Lulu Direct

At first I was intimidated by Lulu’s self-publishing platform because I had never published a book and am not proficient in Adobe Suite products which several of the templates require. My customer support expert, Tim S, was fantastic. He answered all my many questions, in detail, within 1-2 business days and was helpful in sending me templates to help me format my book. He even helped prepare my files when I ran into a printing issue with certain images not printing correctly - he helped me understand what the problem was with my file and fixed the issues for me so that my books would print correctly. When I received a damaged book I ordered for myself as a sample, he issued me a refund so that I could get a new sample book clear of shipping damage, which was considerate. He was always professional, positive, responsive, and immensely helpful in the setup process of my book. I am so grateful to have had his support through the file creation process and initial ordering process to help me get my book set up online correctly. I'm proud to now officially be a published author and happy the quality of the books looks very nice. I can't speak to other customer rep experiences at Lulu but Tim S. was 5 stars! Thank you Tim!!

I appreciate the fact that this app helps save time in submitting and fulfilling orders, but the print cost / revenue shown on the Lulu.com website is inaccurate with the cost to actually sell a book in Shopify. The Lulu Direct print cost is about 20% higher than the Lulu book store cost--they say that's to cover fulfillment costs. But yet they ALSO charge an extra $1.50 PER BOOK on Shopify, listed as a fulfillment fee. That's crazy, and I'm looking into ways to get around this because having to mark up a notebook over $3.00 just to get any profit it all is not sustainable.

Lulu xPress is an application designed to drop-ship books using a simple interface to upload your cover and interior and quickly go on sale. It does exactly what it says it will do.

While there are alternatives, Lulu is a world class provider of books that is difficult to avoid when reading about publishing options for the independent author. The interface does away with print ready pdfs and any need for human interaction when proofing a book but also makes the process intuitive so anyone can do it just like their more well known distribution options. xPress opens up their services to independent publishers as well with Press and the customer service of a long standing / reputable company already in place is really great.

This is a new application. Updates very frequent and we haven't had any issues.

11/1/2023
I updated my review from a 2 to 4 after receiving a helpful email directly from Lulu about how to configure the Shopify checkout to ensure tracking auto-populates an order. The problem should be fixed now.

My other concern regarding error notifications is already being addressed in an upcoming app update. There is no ETA when the new features will be available, but it is being worked on by the development team.

Also, I would like to say the printing quality of the book is beautiful and a lot better than what Amazon can produce.

I applaud Lulu for their excellent customer service and ability to address their customer concerns in a timely manner. I look forward to using the new updates.

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Old Previous review....

The app is easy to use, and the prices for printing are double that of Amazon, but overall, it works well and gives the seller full control over their paperback book profits. Another good feature of this APP is the orders are processed automatically.

Now for the negatives. The APP does fall short. A developer can't state that an APP is integrated with Shopify if it is missing critical key features that are common across all Shopify APPS.

What is missing is error logging and notification. If an order is invalid or fails to process, it is critical this information is sent automatically to the Shopify Admin. I should not have to check my order page daily to find errors. This lack of notification support can cause customer service issues.

Secondly, your APP does not update tracking information or notify the customer when their package is shipped. The Admin gets notified, which is strange because I get notified of a shipping notification but not for order errors.

I have to add the tracking information to an order manually, which is another large gap in the design of your APP. These are common things that are in every APP.

These gaps need to be fixed and are large enough to cause my rating to drop from a five to a two. Your APP completely misses the customer service part of the Shopify business. Your design does not support the sellers properly.

Please correct this in your next update to the app. The features are not hard to implement and need to be integrated ASAP. I will update my review when these features are implemented.

Thank you for taking the time to read my review and input. I am open to assisting with developing or testing these features when ready.

App works but so much room for improvement. It's buggy and often hangs and spins. The connected books cannot be easily filtered in a search and requires you manually search page by page to find anything (a real PITA when you have lots of titles!).

The benefit of the app is that it connects shopify orders and, for the most part, it does achieve that. However, it often causes lots of unnecessary frustration in the process.

Hoping the developers continue to work on this app to improve the functionality and ease of use for the end users.

The app is very glitchy and there are major issues with their fulfillment and printing of the books. Their site has a production time of 3-5 business days which is false advertising. When emailing them about how it is taking much longer, now on 12 business days they respond saying that they're aware of it and that I should tell customers that it is a custom printing job for each and every book and that should keep them happy. This is before the shipping even occurs. I'm only in the stage of printing out proofs and am realizing I likely will not be able to use this for print on demand and dropshipping directly to customers due to the insanely long print time. This is not a sustainable model for print on demand and more so a better model for printing in bulk and holding inventory.

This app simply does NOT work! I've actually reached out to their support team TWO times over the course of 3 months and they haven't responded... it's a shame because I actually use their website to print my books...

For YEARS I've searched for a solution like Lulu xPress. This is a complete game-changer for anybody wanting to publish a book and sell with complete ease. These guys are way ahead of the game and their prices rock too.

Working with LuLu and creating books directly on their website is easy and the quality of the books is superb. I gave the app 2 stars because it is more expensive to go through the app with a fulfillment charge on top of that. Better off going directly through LuLu website, it is free as well. I also found that I can't connect my LuLu books already made online into shopify without having to redo the entire process of creating a book through the app.

I decided to create notebooks and practice guides for my upcoming training academy and wanted to offer additional copies to my students at a reasonable price. It was so easy to set up my Shopify store, connect the Lulu xPress App and create products. I love the fact that I do not have to buy in bulk and ship any orders myself. This app saves me so much time and money that the free time I do have, I can spend with family. Thank you you so much Lulu for making an app that allows me to connect with my students and create some wonderful training tools.