why i don't use lulu any more

 

 

My Writing Views

Feel like my fucking head is in a vice. I want my 6 month missing book royalties. I don’t give a fuck on the cash. I want the book title list. See if my promoting did work or not. It’s the damn principle. See if I get a resolution. I cannot bloody believe it has gone to this. It’s a bad bad fucking film script but damn well real. Not amused.

 

Writing is easy. Even if it takes topic matter research/plot line/character build up etc etc. Then comes the edits which are compulsory. What is the hard bit (it’s not that) is the rest of the crap. Like finding an agent who will in turn find you a publisher/find a publisher yourself/decide to self publish/promote your books by blog, word of mouth, flyers, business cards, reviews, etc/dealing with publisher on all concerns like tek issues, not being paid your royalty revenue on book sales etc. The last bit is my issue. And it seems it lasted forever with 1 publisher. I’m trying to get it sorted out. Not just for my own sanity but for all those other writer/authors/poets that do not speak out or simply don’t notice a drop in their sales. I will not stop until my issue is fixed and I know the reasons WHY. Now I must wait.

 

So by going right to the top I will see if my issue is sorted out. I wish it was just me affected but I feel it will tens of thousands of writers here. Not getting their book sales paid. I’ve spent hours thinking on this the reasons why. It’s human error (stupidity or maliciousness), a tek issue or something else. My sales get reported immediately on the publisher. Thru a 3rd party site it takes 2 months to be reported. And there are many external sites/stores. Simply put, the issue is with the external site reporting system. It’s fucked lol. I carefully bought 1 of my own books to test this. I’ll know in 2 months lol the timeline of that 1 sale. In the mean time I want this damn mess sorting out. I will not mention the ui user interface upload loop on files. That’s a tek issue and a ghost in the machine. They said it was fixed. It isn’t lol. But the agents there are very helpful and easy to work with. It’s what they created is the issue. A new publisher update of everything. It’s still a mess. And new issues are still popping up like a 6 month delay in payment reports. I was ready to leave them and uploaded 3/4 of my book files onto a different site but they disallowed 2 dozen of my book titles due to adult content lol. I still use 2 other sites and keep old books and new titles on the old publisher but am using other sites and looking for new sites and have a huge list still to go thru for the next right site. There we go. You wanna be a writer/author? Go ahead. You get my full support.

 

Maybe I should’ve been a tattooist and not a writer? Imagine the issues then hahaha. Like wrongly spelt name MARLEY DAVIDSON hehehe.

 

I gotta say it was all worth it 25 years of writing (1996-2021). Even being published by an American publisher for 2 years 2009-11. Then the huge falling out over edits and editing. Then going solo indie author and never looking back. At the same time as that I was recording my only studio record with a music goth band in England. The fall out with them was even more spectacular. I know the meaning of 'personal differences' in the music bizz. The writing industry is 1 step below the music bizz for nastiness. Trust me I’ve been and am there. I know. Anyhow we all need to be nice lol. No regrets. I written with/worked with/gigged live with some great people who are much more talented and gifted than me. Need to say that.

Writers mostly write alone, edit alone, research alone, promote alone etc. In whatever order. But that’s a mind-set and a dangerous 1. Try not to be in it. You aint alone. You aint the clinically depressed person with a knife doing a final note or poem. All you gotta do is say 'Hey this is my situation...' Shame on the other who dares rebuff that.

Anyhow found a random publisher who encourages random submissions of already published books. Sent them 1 see what they say. Reply in 2 months plus...

My account well 1 of them was closed by lulu as they said my book was porn when it was erotica. It had the usual tags adult erotic over 18. Lulu never relisted a few of my titles after i increased the price up from their minimum allowed. The prices changed but some books were delisted. I asked them to relist them and they did within 2 days. All was good for a short time then 1 ebook was flagged by a certain site as porn not erotica. Lulu used this reason to delete my acc. This went hand in hand with my complaint on unpaid revenues for books sold since December to May. Lulu content dept deemed the book porn and shut my acc. I was in the middle of relisting my books on rival sites so they did me a favour. I shut my no2 account. My books went off some sites like Barnes and Noble and Kobo within a couple of days. The rest will follow. I had last revenue payment in April on my pen name number 2 lulu acc. I had no revenue paid since December (for November sales) onwards on my main writing acc on lulu.

Certain Publisher Woes

I find their support quite good actually. If they do not reply I msg them on facefuck with the ticket number and they get onto it. Or i should say did as I reported **** to the BBB. Long story short they refused to say or not if their reporting external sales system had a bug in it thus stopping sales being reported. I saw an alert on **** website in late April saying missing monthly payments will be paid on the next payday. Mine wasn't. I had many issues with them. They were-- ebooks not listed, print books not listed. These were after price increases as the minimum cost of books went up and needed to be increased. Also the ui user interface ebook upload function was caught in a loop. This was reported fixed except mine lol. The revenue thing pissed me off the most. I do not care on the cash but wanted my book title list to see if my promoting was working. It's about the principal.

 

After all this fruit cocktail of issues 2 things happened. My BBB issue is of no consequence. Like I said the cash don't matter. Their system needs fixing for the other writers hit by it. **** relisted a few of my ebooks that were in need of listing in the couple of weeks they were not due to my price increases to be above their new minimum prices. One book was an erotica title and it was seen by one of the sites and they refused it. **** used this reason to delete one of my accounts (their content section). Myself I also deleted my other account. Time to move on. 12 good years 1 bad year. I am glad to be off **** and am moving on to other sites. If I had the skills/time/cash i would set up my own publisher. I knew someone who did just that long long ago. It is hard to do. My writing journey continues. I hope **** fixes their site for all the tens of thousands of others with issues that causes stress.  Writing is easy. The rest of the stuff is the hassle.

I have an issue with Lulu publisher and it's to do with unpaid revenue since December 2020 to now on my Nick Armbrister account. I am waiting for payment on the months December January February March April. 5 months in all. It is paid a month ahead like March in April. I was paid Nov in Dec. I need you to contact Lulu to see when i will be paid for my Nick Armbrister sales.



There was an April alert on their site saying that unpaid royalty revenue for missing months will be paid out on the next pay out. I hope so i want to know what titles i sold and how much my 5 month royalties are. I emailed Lulu several times. I was told how to work out the revenue figures by downloading it, i know this already. They told me of the delay from outside sites. I know this.



I got some direct Lulu website sales. These post right away to their site. 3rd party sales eg Amazon take weeks to report. The external sales reporting system is not working. An agent told me there was a bug a bit ago but it was fixed. I still am not getting my sales numbers. This is on my Nick Armbrister name.



I also have a Jimmy Boom Semtex pen name account too on Lulu. I had a similar issue. Direct sales to Lulu were reported right away but external sites were not reported properly except for a gaggle of manually reported ones. One was on Amazon.ca which has never happened before.



I think the Managers told the agents not to tell authors of any payment issue. I get no info when i mention this. There is some ongoing issue and it needs fixing for me and other writers.



I bought one of my own Nick Armbrister ebooks on Kobo tho published on Lulu to test their system in late May. It will be reported in July. I've worked with Lulu for well over a decade. I have other issues with them like an upload loop problem they will fix this in future. I want all my unpaid revenue from Dec to now.