At Lulu, we know that getting your book into distribution channels outside of the Lulu Marketplace is important to many of you. We also know that the current process can be confusing. As a result, we have taken steps to simplify getting your book set up with an ISBN, extending the reach of your book and enabling you to sell more. To facilitate this, we have removed Published By You (PBY) as a distribution package. Don’t worry if you already have a PBY package, nothing will change for you as we will continue to support you and your book(s).
If you do not have a PBY package but were thinking about getting one you can still purchase your own ISBN and apply it to your Lulu book. To purchase your own ISBN visit www.myidentifiers.com and create an account. You can then fill out the form and purchase an ISBN. We are aware that Published by You was a popular service, therefore we’ll be closely monitoring the response to this change. We are considering launching a service similar to Published by You that will still facilitate the purchase of an ISBN on your behalf, so if you would prefer something like that, then let us know.
In a few weeks, all books will have the option to assign either a Lulu owned ISBN or your own ISBN to your Lulu books in the publishing wizard. This means you won’t have to create your book, wait for approval, and then create a new revision to add the ISBN information. Like the Published By Lulu (PBL) package we used to offer, if you assign a free Lulu owned ISBN, Lulu will act as the publisher on your behalf to retailers and wholesalers. If you assign your own ISBN, then the publisher listed with your ISBN will be used.
Once you’ve assigned an ISBN to your project, you will still need to choose a distribution package for your ISBN to be listed in major bibliographic databases. If you choose Lulu’s new, free ExtendedReach service your title will be made available on Amazon.com, or you can purchase our GlobalReach service which lists your book on even more major online retailers worldwide and allows brick & mortar stores to order your book.
This is only the beginning. In the coming months, we will be helping you expand your reach more and more. We want to help you get your work in the hands of your readers, and the easiest way to do that is to make sure they can find your book on the sites they are already browsing. If there are particular online retailers you are interested in being listed on, then please let us know!
