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The good, the bad, and the ugly - discover what customers are saying about Lightning Source

Welcome to our customer reviews and complaints page for Lightning Source. We understand that making informed decisions about where to invest your time and money can be challenging, which is why we've created this platform for our community to share their honest feedback about their experiences with Lightning Source.

On this page, you'll find a comprehensive collection of reviews and complaints from real customers who have used Lightning Source's products or services. Our reviews are authentic and unbiased, providing you with a complete picture of the company, its products or services, and their customer service.

Whether you're considering doing business with Lightning Source, or you've already had an experience with them, our community's reviews and complaints will give you a valuable perspective on what to expect. Our goal is to help you make informed decisions about where to invest your time and money, and we hope that our platform will be a valuable resource for you.

Please feel free to browse our reviews and complaints and share your own experience with Lightning Source. Your feedback is an important part of our community and will help others make informed decisions.

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7:28 am EDT

Lightning Source Royalty payments

Since June 20, 2020, I have received three emails saying that royalty payments now totaling $113.58 CAD will be deposited to my bank account. So far nothing had been deposited. I checked my account and my banking information is correct. They do not answer my emails asking them to look into why I'm not getting paid with no response. A telephone conversation got no results and the rep somehow cut me off without calling me back. Their customer service sucks big time!

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Althea Garner
Kissimmee, US
Oct 23, 2022 12:18 pm EDT
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I couldn't login with my usual credentials so I changed my password and when I did I was advised that it could take 24 to 48 hours to take effect.

It has been 4 days and I STILL cannot login!

In addition, I was advised that every check sent to me would incur an expense of $25! I find this extortionate!

All I want to do is to change my banking details, so that they don't have to send me a written check!

WHY CAN'T I LOG IN?

I have not received any payments for the last quarter ON TWO BOOKS!

WHY?

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OW123
Witney, GB
Oct 20, 2022 4:18 am EDT
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LightningSource give the crappiest customer service I have ever come across. Recently, I had a family illness so was sent an invoice and put it in my tray for TWO WEEKS. I didn't get any warnings or anything like that -- bearing in mind this was just TWO WEEKS. They just froze my account so noone could buy the books on Amazon and sent me a letter telling me what they'd done! TWO WEEKS! Most companies give at least 30 days to pay invoices before they even think about sending reminder letter. Even then, they send POLITE and FRIENDLY reminder letters. Insane way to treat your loyal customers. Go IngramSpark!

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3:14 am EDT
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Lightning Source Bad service

The customer service offered by Lightening Source is SO BAD they could also be a government department. They keep sending me proofs which have unacceptably low print quality with blurred text through the book and seem unable to tell me why the book looks like its been checked in a puddle. I keep telling that the proof is unacceptable and there response is that they don't know what's going and that I should fix. How can I fix it if they don't tell me what the problem is. They have completely screwed a deadline, lost me a lot of sales and refuse to take responsibility for their inability to print text correctly. And this is now my third horrific experience with them.

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Karl49
, US
Feb 03, 2016 1:05 pm EST

I recently received a horribly printed book from LSI's Fresno facility. I called LSI Customer Service, but after 30 minute hold there was no pickup on their end. So, I called the main number and was told I must work through CS. I asked the receptionist to connect me with someone in CS directly or in Management or in Quality Control. She would not do this. Eventually, sensing my ire, she said she would call CS and have them phone me directly. They did not call me. Nor have they responded to the email I sent to CS several days ago after the failed phone contacts. I know I just a "plain ole reader" and this is just a one-off situation, but, based on what I see, they care not about the customer nor about quality. I know that the online book store from whom I ordered who represents some publisher who, in turn, contracted with LSI are not directly at fault except for their involvement with this possibly incompetent and uncaring print service. Cast thy eyes on some pictures attached of my "book"

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3:17 am EST
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Lightning Source Lightning source service

Lightning Source is terrible at customer service and completing a project for their clients on time. Rude, bad attitude, and ignorant. Here are the main problem employees Yolanda Hall (confused), Heather Henderson (clueless), Cassandra Walker (lazy), Dana Sanders (a real ###), & Leslie Sullivan (really stupid) Do yourself a favor publish your book as an ebook, this company single handed will kill print books.

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Small Press
New York, New York, US
Dec 17, 2021 12:26 am EST
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A very interesting post. We've recently had an issue with LSI. They delivered damaged books. The cover of every book was dented and the trim shifted. When we reached out to them, we received no response until we asked American Express to reverse the charge. At this point, we heard immediately from a credit representative who froze our account and then only hours later threatened to shut it down completely, dumping ten years worth of book files, if we did not pay immediately. We were just trying to get a resolution as to the damaged books delivered. I see that our experience is not at all unusual. Somehow, I don't know if this should make me feel better...

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JadyW
, US
Jan 03, 2023 2:37 pm EST

I too was suppose to pay for damaged books, but when I didn't I received a 4 boxes of books with no explanation of who purchased the books and why they returned them.

This is a hoax with this company. They want to print your books but return the books back to you. Never seen or heard anything like this before.

This is a desperate move with this company. Shame on them they should be pay for this.

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Book Author
Reading, Pennsylvania, US
Jul 08, 2021 7:09 pm EDT
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33/100 books printed by Lightning Source Ingram (LSI) literally fell apart after opening them.

I ordered a batch of 50 of my books for a book signing event. As potential buyers paged through them, pages started falling out. After further investigation, the glue was visible and looked like a 2 year old child glued the pages together. A total of at least 25 (known) books out of 50 fell apart. There were potentially more damaged books that were sold that I am unaware of.

I reached out to my publisher and they were able to have LSI replace all 50 books. After receiving and checking them, 8 out the 50 replacement books fell apart. I informed my publisher and I’m waiting on a response from LSI. It’s unknown how many books that were sold by major retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble were defective. It’s also a great concern that a large amount of sales were lost and this will negatively impact the reviews for my book and will entail loss of royalties.

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MelanieLamb
, US
Sep 28, 2018 2:17 pm EDT
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If you are capable, and would be willing to help me submit my book revision through LSI please contact me.
Mellamb70@gmail.com

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Darren Easterby
, AU
Jul 16, 2018 8:38 am EDT

Yeah as a former employee of LS Australia in Melbourne I can honestly confirm that the Quality Control is terrible. All sorts of mistakes are made and shipped out. They are at best a bunch of amateurs who for the most part are unqualified and irresponsible. They even started employing refugees with no knowledge, skills or experience in printing and were quite willing to let their best workers leave in disgust. I would highly recommend avoiding this company like the plague!

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Darian Zam
, AU
May 02, 2017 12:22 pm EDT
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I'm a pretty seasoned designer so I know what I'm doing, I had so many issues trying to upload the interior .pdf. Their system is complex, detailed and unnecessarily stringent - actually pedantic with no real explanation. What is with the stupid 13 mm trim to safety area? It can't possibly be that inaccurate. It is double of some other POD services! Why don't they just have a freaking page template generator like they do for covers? Cover, generated, not a problem. Saves everyone time and hassle. Interior: I think I had to upload it several times before it was finally accepted. The whole process was so tedious and frustrating. Nowhere is it mentioned if your file is rejected at that stage it just logs you out soo at first you're like WTF is going on? Finally, after nearly tearing my hair out, it turned out there were two files out of several hundred that were like 298 dpi instead of 300. I went through every. single. thing. before that to save some work, or so I thought. Gets uploaded finally and then notifies me they are going to do a automated reduction of dpi because the dpi was now too high! FFS. I just hit yes because I was OVER IT by that point. Next day I get an email, my cover is rejected, for elements outside the safety area. I designed it EXACTLY AS I WANTED IT. EXACTLY. The saga continues after nearly a week. I almost regret choosing them now. The book better look good. If it doesn't I may just give them the flick and go elsewhere. Blurb are ball breakers with their pricing but everything else - so easy, no hassle, done. LightningSource has made me want to brick my screen. The comments here about print quality and customer service are scary.

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Donald Gazzaniga
, US
Apr 03, 2017 9:55 am EDT

I have about ten years experience with LS. Four years ago I pulled most of my titles from them and xferred to CreateSpace. CS is far superior to LS both with ease of uploading and with costs. CS is free from page one to the end. LS piles on costs and an annual $12 fee they claim is "mandatory" for retention of title, etc. Poppycock. CS charges no such fees and delivers books at a lower cost to you. In other words, your profit margins are higher at CS than at LS and your service is rapid. Always. Their support team is excellent although basically e-mail driven. There is no contest here concerning price, quality and marketing. I have sold four times more books via CS than LS.

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Alarm 209
, GB
Jun 18, 2016 3:21 pm EDT

I had numerous customers service issues because their lack of knowledge and laziness about looking into the problems to resolve the issues. I had iin uploading the files which was an A4 format
I was trying to explain that I was able to upload my A4 file successfully on create space.they claimed that LS had a different A4 standard and while some other customer service rep said that he had never heard about A4 size hence could double check the spec. As a result of series of coolant my account has been suspended. The want me to hand my entire business to author companies that will be linked to them dictating this way the model of my business. They should be all about supporting independent authors as that's what their business is based on fbu if you are not a large publishers they can damage your business affecting also the large retailers that buy books from indi companies. Watch out..you might build your business model and they can kill your bussines over out of nastiness of a few customer service. The desicion was taken by a supervisor. If a company is started closing account they can generating major financial damage especially if your company is already trading with the large bookstore. Has anybody else experiences that? On another note..is there any other company out there that partners with Gardners or Waterstones and Barnes and Nobles?

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Lori Crecelius Roberts
, US
Apr 04, 2016 9:05 am EDT

Lightning Source has gone downhill. I have published three books with two different publishers. In the last two weeks, I have received orders from Lightning Source. The problems are numerous. Errors include books with the last chapter in the front, books with the print so light in parts it is difficult to read, pages where they have actually pasted part of a page onto another to name a few! Just this week, both publishers have received photos and descriptions from me. They both have commented on issues they are receiving from Lightning Source. They uploaded a file that wasn't even proofed yet, lied about it, then tried to blame it on Amazon. Finally, the truth came out, but not before an approved version of my book was received. Is there anyone else who prints out there? I have to check every single page of every book I order from them. I hate to see what goes out to book stores and readers. :(

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Opubo G. Benebo
, US
Jan 27, 2017 1:56 pm EST

Lightning Source is a company of lies and liars. I stopped paying them for distribution services because I figured if Amazon buys copies of the book from Ingram Books and Ingram books then orders the same from Lightning Source, it means that given that Ingram Books has a fixed fee of 55% discount, LSI have to sell five book-copies of a publishers who offers 20% discount, before one sold copy is admitted. Such a publisher would be selling four copies for whcih compensation is not paid but whent into the pockets of Ingram Books. Such of course, if that be the case would make LSI a blatant thieving organization

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More People, Less Robots.
, US
Sep 18, 2015 1:23 pm EDT

Here's a little update / thread for ya!

My email to LSI:
1). There was a ten day delay on my uploaded files. I submitted materials on the 8th, did not receive notification until the 18th. What was the delay?
2). The first price listed for 200 copies of this book were 1.86 each. Today they are 2.87 each. What happened in two weeks to double the price? I invoiced out at 1.86 now I have to eat $200 dollars?

Response: Please, contact the Client Service at [protected].

My next email: And one last thing. I specifically noted in my Instructions that I did not want a proof as well as selecting the 'No' option in the window. Why did I just get an invoice for a proof? Please see our card on file has been charge and act accordingly.

As a business owner myself, I need to know when my representatives or work is subpar. My livelihood depends on finding errors or misconceptions and fixing them. Working with LSI has become more and more difficult each year. Problems, complaints and instructions seem to be ignored. In a nutshell, you can and have, made my work subpar. Unexplained delays, unanswered emails from the production end... all of this affects my client's perception of my work.

What is the company prepared to do to address these issues? I really would like for this email to be addressed by someone (if not you) that can answer that question. Competition is too thick to be complacent, for my industry and yours.

Reponse: I forwarded your email to the management team of Client Service and they will respond to you. (Still waiting...)

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LSI sucks
Nashville, US
May 26, 2015 11:50 pm EDT

the worst company to work for, they treat their employees like slaves. Changing their work schedule like the way they want to like people have no family OR LIFE, never can make no plans, because every week is always something .
On 2008 they laid off all good American employees after that they hired all this ### kisser Egyptian people that they have no life and work 24/7 if they let them .

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