We’re looking at revising the “My Order History” section of My Lulu and we would like your feedback on what additional information you would like about your orders. Please let us know what you’d like to see. The more feedback you can give us the better changes we can implement.

When we released our new forums back in February, we were excited. The old forums had been implemented when the Lulu.com site first went up and they had a lot of issues. Most of them were behind the scenes (admin features that were broken or added on), but they were difficult to work with. We thought Helpstream was the solution. Through a number of issues (slowness, being logged out) as well as concerns about navigation, many of our users told us they aren’t happy with the new system. We listened and have spent a lot of time trying to create a structure that will serve both our community and our internal needs. That’s where you come in.

We want your opinion. What do you want out of a world-class forum? What features do you like? What do you never want to see? We value your feedback and need your help as we figure out our next steps.

Your knowledge and ideas are the building blocks for the next generation, the foundation that ensures we continue to progress as a society. You need ever-better ways to share your knowledge and reach more people — and you deserve ever-better incentives to do so.

Lulu is working to open publishing to everyone, to create best-in-class tools so you can make just about anything and reach anyone. Whether you are an individual, publisher, educator, or enterprise — and whether you write technical manuals or romance novels — our goal is simple: to give you the most opportunities to share and profit from your remarkable ideas, knowledge and stories.

We are launching a significant initiative in the effort.

Beginning today, you will find more than 700,000 new titles in the Lulu Marketplace, titles as diverse as Harlan Coben’s Caught from the list of New York Times bestsellers to Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This follows the addition of more than 200,000 traditionally published eBooks that we added in November. In the coming weeks, we’ll add more content through additional partnerships as we make Lulu.com the world’s premier destination for published knowledge, ideas and expression. In effect, we are creating the world’s biggest bookstore.

At the same time, we are creating new ways to discover the books, information, and knowledge you need from this massive bookstore.  We will be enabling millions of Web sites to earn more by offering their own bookstores to their communities.

Our goal is to give you the tools you need to reach your market.   Whether your target audience buys your books, or knowledge or services is, of course, up to the quality and usefulness of your work, as it is in any other free market.  But by expanding the Lulu Marketplace, and taking our marketplace to your readers, the goal is nothing less than to enable more buyers to discover your work.

Buyers should be rewarded.  The really motivating part of building Lulu over the last few years has been the remarkable works that are uniquely available on our virtual shelves — non-fiction books about science, commerce, art and history and novels that show the rich imaginations of creators from around the world.

To help buyers sort through their many options — and help you get noticed —the search engine on our site has been significantly upgraded and “Find” is now the most prominent element at the top of our revamped homepage. We continue to enhance our search function and will continue leveraging our weRead social discovery platform to foster even better connections between creators and buyers.

It’s an exciting time in this industry, this era of open publishing that is giving voice to a new breed of creator and empowering consumers with a new world of ideas. We know you have choice, and we appreciate that you’re with Lulu.  We know we have to offer you better tools and more innovative approaches to ensure you reach ever-larger markets, in order to have ever-greater opportunities to be rewarded.

This is a fun adventure as we, you and Lulu, re-invent publishing for the Internet age, and remember: we are not the publisher — you are. Thanks for your support and don’t hesitate to let me know what you think of what we are attempting to achieve.

Cheers, Bob.

Some familiar titles appearing on iPad’s virtual bookshelves are Lulu’s very own: PhotoSecrets 101 Tips for Travel Photographers, Getting Real: The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application, Briefs, and Memories of the Future.

A few Lulus purchased iPads. Here are a couple screen shots of Briefs and Memories of the Future.

To get on the iBookstore yourself, here are the details.

After weeks of anticipation — and months of speculation — the iPad is finally here.

We know many of our authors are excited by the possibilities of this new device. And we’re excited to offer you access.

Apple has selected Lulu as a certified aggregator to provide content for the iBookstore. We have been hard at work pushing hundreds of titles to the store as part of a pilot program to ensure all of our processes are ready for the volume of content that we expect. I’m sure you have many questions, so let me get right to it.

Here are five points to understand:

1. ISBNs. Apple requires ISBNs on eBooks. Lulu can assign one for free.
2. ePub. An ePub file is required for submission to the iBookstore. You can create your own, or have Lulu create one for you through our conversion service . See the next point for an important note about the ePub file.
3. Validation. Apple has a strict file validation process. All files submitted must pass ePubCheck 1.0.5. If you create your own ePub file, you must verify that it will pass. Lulu can only guarantee validation for ePub files created through our conversion service . From now through April 15, we are offering a 50 percent discount on that service. To take advantage, enter code: SVCEPUBBLOG.
4. Pricing. All eBooks planned for iBookstore distribution must have retail pricing that complies with Apple’s guidelines. We will automatically price Lulu eBooks submitted to the iBookstore to meet these guidelines. The creator revenue that you receive per sale will be 80 percent of the profit after deducting Apple’s share. On a $9.99 book, for example, you will receive $5.60 .
5. Content. Apple could decline to list an eBook in the iBookstore if it determines the book violates the company’s policies on inappropriate content. We have submitted hundreds of titles and, so far, have had only one rejected.

For a limited time, Lulu will provide free distribution to the iBookstore.

We can help you get any project into the iBookstore, even if you’ve published only a printed copy of your work on Lulu so far. The key is that you must already have a project on Lulu — or publish a project now.

The simplest way to reach the iBookstore is to have us convert your file into an ePub. As mentioned earlier, we guarantee that it will pass Apple’s validation process and we include distribution to the iBookstore as part of this service for no extra charge.

The other approach is a manual one. You’ll need to make your own ePub file and make any necessary improvements until is passes ePubCheck 1.0.5. Once you have that file on Lulu, add iBookstore distribution to your cart as if you were buying any other service. (Again, it is free for a limited time.) We’ll submit the file to Apple for the iBookstore.

In the coming weeks, we will automate more of this process and will incorporate it into our eBook publishing wizard.

We’re committed to open publishing — to helping as many creators as possible reach as many consumers as possible, no matter the platform. Publishing at Lulu means you can have your work in hardcover and paperback and as an eBook accessible on many popular devices, including the iPad. In addition, you can create CDs, DVDs, photo books, cookbooks, calendars and many other products.

We’re excited to add iBookstore distribution to our catalog of products and services. Please let us know if you have any questions about this exciting new service.

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.

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.

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.

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.