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Lulu.com? anyone used them...tell me your stories
Hey everyone, I saw in another thread that someone mentioned Lulu.com for designing, publishing and selling your works in book form but you dont' have to front for any of the overhead. I actually have an event I shot, probably close to 280 photos that are very usable and I'm thinking this might be a nice way to make some small change from the event. SO! Has anyone used them, what's the print quality like, how easy is it to use...what or where are there alternatives for this similar ttype of service, and why do you like them? Thanks everyone...keep shooting and stay happy! Jul 03 06 01:31 pm Link I bought one of their books. It is basically a glorified color copier printer. The covers are great. The inside images can really suck unless you know what you are doing with pre press photoshop. To lay the book out you would have to do it in work or Quark. That is the biggest pain. I suggest buying a photo book from them to get a feel of their quality. That is really the only way you will know for sure what you might get. -S Jul 03 06 01:34 pm Link House of Indulgence wrote: Thanks, that's what I figured it must be based on their costs being so low. I really couldn't see how they could possibly make it so cheap and affordable. I would like to see one though, can you recommend a good book on there and maybe I'll order one to see the quality. Is it comparable to the wedding books you see from mypublisher.com or shutterfly.com? Jul 03 06 01:38 pm Link My friend Ted D'ottavio did a book for a galery show with this publisher. He did the book, printed it and then reworked his files accordingly to get the proper look for the finished book. His source files were great so the finished book came out well. Granted it was black and white but the tone of the printing for his photos was amazing. You would have to ask him about his book. Just browse his name here on MM. I bought the book by Eric Muss Barnes (who is an MM member but no longer shoots) and it was O.K. he did not know how to retouch and do the photoshop. Some images were burned out to much and there was bad color shifts. I was not impressed with there calanders. -S Jul 03 06 01:46 pm Link Also be aware that any POD you go with is likely going to give you a profit margin of almost nothing. The only way to make money with self-publishing is to front the cash for a print run. If, on the other hand, you don't care about profit, but just want to get your work out there, POD is an excellent no-risk way to go. But in that case, watch the quality. I don't hear good things about Lulu, just "yeah, it's okay" things :-) Jul 03 06 01:47 pm Link I was thinking of printing a short run (100 copies?) of some sort of mini-version of my portfolio to use as a leave behind for agencies when I go show my work. I used them to print my calendars that I gave out as Christmas presents this past year and those came out great, but the largest size calendar is unusually bulky, it doesn't fold in the middle, each month has to flips over the top to the back. This Christmas I plan to do the same thing, but will go with the smaller size. Jul 03 06 02:10 pm Link I have experience with two companies. The first is of course Lulu.com. Lulu is great in the sense that there is no overhead cost so the only thing you could possibly loose is your own precious time. You have complete control over your own layout and the community over at Lulu.com is very tight and supportive. Plus, the site also gives its members a lot of great tools that you can use to promote your book like web store buttons, press release templets, wholesale book seller contact info, etc. etc. Profit margin isn't bad when you consider the fact that Lulu handles all the credit card processing, shipping, and order tracking for you. Print quality is what I like to describe as 'good enough'. It's probably the best you could possibly expect from a print on demand service which means it won't be great, but it won't be terrible either. Their covers are really superb but I would like to see thicker paper on the inside. -- The other company I have experience with is www.blurb.com. The print quality through these guys is FANTASTIC!! If you know what you're doing you can get really nice print quality from them. The downside is they force you to use their own layout software which is incredibly limited and they provide no assistance in terms of marketing and the like. Jul 03 06 02:25 pm Link I haven't used them but I saw 2 books printed by them when I was at the Arizona Shootout. The books looked pretty good. Jul 03 06 02:33 pm Link Christopher Ambler wrote: I have nothing but positive things to say about Lulu. The printing problems that people mention are the sort of thing that anyone with an eye for repro imaging can [and should] resolve before going to press. I've done three volumes so far and and working on a new project to publish through them as we speak. Jul 03 06 02:40 pm Link Christopher Ambler wrote: Can you explain this? How is there almost zero profit for the artist? Jul 03 06 03:06 pm Link What would one need to know to get the inside pictures to turn out right? Jul 03 06 10:42 pm Link I have two books on lulu.com and I'm happy with them. Their process seems to work better on some images than others - the first time through I bought one copy and then removed some pictures before listing it for sale. Jul 04 06 12:39 am Link . Jul 07 06 04:49 am Link |
