Lulu.com reviews and complaints

Working with Lulu.com has easily been the single-most aggravating online experience I have ever had to endure. What I expected to be an enjoyable and rewarding has turned into an endless cycle of emails and unfulfilled promises that started in late-January 2011 and continues as of April 5, 2011 with no end in sight. From an unfriendly website, to unfulfilled requests for a consultant to contact me, to emails telling me that something is wrong with my submission, without actually telling me what is wrong, to being passed from one person to the next, working with Lulu has been one disappointment after another after another. My most-current problem, as alluded to above, is an issue Lulu has with the sub-title to my book. Lulu, however, won’t actually tell me what the problem is. Representatives simply point me to a long list of possible problems and tell to figure out the problem myself. This is the case after I have spent one-thousand dollars trying to get both a book and an ebook published. I cannot begin to describe my frustration with this company and their services. I implore anybody looking to self-publish a book to avoid the mistake I made and use another company. Despite one email after another telling me that my ebook has been published, it has yet to be published. I entered into what turned out to be a maze and cannot find my way out. Please do not use Facebook. Jim Riggins, The Accidental Conservative.

Hi Armand,

I came across your post and did a little research. The creator revenue that you are owed is apparently below the minimum for a PayPal payment. We'd be happy to pay it out if you cancelled your account and opted for an early payment, or if you earn enough to meet the minimum requirement. Hope this helps.

Hopeless customer service, they ignored requests for information, ignored a request as to how to rectify a block error, ignored an instruction to delete a book in order to rectify this small easily rectified but important picture positioning error, ignored a reminder, ignored two requests to cancel my as yet unprinted order until the correction was made and continued to print and mail the book.

This all adds up to a ... what? You couldn't call it a service, certainly not one that you could trust with years of work or your reputation.

I self published my book with lulu.com so i ordered a proof copy to see how it looks like printed. I have been waiting for a month and a half. I have email lulu four time and never got a response. They don't even have a phone number because they are a "web based company". They are totally unresponsive. I didn't lose alot of money but the idea that somebody ripped me off has me upset. Do not go with lulu.com. A lot of people are pissed their forums are filled with complaints. They are a total rip off!

I found publishing with Lulu fairly easy. The latest, a photobook, was easy to create and the "proof" copy I ordered was beautiful. Then, I ordered a copy for the person it was intended for--my ailing mother-in-law in India. The book came apart in her hands into individual pages, soon after it reached her, because of the shoddy binding. (I have had instances of shoddy binding with my first book as well, but thought little of it then.)

For the past one month, I have been trying to get in touch with Lulu for a replacement. They have an automated reply for replacement requests, which asks for photos of the damage so that they can know what the damage is like. I replied asking if they needed the photos as "proof of damage" or as a "description of damage." If it was the later, as they have said in the letter, I asked if they could waive that requirement because it is difficult for me in New Zealand to take pictures of a book (now a bunch of papers) in India.

I get only silence. I tried going through the online route again, but keep getting their automated response. It is almost impossible to find a phone number listed in their web page. I found a PR one by chance. But I end up being asked to record my message, which also I have done. Lulu works like a breeze when it is working. But when it doesn't, it is like a ghost town. There is no human person anywhere who hears you.

Upon doing a book search to make sure of my listings and how they were presented I saw that every single one of my titles bore the old imprint of my publishing company instead of the imprint I am using now, and also the imprint which is shown on the cover, the inside book leaf and under the title. This also occurred in the download and ebook titles which I clearly marked as published by the current imprint. Further, without notifying me of any changes as to their location on their catalog they reindexed the listings under new catalog numbers, which was discovered quite by accident when I promoted the titles and found that those interested could not locate them by their project numbers. In addition to this, Bob Young, CEO and general manager of Lulu.com, announced that Lulu was bringing "wider exposure" to Lulu authors, which meant he imported books from competing publishers into the marketplace. By ignoring Lulu's core user base in favor of the bottom line, Lulu.com basically made my books unmarketable on their web site or on Amazon, and there is no communication between departments or even between their issue control department and users. I don't know how many potential sales I lost in this move or how much Lulu may owe me, but I do know that if Lulu does not resolve these problems I am going to a competitor and taking my 30 titles with me.

what publisher would you go through?

Lulu keeps saying 'you are the publisher' but when you delete the book, it is only 'retired'. This is not logical, if you are the publisher then it is under your control, all of it! I have an independent ISBN so let's see if migrating the new edition to another company works. I have had several emails from people telling me they bought my book. You can even see a sale in the revenue, but after a while it reverts to zero, happened twice. Possibly, you have to have a certain turnover within a month or a quarter and if that is not reached, then the royalty expires? We should be told that. For authors it is not so much about the handful of Dollars but also about being accepted, albeit on a small scale.

I certainly share this opinion. My attempts to contact Lulu about their hopelessly buggy software have been consistently ignored. I finally had to abandon the project, and search elsewhere (not yet successfully) for an online site to create and publish a small artist's portfolio book.

Hi.
The same applies to me. I think they could be a scam and unfortunately more and more people are getting sucked in while the folks at lulu are running all the way to the bank.

i suggest all affected lulu creators come together and file some lawsuit or have some complaints board do some investigation like demanding reports from all distributors and then once we have proof we should file the law suit if need be. Let's not just cry and cry hoping the check will come.

Please email me at nelsonnako@gmail.com if you're game. The main issue is has the distributors paid lulu? Usually they take about 6 months just like supermarkets pay suppliers. But i agree, there is no way for the author to account for his/her sales and that creates the opportunity to create a thief.

We need to form some kind of grouping that should approach a lawyer and he/she does the follow up for us with the relevant authorities. There is nothing as bad as watching elephants invade your farm. if you have no weapons like a gun, then your wails might even earn you their wrath. If lulu is the new "pyramid scam", then lets shut them down

secondly lets find out through research and collective bargaining a publisher that will agree to our terms. If you're a lulu their is no harm in coming together and joining hands. It might not necessarily be to fry lulu. but to chart our own course. if lulu is a scam I'm sure the thousands of lulu publishers can afford a lawyer, or better yet we can afford to muscle them to at least clean up their act. All we want is fairness and of course our dues. Lulu can takes its dues but give us ours. Or let's find a genuine publisher and give him/her our demands, meet theirs and get back to business. together we stand, divided we fall. Let start something people

Hi Nahomi,

My name is Carol and I work at Lulu. I'm terribly sorry about the difficulty you have had to this point. I'd like to help you if this issue hasn't been resolved already. From what I gather, the order you are speaking about is # 3296323. I will have a Customer Support agent contact you right away to get this matter taken care of.

Best wishes,
Carol