New Features

by Sherrie Wilkolaski Lulu Publishing Consultant
March 14, 2010
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Lulu VIP: A New Level of Service

In New Features — Tagged: , , ,

John Edgar Wideman’s decision to join the Lulu community has gotten quite a bit of attention. Stories have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly and the Huffington Post. And all that coverage has generated quite a bit of interest in our new Lulu VIP Services program.

Mr. Wideman is the inaugural customer of this program, which provides white-glove service to premiere authors. It’s our most customizable offering, executed by industry-leading professionals who have helped drive the success of A-list authors. Each title receives the highest level of attention and each author retains complete control over the process, from cover design and editing to online marketing and media relations.

Indeed, our new VIP Services program provides everything a traditional publisher can offer. We launched the program to help authors gain more control over their own publishing process and recruited an experienced team of professionals with traditional and bestseller experience to lead the way. We’re extremely honored that Mr. Wideman decided to use Lulu for Briefs and that our VIP Services are part of his journey.

Our goal is to expand the visibility of authors’ works and maximize their success through red carpet treatment, personalized attention, and quality, publishing-house services at their fingertips. We’re confident that authors and agents alike will find comfort in the professionalism of our VIP Services program.

Email us today at vipservices@lulu.com for a free consultation.

by Nuno Gomes Senior Designer
February 25, 2010
Comments (34)

Help us with a home(page) remodel

In New Features — Tagged: , , ,

We like to keep things fresh here at Lulu. But lately, we feel like our home page is getting a little stale.

So we’re ripping up the floors and bringing out the paint … or at least the wire frames and graphics. Our goal is to make Lulu.com a better experience for both of our customer groups: content creators and buyers. We want to highlight the diverse selection of content available on Lulu.com, help our creators sell more and make sure we remain a first stop for anyone publishing or buying books.  As with any remodel, we need some ideas. So help us out!

What should we keep on the Lulu.com homepage?
What should we take away?
What should we add?

If there are sites that you think are particularly well designed, let us know that, too.

We love the creativity of our community, so give us your thoughts. And stay tuned. We expect to have an updated look this spring.

by Nick Popio Community Architect
January 19, 2010
Comments (13)

Improving the Lulu Community

In Lulu News, New Features —

One of the most important things to any company is their community of users. If anything, this is even more true for Lulu. We believe that if we don’t do a good job listening to our users and improving our offerings, then we are not helping you succeed. Currently on Lulu we have a Community section that highlights our Blog, our social networking presence, the Newsletter, Community Services Marketplace, and of course our Forums. As part of our belief in continuous improvement and providing the best customer experience to our users, we are moving our forums and help to a new, unified platform in early February.

As a result of these changes, you will be able to easily find articles, discussions, and more for anything you are searching for. We will be migrating all of the data from Help, as well as the last three months of data from the forums to ensure that as much relevant information as possible is preserved. That said, if there are particular forum threads you want to make sure you have a record of, please copy them into a text document before February to make sure that it does not get lost in the shuffle. In addition, there will be limited access to the forums in the days before we make the transition. We will announce this time period in advance, and we will keep you informed of our progress. We hope this will cause a minimum of disruption and we apologize in advance for any inconvenience it does cause.

Some of the new features that we are very excited about adding to the community are:

  • Ideas & Feedback – You will be able to submit your recommendations for how we can improve the Lulu experience and vote on ideas you like that others have submitted.
  • Announcements – We will be adding a section for announcements for scheduled site maintenance, release notes, guidelines and more. All of this will be hosted externally from Lulu, so if Lulu is down you can still get information about what’s going on.
  • You will have the ability to see your open support cases.
  • You can see new articles and discussions that have been added, as well as the most popular ones.
  • You will be able to rate users, articles, discussions, and anything that you like.

As we roll out these new features and integrate them into Lulu we will be asking you for your feedback. We want to do everything we can to improve the experience based on your responses. We hope you’re excited as we are about the opportunity for us to improve the Lulu community.

by Harish Abbott Chief Product Officer
November 4, 2009
Comments (9)

Building Selection to Boost Author Success

In Lulu News, New Features — Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dan Brown. Malcolm Gladwell. Emeril Lagasse. They all have something in common with you: They’re on Lulu.

You’ll now find their works — and about 200,000 other eBook titles from traditionally published authors — in the Lulu Marketplace. We’ve added them through agreements with Ingram and other distributors to make their public catalogs available on our site.

It’s a significant shift for Lulu, but one rooted in a strategy to maximize author success that has guided us from the beginning. To sell more books, you need more exposure. We’ve long provided distribution choices to help you reach customers in myriad stores, including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. We’re continuing to expand those options, and we’ll have more to share soon.

But that’s not enough. The time has come for a better marketplace. Like many of you, we’re discouraged by some trends in the industry and what they might mean for the future of books. Here at Lulu we champion books, and the people who create them, because of what they represent. Books are conversations between generations that convey our best thinking and help move us forward. They deserve appreciation. And authors deserve success.

The open marketplace we’re building will have the broadest selection. It will be a one-stop shop with content from all authors, in all styles and in all formats, paper and electronic. The goal is to give readers access to the best knowledge, ideas and entertainment and to give authors access to the best audience for their works. We believe the increased choice offered by increased selection will attract more readers. And as we attract more readers, we will have more opportunity to get Lulu authors in front of people most likely to buy. In fact, we’ve invested in recommendation technology to help with that by steering readers based on their browsing patterns.

Adding 200,000 eBooks is just the first step in a journey that will unfold over the coming months, one intended to bring more success to Lulu authors every day. As always, I welcome your suggestions and feedback as we move forward.

by Daniel Wideman Senior Product Manager, Lulu Marketplace
November 3, 2009
Comments (22)

New Lulu eBooks are Here!

In Lulu News, New Features — Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

Last summer, while sitting in a team meeting reviewing numbers (bear with me, it gets better), an intriguing stat caught my eye: 70% of our authors make their print books available as downloads, and those authors sell 30% more books than those who offer print editions only! Even without a “real” eBook publishing option, Lulu authors were flocking to make digital files available, and succeeding in increasing their sales. Since then, we’ve been on a mission to provide a better eBook option. Today, I’m pleased to announce, new Lulu eBooks have arrived!

Why publish an eBook? The simple answer is it makes sense for both authors (universal distribution, more sales, and higher royalties) and readers (cheaper than print, instant delivery, and mobile access). How can Lulu help? By providing features to support a wide range of scenarios: give eBooks away for free as a marketing tool, automatically link eBook and print editions to enhance discovery and provide more options to readers, and offer optional copy-protection (DRM) to prevent piracy and unlicensed distribution.

Beginning today, Lulu supports all of these options, and more. With multi-device support, readers can access your eBook on a Mac, PC, iPhone (Stanza), Sony Reader, and many others. You can now upload files in the popular EPUB format, which is quickly becoming the industry standard (see recent announcements by Barnes & Noble and Sony). Concerned about losing sales when you make unprotected digital content available in the marketplace? You can now apply DRM to your eBook, and sell a licensed version which can’t be freely copied and distributed.

To support enabling these features for more than a million Lulu authors, Lulu has adopted a new pricing structure for eBooks and print downloads.  As always, it’s still free to publish, and if you choose, you can continue to give away your digital content for free. For authors who want to sell eBooks and downloads, we’ve added a fixed $1.49 base price to cover our credit card processing and hosting expenses. Applying DRM (optional, eBooks only) adds $.99 to the base price to offset the fee charged by our DRM provider.  To reiterate, authors never pay to publish, these fees are reflected in the list price and are only charged to the purchaser at purchase time.

All of us at Lulu are excited about our new eBooks, and welcome your feedback. Stay tuned–we’re actively exploring many more features, including providing easy access to retail distribution channels with the goal of enabling Lulu authors to sell eBooks in every online marketplace.  Meanwhile, we encourage you to get started and publish an eBook today.

by Jay Ballenger Supreme Webmaster
May 1, 2009
Comments (6)

Lulu’s new site design

In New Features — Tagged: ,

Lulu.com is undergoing a redesign.

See our site with a 960 grid overlay

See our site with a 960 grid overlay

So far, we’ve remade our home page and our Publish section with an emphasis on more concise text and bigger graphics. Our pages are built with using a 960 grid system.

We’ve still got a ways to go. Our Services section is next (I think). We hope you like the direction our site is headed.

 

by Carol Housel Marketing Communications Specialist
April 21, 2009
Comments (8)

Judging a book by its cover isn’t such a bad idea after all

In Lulu News, Marketing Tips, New Features — Tagged: , , ,

The saying goes, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but that old adage was crafted before our new Lulu Cover Wizard came about. Now, Lulu has made it easier than ever to create a professional cover for your book, without the cost that comes along with a professional designer.

A great book cover can open doors for your book, and the new Lulu Cover Wizard provides our creators with the tools to get noticed. The new Lulu Cover Wizard is entirely browser based, so there is no need to download any software. It also auto-calculates the dimensions of your book to ensure a proper full-bleed print.  There are various themes, colors, and fonts to choose from, and you even have the option to use your own personal or professional Fotolia images for your book cover. And, when you sign up with Fotolia through Lulu, receive special discounts, too.


The New Lulu Cover Wizard

The New Lulu Cover Wizard

Continue Reading »

by Adam Guida
January 15, 2009
Comments (3)

Lulu Marketplace Tips 101

In Marketing Tips, New Features — Tagged: , ,

One of the perks of my job here at Lulu is that I get to spend a lot of time browsing through thousands of published titles available in our marketplace. Believe it or not, with that many books, there are a surprisingly large number, I believe, that show the kind of potential to be the next great undiscovered work within their niche. Unfortunately, many of these great books will most likely remain undiscovered in their author’s lifetime, largely because they lack some of the basic marketing elements necessary to initially capture and hold the interest of a potential reader, convincing them that your book is worth reading.

Now admittedly, seriously marketing your book can be a full time job in itself as many of you can attest, but there are some quick, easy and, in most cases, free things you can do, right now, to get your book out there and dramatically increase its visibility to potential readers. Here are a few tips that will help get you started.

Create a new and unique book cover – Our research has shown that Lulu books with custom covers sell four times as many copies compared to those with the default covers we provide in the publishing wizard. Create a new cover that’s tailored to your book, or let us help you create one that’s sure to get noticed. Learn more about Lulu’s professional cover design services.

Create a book preview – Why should I provide a preview of my work? Your book’s preview serves as a significant marketing tool by allowing potential readers to sample a portion of your work. Learn how to start setting up your book’s preview now.

While you’re at it, get even more viewers and consider creating a preview on Google Book Search.

Get your book distributed worldwide – Publishing your book on Lulu is just the first step. Get your book automatically listed in tens of thousands of retailers online and off, including Amazon.com, Borders, and Barnes & Noble, Inc. Learn more

Write a description- Peak a potential reader’s interest in your book by providing a short description on your book page. Highlight key topics for your reader or simply ensure the contents of your back cover are visible online. From your My Lulu account page, click the “revise” icon to the right of your book’s title, then click the “Edit” button to get started.

Create a Lulu storefront – A Lulu storefront is a free, easy-to-use webpage highlighting both you and your work. Send potential readers a direct link to everything you’ve published on Lulu by setting up a storefront today. Learn more

Add “Keywords” to your book: Keywords enhance the way potential readers find your book when searching a relevant topic. By adding key words or short phrases to your keyword list, you can dramatically increase the likelihood that potential readers will find your book. The key (no pun intended) when setting keywords is to think about what words a potential reader would use to search for books on your subject and try to use these in your list of keywords.

You can add keywords the same way you can write a description: from your My Lulu account page, click the “revise” icon to the right of your book’s title, then click the “Edit” button.

Earn revenue on each book sold – Now that you’ve enhanced the marketing potential of your book, don’t forget to set your creator revenue. Select the amount you earn on each sale and start earning today.

Looking for more help? Regardless of what you take away from these tips, the key is about increasing the likelihood that a potential reader will successfully find your title, then improving the quality of those first critical moments of exposure, convincing them to open to the first page. Marketing your book does take work, but you don’t need a dream team from a major publisher to get noticed either. Make an effort to improve your book’s presence when you have some extra time. If you discover that you need a little help, Lulu offers a wide range of cost effective author services, ranging from editing and formatting, to graphic design and marketing.

Is this in itself a shameless attempt at marketing our service? You got me! But seriously, we want to help you be a more successful published author and if you need our help, we’re here for you. View Lulu’s full range of author services

Have any other free marketing tips to share? Post a comment and share your tips with authors here.

-Adam

by Adam Guida
August 21, 2008
Comments (4)

What’s new with Lulu Studio™ Photo Books and Calendars

In New Features — Tagged: ,

We’ve recently added several exciting new enhancements to Lulu Studio™ for both Photo book and Calendar publishing. Most of these changes are aimed at adding greater flexibility and options for customization as well as making the Studio easier to use. Here’s a look at what’s new:

Reordering pages – With a click and a drag of your mouse, you can now move and reorder individual pages to appear exactly where you want them to inside your book. Simply click on the “Reorder Pages” button in the lower portion of the Studio™ to pull up the page editor. Then, click and drag the page thumbnail to reorder that page within your book or calendar.

Autofill Pictures – Along side the new page reordering feature there is also a handy time-saving Autofill button that will allow you to pre-populate your book with the photos you’ve added to your project. From my own experience, this tool can be especially useful when used in combination with the page reordering function, especially if your book contains a lot of photos.

Continue Reading »

by Nick Popio Community Architect
August 6, 2008
Comments (21)

iRead, You Read, We All Read On weRead

In Events, Lulu Blog, Lulu News, Lulu on the Web, New Features — Tagged: , , ,

logo_wereadWe have some great news, Lulu has teamed up with weRead! If you aren’t familiar with weRead yet, you might recognize it under it’s previous name, iRead, the popular social networking application for book lovers.

Now, in addition to publishing your books on Lulu, weRead will enable you to connect with well over two million readers across a variety of social networks. You can even create your own author page, and  interact with your fans!

Another feature of weRead is that it has the complete catalog of all books in print. Readers will be able to rate your mystery and adventure book against “The Da Vinci Code”, and your period romantic comedy can be easily compared with “Pride and Prejudice”.

weRead’s discovery and recommendation engine allows users to find the types of books they will be interested in quickly and easily.  Who doesn’t want more people finding, reading, and sharing your book?

weRead works on many of your favorite networks including:
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Orkut
• Hi5
• Bebo
… even your own blog or website!

To get started, you can either:
•    Go to http://www.weread.com and register for an account, or
•    If you already belong to a social network listed above, simply follow the link to install the application on your profile

To help you get more familiar with weRead, and what you can do with it’s features, we will be doing a series of posts focusing on how you can use weRead to promote your work and interact with the largest possible audience of consumers. Some of the topics we’ll be covering include tips for setting up an author page on weRead, and using weRead to market your work.

I hope you’re as excited as we at Lulu are about our new partnership, and be sure to keep an eye out for more Lulu and weRead tips & tricks.