Really angry at price increases

[Jigsaw Slimming]

I have been using Lulu now for well over a year. I have never had a bad experience, I love the quality of the books and have always found them to be fantastic.

I have 3 books currently listed and order them as needed.

This morning I have logged in to order another batch of books and notice that my price per copy has risen from £9.45 to £20.45 I sell these books for £19.99 per copy on my own website. I am furious. I have received no notification from lulu about these price incraeses, if I had then I would have amended my selling price on my website, or gone to another POD company. I now have to fulfill orders or issue a full refund to my buyers.

I have read in another thread that these price increases were well announced on the Lulu forum and website prior to being implemented, but that means nothing for those of us who simply use Lulu for ordering.


Does anyone know of another POD company? Or does anyone know if this price increase is going to be a temporary/permanent thing? The person I spoke to on the LiveHelp suggested that it was an error and was being fixed??

[Eric Begbie]

Helen,

I received an e-mail from Lulu on 2nd October announcing those problems. I assume that all Lulu authors got the same e-mail.

But, like you, I think that Lulu are on the point of pricing us out of the market. The problem, of course, is that if Lulu genuinely needs the extra percentages to survive, then the alternative might be that we lose it altogether.

I wonder what the feasibility would be of all UK Lulu authors forming a co-operative to start our own POD operation on a non-profit basis.

Eric


P.S. - I suspect that the magnitude of your price increase may be an error, but the general price increases are not.

[Steven Doerfler]

I wasn't aware any book prices went up by more than 100%. What are the specs for your book? (Page count and size, color or B&W, binding type.) I believe there are a few differences between the prices Lulu announced and the prices they're now charging, possibly due to bugs, so I'm curious if your books fall into that category.

It might be possible to price your book in a different currency like US $ and get lower prices. Even if that means higher shipping, it still might be worth it for a bulk order. For instance, a 500 page 8.5"x11" B&W perfect bound book is now £16.95 (previously £9.00). But if you price it in US $, it's currently $18, which is roughly £11 at today's exchange rate. If you switch your currency to US $ (using the selector at the bottom of each page) and create a project in that currency, then buy it in that currency, you might have to pay some foreign-currency fee to your credit card company (ask them) but it still might be worth it.

As to other POD companies, I started a list here: http://www.lugaru.com/pod-vs-pod.html

[svivian]

[David Harrison]

I just tried to order a copy of one of my books, 76pp hardback: £8.50.
The price for postage was quoted at £56.39 standard, £59.61 express.

I'm assuming that is an error. I got a response from Lulu.

"Please note that we have implemented new pricing and shipping changes as of October 28th. We are currently investigating the roll out of our new shipping options to determine if there are any errors that may result in inaccurate shipping prices. If you are a European customer and are publishing your book in the following sizes, please note that these book sizes are only printed (and shipped) from the USA, which can explain the high shipping costs associated with those projects. We also realize that some of the shipping prices may need further evaluation and are working on providing cheaper options."

Either they messed up with the decimal point, their courier is ripping them off, or they might want to check out Global Priority. £56 postage is a joke.

When you run a business in competition with big, wealthy players (like Amazon) you have to keep your eye on the ball and not stuff up like this. You debug new procedures *before* you implement them, not afterwards if you get complaints.

[svivian]

http://www.lulu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=100420&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=270

David, see the above posts - which includes my conversation with Live Help where they say it is not actually a mistake. However, it appears that it must be (because no sane person could seriously think otherwise) and they do seem to be working on it as the prices have been leaping about all weekend. There seem to be several other bugs in the whole Lulu site as well so I think they seem to having real problems.

[David Harrison]

Thanks svivian.

Hopefully they will fix it. £6 to £60 is a bit of a hike.

[wsm]

I, like svivian, saw the notice about the 6x9" size going down in price, and thought I'd be ok publishing the novel I'm just tidying up at the moment. Now, however, I find that the price has increased.

My husband's working on a book too, and I was until recently telling him that he should use Lulu too... but with everything that's going on now, we're going to have to rethink that.

As an aside, what happened to bulk discounts? I tried putting a load of books into my basket to see what the new discount is, and there isn't one.

[Jigsaw Slimming]

[Jigsaw Slimming]

Thanks everyone for your helpful replies.

I am going to refund my buyers as I can't afford to lose so much on the new book cost AND postage costs!