBSN too-- for which I paid $150. That's a lot of cash for me, what with all that's going on right now.
I won't go into that. Or at least I won't go into stuff like that any more than I can possibly avoid.
Every so often I go nuts here and start whining about my job and my personal life, or screaming about politics. I shouldn't do that, not because I don't have valid complaints (who doesn't?), but rather because it's boring.
I know I will crack and start screaming about non-writing things that bug me. But I'll try to keep it to a minimum.
Hilltown is approved, with the IBSN, so it's good to go. But now I can't recommend that anybody buy it.
You see, I signed a distribution agreement with Lulu.com. And they imposed their retail discount policy on me-- which they never told me about at the time. At least not in any way I noticed. I'm reasonably sure it wasn't even in the fine print.
What it means is that a book that ought to cost $24 and change, and give me $2 back toward the $500 or so I spent putting it together (which costs aren't complete yet, come to think of it-- I really should send two copies to the Library of Congress, law obligates me to do so--) it now costs nearly $40, and gives me $13 back. That's if you buy it from Lulu.com directly, from the Lulu Marketplace.
Which is fine for anyone to whom $40 is not important. Knock yourself out. Go to http://www.flankers-tale.com , follow the link in the News posting to get to my Lulu storefront, and get yourself a copy. But understand you're paying Lulu and me way more than I ever intended.
Lulu says they do this so prices in their Lulu Marketplace will be the same as prices in retail bookstores. That's the theory anyway.
Here's how it works. If any bookstore DOES buy my book, I still get the $2 profit I asked for. Well, actually, now it's $2.08 to make the price come out to an even dollar amount.
The retail discount is the kicker. About $15 of suggested retail is actually the difference between suggested retail and the bookstore's cost.
When they sell at the Lulu Marketplace instead, with the price set at suggested retail, that $15 discount becomes extra profit. Lulu takes some and gives the rest to me, whether I wanted it or not. Any discounting that gets done will be done by the bookstore owners, or Amazon, god help us.
This is fine, except it assumes there WILL be some bookstore sales. There won't be, mainly because I have no money to promote the damned thing-- tonight, I wish I had never put it up for sale, perhaps that I'd never written it-- and I don't know how anyway.
Worse, because the price is now insane, there won't be any Lulu Marketplace sales either.
They didn't screw with the .pdf download, at least. So that's still a much more reasonable $2.50. I get $2 of that, just like I wanted from the hardcover. Whatever format, $2, that was the plan, except that you can also always go to my website and read it for free. I don't much care which, as long as you enjoy what I wrote.
I want the prices set to a reasonable level again. It looks like in order to get prices to a reasonable level I'm going to need to revoke the sales agreement and probably the IBSN too-- for which I paid $150. That's a lot of cash for me, what with all that's going on right now.
I won't go into that. Or at least I won't go into stuff like that any more than I can possibly avoid.
Every so often I go nuts here and start whining about my job and my personal life, or screaming about politics. I shouldn't do that, not because I don't have valid complaints (who doesn't?), but rather because it's boring.
I know I will crack and start screaming about non-writing things that bug me. But I'll try to keep it to a minimum.
