Lulu.com

I wouldn’t even give Lulu a 1/4 Star. They have sent out my books with other people’s stories inside my books. The cover is mine but they inserted pages from two other books. One sent out in the US and one sent out in the Philippines. Absolutely no quality systems in place. Horrible customer service. I called today to report this issue and got a voicemail saying they were all gone for training and to call back at a time when they are there. Again, do not use Lulu. Your work is too important to be ruined by this inept publishing company.

This website is just a false advertisement ploy to get people to let them publish for them, (which is a fortune! ) because they make it nearly impossible to use their self-publishing software! It was nothing but problem after problem. It is way too complicated to do on your own or with their support team. Nothing even works, it's a headache to download the correct file, everything always turns out wrong. This is yet the worst experience I've had trying to do anything on the internet. I canceled my account and am looking for a legit company.

I am a first-time author and have been using Lulu for nearly a year now to publish my work. I have not needed to pay for any of their services (I do my own artwork, and plenty of avid-reader friends for proofing) and bought 15+ copies of each book I have written. The prices are a bit steep for delivery, but if you wait long enough discount coupons pop up allowing free/cheaper delivery plus reductions on printing costs. The revenue amount from Lulu is also very good, with me receiving £1 average per sale, compared to larger companies like Amazon that take a much bigger chunk and leave me with hardly anything. Any issues I have encountered have been dealt with within 48 hours.

Lulu is NOT an easy publishing website, and if you are a newbie, like me, you will be in a deep sea of confusion wondering why your choices are being hindered for nothing. So many things are wrong with the navigation of the website and it doesn't make the user experience good at all. CONFUSING AS HELL. FIX YOUR WEBSITE.

This company are an absolute joke! I paid for a premium package and was then told of additional costs that were not mentioned at the beginning of the process. The customer service was the worse I have ever seen, before signing up I was chased by their sales team multiple times a day, once I signed up they never reply to emails and refuse to provide any information. After several complaints I was promised a full refund. I was told this would be done in 7-10 days. That was over one month ago! This company owes me over $2,500 - they have crippled me and my family, refuse to respond to any emails, hang up on me when I call - the amount of distress this has caused me and my family is unreal! Please please please stay away from them - they do not know what they are doing and have zero care for their customers - an absolute disgrace!

I have published many books over the years and I found Lulu to be the most professional and easy company to deal with. Starting from the beginning with the gentleman named Ryan whom I spoke with, to production. Ryan was very knowledgeable, professional and kind. He listened to my needs and the needs of my mother's book. Production staff (Erika) was great as well and respected this family history book. I highly recommend using their services if you are serious about publishing. I have read many of the reviews on here and they are from NON serious authors or ones that wanted their books done for free. I will definitely be using their services again. Keep up the great work LULU!

Lulu is the worst. They suspended my account. I had 57$ in royalties on it... a week before payouts saying I had infringed upon copyright when the said book in question was not even published on my account. They steal money. They are disgusting people.

I was going to try this one since real publishing co.s is not supposed to charge you any fees upfront to publish your book! Yet this is on the free publishing list! On Google search! Yet by reading several reviews and complaints I see that it's not free at all! What a letdown! And a turn off! And proof that Lulu is nothing but another SCAM! So disappointing! Always read the reviews first! Before trying bizs online! Or else you might get scammed! So watch out! - do your research! It could save you a lot of money! And problems you don't need! Avoid this one! It's a shame that they are thieves by some victims and they are liars too! Since they're not free like they say they are in their fake advertising! Shame on them!

The biggest problem is Lulu is distribution particularly Google Book search. Google Book Search will display online for free "20%" of your book which can be 50-60 pages for the average book. Supposedly these pages are not sequential. What author really wants to give away 60 pages of their book? Why would anyone need 60 pages to check out a book? So, to be fair Google is off track here, But the problem is that Lulu Does not inform authors about these details before publication, I set my educational book up to have 40 pages of instructional text followed by over 100 pages of workbook sheets.

I have been in contact with Lulu Press, Inc. in the past regarding self-publishing, and spoke to a man named Ryan ** on Friday evening. He convinced me to purchase one of the self-publishing packages, but I decided to do a little more online research about the company before I made the first payment via credit card on Saturday morning. I found less than favorable reviews, and many dissatisfied customers, so decided not to proceed. I notified Ryan that I was going with a different company, but he continued to call. I blocked his number and his email address, but he just called from different numbers, and had someone else call from a different number, always before 9 a.m. - and they know I'm on central time. I consider this harassment. My 'no' is final, and this behavior has convinced me that my decision not to publish with Lulu was correct.

I received an email from Lulu saying, "Hey VIP! Your 40% Off is here." Then I started ordering some clothes for my family because I thought Lulu were offering 40% off on all clothing. Then later once in the website, I realised the 40% off is only for only some selected clothing. Then I started browsing the selected clothing spending hours hoping to get 40% off and only to realise when I went to the checkout, it said "The promotion code for 40% off is not valid for your country" (I live in Australia). There was nothing to indicate in the sales promotion email I received to say that certain countries are excluded. I will not be wasting my time anymore trying to get discounts from these dodgy emails.

I published a Book on Lulu in 2014, with only 21 pages. And they printed my images in black and white and the print in the book is so small. But anyway they have told me why I have not gotten any royalty from the book, is I need to raise my price. The price of the book is $21.00, which I see as too expensive but some copies have been sold. And I have not received a penny.

Lulu is total scam. They publish almost for nothing but they make money by making you market your book. After spending $9000 on marketing, you will sell hardly 0-5 copies hardly. LULU IS TOTAL SCAM and so are all the self-publishing companies. You better off publishing on just Amazon...

I have helped writers from many areas of the world produce their books on Lulu for free (well, if they want to be on Amazon, they have to pay for one preview copy, at cost plus shipping). I do this because many authors are unable to self publish in their country, or simply don't have the technical know how. But now, on Consumer Affairs, I see false claims about Lulu. I have to assume these are from people who are supporting self-publishers whose greed for money from authors is unequaled - such as iUniverse, Dorrance, Page Publishing, etc.

I am a first time author and followed everything that was shown for my first book to be published. After paying the upfront fees that were supposed to be the total, since we asked ALL the details, we were then asked to pay other large fees to finish the book. They would have other "scam" artist to call me and explain why we really needed all these other unknown factors for the book. When we decided that this was unprofessional and asked for the money back then the circle went round and round. Months later we were only able to receive half our money back, so they made money for nothing. It was not worth the money or time hiring an attorney to get the rest back. So, I would suggest to research your company better than we did and record and document ALL correspondence and phone calls, they recorded yours.

I always buy my stuff at Lulu coz I'm living nearby from electronics, clothing, groceries and etc. I even bring my colleague to buy their stuff as well. Overall we are very satisfied. But today I went there to buy some stuff and had a very bad experience with the cashier name Jenelyn **. I bought rice cooker and she told me to go to gift wrapping for the handle. I told her this is not for gift. Instead of explaining nicely, she said in rude way "I'm not saying you go there for wrapping, they will put handle." Then I left and forgot the receipt. I went back to get the receipt for the warranty. What shocked me is she was talking to her co cashier about what happened like she is very proud of what she said to me.

I am a first time publisher with a children's book. I contacted Lulu and explained that I needed help creating a book. I needed help with the illustrations and was told that the artists were great to work with. After I submitted my book, I was told that graphic design was included, but not illustrations. $290, per illustration extra. When you look up the meaning of graphic design, it's explained as pictures and text together, not to Lulu. Being that it was my first experience, or inexperience, very frustrating. So they would not work with me. I asked for a refund, still waiting, 7-10 business days. I've invested 1 month's time and the saddest part is that I am not trying to get rich here. I wanted to create this book for charity, St. Jude and Toys for Tots. I hope that this helps some people. Be careful. I felt like I was crystal clear. But in the end, they wanted more money. Very dissatisfied!

My experience with Lulu has been nothing but pleasant and rewarding. They did a fantastic job of laying out my book and creating a beautiful cover. I have had pretty good sales, but then again I put effort into marketing and promoting my book. The reviews complaining about lack of sales obviously think that people are just magically going to know their book is available on Lulu. I have three books on Lulu and will publish there again. I've tried other self-publisher and there is little chance of making a dime on most of them. Lulu is the only one where you can actually make money on your writing.

I’ve published with my first book with a company called CreateSpace and had a horrible experience from the start to finish. So I decided to publish elsewhere. I ended up getting referred from an author who published multiple publications with Lulu’s services. I was a little hesitant because of the some reviews but gave them a shot since they are one of the most renowned self-publishing company. Without a doubt this it was the decision I could have made. Their team was very up front and knowledgeable. I told my Publishing Advisor what kind of investment I had to put into the project and they came up with a plan that suited my needs. I spent around 4k and ended up making my investment back within 18 months. I am currently working on my 3rd publication and I will be working with Lulu!

I am a first time author about my own ideas about my profession, which is conventional medicine and now anti aging/alternative/holistic/ with conventional medicine only for an emergency. I was very excited going through the process of publishing my book which I think is well researched, unique and of interest to the public in general. However I was amazed at how no one can find it on the internet, unless they actually typed in the exact name of the title (how would anyone know?). There are many books in this area (health) that can be found easily, and they either have been around for 10 years and published by private owners of fairly large medical groups and essentially give them away free to their patients, or they are published by major publishers and are written to advertise the drug industry with is a multibillion dollar industry.

I had a 3 books published with and have only received like $14 in royalties. I KNOW they are not paying me because my friend ordered over 10 for his bookstore AND I NEVER GOT MY ROYALTIES!!! I then searched Amazon and found that 53 BOOKSELLERS ARE SELLING USED COPIES OF MY BOOKS but STILL NO MONEY TO ME!!! I sent emails, tried to call and finally they called me and said "Oh, these are people listing your book and if you buy from them WE will ship it..." Complete BS because my friend listed 5 of them in his possession!!! Thieves. All of them. STAY AWAY FROM LULU!!!

I tried self-publishing my first book and I thought I would try Lulu. They gleefully and happily took my $2,700. I also had to pay to have it separately edited. Thank God I did not use them or else I would have been looking at thousands of more dollars for editing. Now here is the big rub! I cannot get Lulu to get the search terms right for the major sellers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. If you search the key terms for my book that I gave them, you cannot find my book on the big sellers unless you enter the specific title. I have worked repeatedly with customer service and all I get is excuses. My sales are in the tank 1 1/2 years after the release of my book because no one can find it.

Mainly dissatisfied with Customer Support. I made an order from Lulu and I found out that I wanted to add a different name on the shipping address so I decided to cancel it. I didn't get any refund so I contacted customer support. First response came to me 4 days later but they didn't mention anything about the refund so I made another ticket. I waited another 4 days for a response to come in. The person in the email said that my bank has made a pre authorization and not a final payment. However by the time the response came to me, the pre authorization was already sent to Lulu. I wrote another ticket now and I am hoping to get my money back. I originally planned on making the order again but after two weeks of still waiting for a solution and the fact that the customer support takes so long to respond, I most likely will not make anymore purchases on lulu.com.

Response to email inquiries is very slow and never provides an adequate answer. Revenue not showing up on my profile even when I provided an order number that shipped 3 months ago.

I have published my own books, plus those for clients, through Lulu and frequently recommend them. I love that they offer hardcover books, which CreateSpace and others do not. I have just published a book of my own in the spiral-bound format. I have not used their paid promotional services because I do that myself--for myself, and for clients. I have called Customer Service and have had remarkably astute and polite assistance, even when I called at 3 minutes before their closing time! I actually heard the CS assistant whisper "Have a good evening," to a co-worker, but not in an unpleasant tone. She was not hurried and very patiently explained the answer. I had read something wrong, and she told me where the answer was on-screen. Duh. I feel for anyone who has had less than stellar experience with Lulu. My experience has been remarkably wonderful!

I am a best selling author that was looking for a wider experience than my last publisher offered. LuLu was recommended by a group of Authors I am friends with, but they had no idea how awful of an experience I was going to have. I paid the $1999.99 fee immediately and with a smile on my face, I thought I was in for a great experience. Since my payment, my first Coordinator quit (supposedly) and it took a week for anyone to contact me about it. My new Coordinator is Barb ** and she is just as worse as my last one. It took 3 phone calls and 5 emails to finally get someone there at LuLu to accept my manuscript. When I finally submitted it, it took three more days for someone to recognize that the email was received.

Not a stellar company. Lulu produces a fairly decent print book, but the ad campaign is sorely lacking. Not having a small fortune to start with, this leaves a person at a handicap. Lulu requires an upfront payment for an ad campaign, and has no particular interest in your product. They made their money whether you do or not, opposed to a company that would generate a campaign and then take out their cut on a per book basis. Overall, I'm a bit underwhelmed. As an "independent" publisher, they certainly live up to the name. You end up feeling VERY independent... and alone in all this.

Using their services to publish a book. It seems as though I should have higher sales rate than I did. I had compared to other authors who had been published elsewhere. They were getting numbers of book sales yet I was not seeing the reviews, the sales or the author revenue. It seemed unusual to say the least. In fact at one point after a few months when I first published there were more "used" books for sale than I had sold in "new" books (how does that happen?).

I paid a tremendous amount of money to LULU so they would edit and publish my script, however when it came to the cover, which I provided, they decided to be impossible. I had my own image, but they refused to use it unless I could somehow PROVE that this was my own image. I mailed back and forth for weeks, with absolutely no help from their side whatsoever. Completely unflexible towards individual needs and unwilling to help you.

I've been thinking of writing a review for Lulu. They have created a quality product with my book, yet through one line emails I don't think many of the team members realize that people are putting HUGE INVESTMENTS in their projects. HUGE... Many cases everything they've got. It's business, I get it. They want to keep the money coming and send people on their way. And yes, many of us feel foolish for doing it. The guilt is colossal as well. Because what I very well may end up doing in the end is filling out my Schedule C form for taxes next year claiming this as a COMPLETE LOSS. It's life, yet has serious effects.