Lulu Direct App Reviews

I use Lulu Direct to publish my books. This was my first experience with self publishing. I considered Amazon but then I decided against it since it meant that I would have to work to market my website as well as to drive traffic to amazon. As a newbie, that was a bit much. I AM VERY pleased with my decision to go with Lulu. My second and third shippments had issues! BUT, Kristen is a darling! She was with me every step of the way. My second shippment had a few printing issues. She got them replaced at no extra cost with free shipping. My third order, for some reason, did not get to me. I informed her and it was replaced free of charge. I really do appreciate how quick she responds ( most times, within 48 hours. If ever her response is tardy, she humbly apologizes. ) So far, I rate my overall experience as 5/5!!

I wanted to sell paperbacks of my own books at a discount independent of the larger companies if you know what I mean. Lulu looked good. I contacted them with my concerns and they assured me I would be pleased and there's no contract. The quality of the books is great. My readers have told me so and I have ordered them myself at cost by momentarily dropping the price on my products page on Shopify. The only problem left was constantly having to correct shipping prices both foreign and domestic. I contacted Cary Penrose who called me at my request and patiently talked me through setting up live shipping worldwide. It worked and now my readers in England can order delivery any way they want. I find Lulu very convenient and have had no complaints about pricing or delivery. I have just started advertising internationally, so time will tell how this works out when the volume picks up.

I appreciate the fact that this app helps save time in submitting and fulfilling orders, but the print cost / revenue shown on the Lulu.com website is inaccurate with the cost to actually sell a book in Shopify. The Lulu Direct print cost is about 20% higher than the Lulu book store cost--they say that's to cover fulfillment costs. But yet they ALSO charge an extra $1.50 PER BOOK on Shopify, listed as a fulfillment fee. That's crazy, and I'm looking into ways to get around this because having to mark up a notebook over $3.00 just to get any profit it all is not sustainable.

Lulu has been great to work with! We print and ship around 100+ books per month. Very few issues with that volume of orders and when there have been any issues Kristen with customer support has very quickly fixed the issue (even when the error was due to customer issues and not Lulu). Highly recommend!

I received the very best customer service from a wonderful person at Lulu. They helped me get my book print ready. They were quick to respond to my support ticket when I was having trouble. The trouble I was having was user error. I am a writer not a digital artist. The software I was using to create my files was bare minimum. They were happy to assist me in getting my book print ready. I love Lulu Direct and highly recommend them for print on demand.

Recommended. The app works well. So far, all orders have been fulfulled properly. There have been one or two minor problems which customer service have handled well and promptly. In general customer service is excellent. There are some downsides to consider before using the app: - Orders to some locations seem to arrive very slowly... some took around three weeks. Need to let customers know. They will see the shipping time but this doesn't include production time to actually print the book. - There is basically no functionality for looking through your own orders and gathering data, even just how much you've actually given Lulu. You have to email them to ask for a csv file (which they do provide promptly) - More costly than manually ordering from Lulu or making a bulk order. However I am glad I am using the app, despite these limitations

I am very disappointed with the Lulu app. When attempting to edit my books the page will not load. I can't make any updates to my books because of this. The shipping time is marketed at 3-5 business days but all of my orders have taken 10-15 days to deliver. I get that shipping may take longer under certain circumstances but if the majority of my orders are going to take almost 2 weeks to deliver then this app is not worth my time and I would rather go a different route. If someone could help me with these 2 issues that would be much appreciated but as of now I am looking for other options.

The app is very glitchy and there are major issues with their fulfillment and printing of the books. Their site has a production time of 3-5 business days which is false advertising. When emailing them about how it is taking much longer, now on 12 business days they respond saying that they're aware of it and that I should tell customers that it is a custom printing job for each and every book and that should keep them happy. This is before the shipping even occurs. I'm only in the stage of printing out proofs and am realizing I likely will not be able to use this for print on demand and dropshipping directly to customers due to the insanely long print time. This is not a sustainable model for print on demand and more so a better model for printing in bulk and holding inventory.

Everything about this app is easygoing but the processing and shipping are insane. I am better off ordering in bulk in processing the orders myself.

I used this app to launch my children's book. It is pretty easy to do as long as you have the video as provided by LULU. I do like having a store besides Amazon (I had major issue uploading my book on that platform, even hired someone to help me, but we couldn't get it to work). I still haven't used this forum to its greatest potential, but I know that there are a lot of ways to boost my book with the shopify store, so that is also great!

This app is a great all-in-one tool. If you're not familiar with self-publishing, then I would suggest going to Lulu xPress's main website and create your books there before trying to use this integration. It will give you a better understanding. This app will take some time to fully learn, but all the information you'll need is provided. Customer Support is VERY helpful.

I'm a small (2 product) self publisher of natural history field guides (BYOGUIDES) who was badly burned a few years back by Shipwire. The combination of Shopify / Lulu has allowed me to relaunch my business without the hassle of warehousing and arbitrarily changing Shipwire policies. The Shopify / Lulu interface / model is not 'simple' to understand or navigate initially, especially if you are trying to distribute globally to small oceanic territories as well as the big ones (e.g. North America). So if you are not a web / developer type I would say you should find someone with solid Shopify store building experience before discovering the many rough edges. I would have rate the Lulu App 3 stars but for Lulu tech support haven been STELLAR and patient as we beat a path (together) to the solution I needed for my customers. I am seeing evidence of constant improvement in the APP but there are still numerous rough edges must navigated daily. For example: there are form field character limits in the Lulu world that are NOT surfaced to the customer in Shopify world. Consequently, orders constantly crash because there is one-too-many characters in a field. The SHOPIFY system doesn't tell you this so they need to discovered by manually checking the Lulu app after each order arrives and hand managed through by me and sometimes tech support. It's a hassle but it is getting better as time goes by.... I could go on esp. w.r.t. to having to manually set up multiple freight rates around for every country you MIGHT sell to - this was auto-magic with my previous solution. But the bottom line is that the system is viable and getting better and there is good support. But if your time is worth anything (or you want to go holidays and relax) make sure you partner with a developer with Shopify store building experience and focus on doing a bunch of test orders that mimic who, and where, your customers are - especially if they are outside the US and EU. Finally, Lulu printing itself, while efficient and of excellent quality does have format limitations. For example, a limited selection of paperweights such that everything feels like a coffee-table book when you might need something with more heft for practical purposes. Also, if you coil bind you can not get a straight run of pages and are forced to have a blank page at the front and back of you book. Otherwise great.

At first I was intimidated by Lulu’s self-publishing platform because I had never published a book and am not proficient in Adobe Suite products which several of the templates require. My customer support expert, Tim S, was fantastic. He answered all my many questions, in detail, within 1-2 business days and was helpful in sending me templates to help me format my book. He even helped prepare my files when I ran into a printing issue with certain images not printing correctly - he helped me understand what the problem was with my file and fixed the issues for me so that my books would print correctly. When I received a damaged book I ordered for myself as a sample, he issued me a refund so that I could get a new sample book clear of shipping damage, which was considerate. He was always professional, positive, responsive, and immensely helpful in the setup process of my book. I am so grateful to have had his support through the file creation process and initial ordering process to help me get my book set up online correctly. I'm proud to now officially be a published author and happy the quality of the books looks very nice. I can't speak to other customer rep experiences at Lulu but Tim S. was 5 stars! Thank you Tim!!

Lulu has helped me create the products of my dreams and seamlessly integrate it into my site! I love how the products are made to order, and have had the greatest customer service experience as well. Shout out to Cary! Highly recommend!

I am using Lulu xPress as the print-on-demand partner for my book, Dances with David: 21st-century responses to the Psalms by an eco-spiritual poet, which is available at www.DancesWithDavidPoems.ca. Lulu xPress and Shopify have radically changed what is possible for me as an author. I published my last book traditionally through a small publishing house. I had to order a certain quantity which I prepaid (at cost), then I had to find ways to sell them, such as attending poetry events. This put me out of pocket and limited me to selling to people I could meet in person in my own region. With Lulu xPress and Shopify, I can sell anywhere in the world without being out of pocket for a print run. The books are printed and shipped to customers as the order comes in. My second customer was someone on another continent who saw me on a Zoom meeting - she bought my book without me having to do anything. No payment-taking, no shipping... nice and easy for the customer and for me. With Lulu xPress, I can also offer a variety of price points so I can appeal to various budgets. For $19.90, I can offer a paperback using 60# paper and standard ink; for $46.90 I can offer a hardcover using 80# coated paper and premium ink. There are two other combinations in between, giving me four editions I can offer at $19.90, $24.90, $37.90 and $46.90, depending on what the customer wants. I could never have done this with traditional publishing. Using Lulu xPress also allows me to keep my pricing affordable. If I had chosen to use Lulu's distributing services instead of Lulu xPress and self-marketing, my books would have been twice the price for the consumer, which would have made the whole project a non-starter. I am very satisfied with the print quality of all the various editions, and I feel proud to sell it. So far, the service has been very good as well, with any problems being resolved promptly. Wish me luck, ya'all! And go publish your own book with Lulu xPress!

This app is a relatively simple and economical way for a small organization such as ours, to print and ship its books on demand. The customer service rep assigned to us has been amazing--so helpful in providing information and supporting us through any challenges we faced along the way.

I am a new author and I have used this app only once. I had a problem connecting the app to my online store. I communicated with Kristen, and she walked me through the process to connect the app to my store. I appreciated the great assistance that I received. My orders can now be automatically fulfilled by LULU Direct. I am looking forward to using this app again in the future.

I used the Lulu xPress app with Shopify to publish a commemorative book as an internal fundraiser for my college fraternity. I wanted to remove the "middle man" costs of publishing the book on an online retailer platform. The target audience for this book was very limited, and I wanted the maximum net margin for the book. The solution worked very well and support our project. We experienced an IT issue, and one book shipping issue and Lulu was extremely responsive and timely with resolving those two issues. Otherwise, Lulu xPress app worked flawlessly. Very easier to use and you can view sales in real-time. Lulu Support staff was great in responding to any questions I had. Points to consider when using Lulu xPress App with Shopify. 1. Lulu has responsive and knowledgable customer service support where Shopify really does not; 2. I needed to establish a bank account and U.S. Tax ID number to support your book project with Lulu and Shopify. I did not know this before starting the project; 3. Recommend speaking with an accountant on tax collection and tax payment for your book project. Shopify only collects taxes you specify for your book project and does not pay taxes to municipalities for you; 4. Shopify does an outstanding job of timely paying revenue to you. Shopify transfers funds collected in book sales in 1-3 business days; 5. The integration between Shopify and Lulu Xpress app is outstanding and very easy to implement; 6. Shopify recently made reporting where you have to purchase Shopify Plan $79/month. I needed reporting functionality to obtain transaction-level sales data for my book project. When I created my Shopify page in March 2021, reporting fee when purchasing the Basic Shopify Plan was $29/month.

I used the app to print my cookbook. First, the app is easy to use and they don't charge for changes to your file like some POD companies. The price was so much better than the competition that I was concerned about the quality. However, when the book arrived all doubt disappeared! It was beautiful! I did standard color on premium paper with a gloss cover and could not be happier with the results! I would recommend them for any printing needs.

L'app funziona bene e non abbiamo avuto reclami sulla qualità di stampa dei libri. Per ora ha solo cambiato nome rispetto alla versione precedente. Rimane il problema che non memorizza, nelle impostazioni, la regione di provenienza del mittente e ha tempi di produzione e spedizione un po lenti per gli standart attuali. Non ci pare che siano disponibili 3.000 formati! Sarebbe utile fossero più complementari a quelli richiesti da Amazon, ci tocca produrre i libri in due formati alla volta.

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