…and why I no longer recommend Lulu

TL:DR: Changing your book’s interior means creating a new book. My audiobook is also now available wherever audiobooks are sold.

I thought the adventure of publishing this second book was over, but here we are!

It’s three-and-a-half years post-Vegan Marketing Success Stories, and while I’m still getting invited to talk on podcasts about my book, I didn’t expect to put out another book version.

It all started when I got the email from Lulu in 2025:

Raising my book price by 5% meant the retail price would need to be US$26 and C$38.84. I already earned less than a dime for every paperback copy sold outside of Lulu. The higher the book cost, the less accessible your book is.

There are some big lessons I learned with this book:

 

Lesson 1: Unless you’re creating an art, travel, or other type of hardcover coffee-table-style book, your book’s interior should be in black and white.

Even if it’s got photos.

 

Lesson 2: Lulu does not give you a good royalty when readers purchase outside of its platform.

I knew this when I set up my book and looked at the royalty. But I had already committed to using Lulu vs. IngramSpark.

I didn’t put my book out to become rich. It was important to me at the time that I used a POD platform that used vegan ink.

Side story: I recently went into my Amazon KDP dashboard and realized the royalty for my first book, The Only Public Relations Guide You’ll Ever Need, went from 8% in 2022 to 2% in 2024. I made 32 cents on a C$18.20 copy one of my clients bought in late 2024!

I chatted with an Amazon agent who said that Amazon notified all its publishers that the printing price was going up, but I don’t remember seeing that email. I raised the price of my book by almost $2 just so I get a little bit more, but it’s not a book I can (or am willing to) convert to black and white because it’s a workbook.

 

Lesson 3: You can review a book on Amazon even if you didn’t buy it there.

I always thought they wouldn’t publish reviews unless they knew you purchased it on Amazon, so I was sending everyone who beta-read my book to goodreads.

Turns out anyone can review on Amazon—the reviews by folks who buy books there are marked as “Verified Purchase” which helps more with rankings. So, all this time I could have sent people to Amazon and gotten more reviews! 😭

I posted on LinkedIn and tagged all the folks who endorsed/beta-read or purchased my book through me to encourage them to review on Amazon. (This list included folks I sent the ebook to for free.) I got maybe one additional review.

 

I took Lulu’s email as a sign that I should convert the interior of my second book to black and white. Not only would I be able to bring down the price of the book by 20% or so, but hopefully I’d get more of a royalty compared to what I got for the coloured version.

I thought about whether I should put my book up on IngramSpark instead to give bookstores the ability to buy the book, but decided against it because:

• It’s already a few years old
• My cover and interior are already formatted for Lulu, and
• God forbid I need to contact customer service, I know I might get nowhere. Lulu has some of the best customer service there is.

I notified my contributors and posted on social media that I was going to convert my book interior to black and white starting in August—just before the retail price went up—to give people a chance to buy the version in colour.

It’s a good thing I logged into my Lulu account about a week before August because when I did, I learned you can’t change the interior after it’s published:

I emailed Lulu customer service and asked if I had to create a new project with a new ISBN to change my book interior to black and white. The response 48 hours later:

Since your book was originally created with a color interior and is already published and in global distribution, you’ll need to start a new Lulu project in order to switch to a black and white interior. This change does require a new ISBN, as it’s considered a different format. Once a book is in distribution, the ISBN and metadata can’t be edited.

You’ll also need to update your cover file to include the new barcode, and ensure the new ISBN appears on the copyright page of your interior file.

Because this will be a brand-new project with a new ISBN, it will create a separate listing on Amazon and other retailers.

I responded with one more question:

I have the ebook and audiobook up on Amazon so I just wonder how that will work in terms of the first project being removed and then the second getting tied to the same book on Amazon.

Response:

…publishing a second version of your book will create a new listing, as it will have a different ISBN.

If you retire the first version (such as the color edition) from global distribution, please note it may take 6–8 weeks before it’s no longer available for purchase through retail partners. That will only pertain to new copies. However, the listing may remain visible on Amazon indefinitely and eventually say something like “out of print”. We don’t control how other retailers manage or remove retired listings.

You’re welcome to update the description of the new version to indicate it’s a second edition or includes changes such as black and white interior, different binding, etc., to help readers distinguish between the two.

 

Since Amazon is where all 3 formats of my book are displayed and where reviews count, I hoped that the new paperback would apply to the same page where my ebook and audiobook were displayed, as per below:

I got cracking with a new ISBN (thank you Library & Archives Canada for letting us get an ISBN for free in seconds).

Within the hour, I started a new project on Lulu, uploaded the new interior file with the new ISBN, and got a new barcode file for my cover designer, Joy Lopes.

There are a couple of things I noticed when loading the book this time around on Lulu:

• There are more marketing-related BISAC categories, so I changed up two of the subcategories to BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / International / Marketing and BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / E-Commerce / Digital Marketing. “Vegan” is still a subcategory of cooking.
• I underutilized the contributor field the first time around by just including my bio. You can add websites and social media, but it’s a giant text field, so I added my website, the names of my editor and cover designer, and all 47 of the book’s contributors (either company or individual name). I left out social media links.

 

Disappointed by Lulu royalties and reconsidering IngramSpark

After loading the updated cover, I had to select the pricing. US$20 was no problem, but C$25 was too low, so I picked $27. My royalties for copies purchased on Lulu ranged from 41 to 50%. Sweet.

Then, for all other sites, my royalty range was 3 to 12%. What? I thought this would be different when I converted my interior to black and white, so this was a real disappointment.

I’d started an IngramSpark account when I was trying to get my ebook accessed by libraries (I ended up going with PublishDrive instead) so I thought to myself, maybe I should try IngramSpark instead.

I ran my book through its compensation calculator and it said I’d earn US$7.70 for every $20 copy (at the recommended 35% wholesale discount), a 38.5% royalty.

One website said you could earn a 70% royalty, but I wonder if that’s if you choose a lower or zero wholesale discount, which would detract bookstores from ordering your book.

I went through the steps on Ingram, uploaded my files, and got this massive error:

The PDF just highlighted the entire book document, and I had a feeling some of the coloured emojis still left in the text were registering my manuscript as colour, even though I chose black and white.

I didn’t even know what the problem was with the cover file, but I wasn’t about to contact Support to find out. I had a feeling I’d get an error since my clients who’ve used IngramSpark have had to format their covers a bit differently.

It didn’t let me move forward past that step, so back to Lulu I went. My copyright page still said “distributed by Lulu” so that’s another thing I would have had to change if I switched gears to Ingram.

It was close to month’s end and the point when I’d have to remove my colour book from being sold, so I decided to cut my losses and publish through Lulu anyway. Their interface is soooo much better than IngramSpark, and I’m thankful for that. Zero issues with my files.

I hit publish on the book on July 30, 2025, and was prompted to order a proof to make sure the book looked good, even though I wasn’t planning on ordering one. At least the printing cost was lower than it was previously!

I also retired the original book. Goodbye, version 1!

I also thought about trying other sites like PublishDrive and BooksBy which give authors 100% royalties—but both are subscription-based sites, which means you pay monthly for their services. They get paid ongoing vs. taking a cut from each copy.

Your first book on PublishDrive is free, and I already have my ebook up there, so adding another format would have required payment. I also didn’t think it was worth paying for a book that’s already a few years old.

On July 31, my listing on Lulu went up, but I had to click “Approve” for global distribution to kick in. I saw the paperback went out of print on the Amazon listing already (with some sellers putting used copies up for sale), so I wanted the new one up ASAP.

I contacted goodreads about my updated ISBN and cover, and they updated it within 24 hours.

 

A week went by and my book still wasn’t up on Amazon or other sites it used to be. I contacted Lulu to ask about the publish time for revised paperbacks.

The response:

New requirements for print and ebooks sold on Amazon require that we update the submission process. We are working to audit our current process and make the necessary updates.

New print and ebook projects that are submitted for distribution and those currently pending retail approval may take longer than expected. There are no actions for you to take at this time.

We will alert you as soon as we’ve completed our audit and made the necessary adjustments to our retail approval process.

 

The new proof

I got my proof, and not only did Lulu wrap it in plastic within the cardboard box, but the images in black and white still looked really good. If I’d known a bit of extra work to turn all the images to black and white would have resulted in this quality, I might have done this the first time. But I learn something with every book launch.

Book cover also looked great.

Now I just needed to get my paperback properly back up on Amazon.

September 2nd rolled by, and I sent another email to Lulu support and got this back:

Upon reviewing our system, I can confirm your project is currently pending publication for Global Distribution, which means it is in the process of being submitted to retailers. At this time, no issues have been reported, and there is no need to reach out to Amazon directly.

Please note that Amazon and other retail partners recently introduced new requirements for both print and eBook submissions. As a result, we are currently auditing and updating our internal submission process to ensure full compliance.

Because of this, books pending approval may take longer than expected

If any issues that need to be addressed are identified, we will send you an email (at the email address used for your account) explaining the issues.

 

Hmm.

This is another strike on Lulu. If this was a new book launch, there’s absolutely no way an author could drive traffic to Amazon unless it was just to the ebook. I’m not saying I support buying all your books on Amazon, but rating and encouraging reviews on Amazon is the easiest way for authors to become bestsellers.

September 19, my book still wasn’t up, so I went into Lulu and saw that distribution was still pending and there was a Version 3 waiting for approval. I didn’t remember making any other version updates.

I think had to approve a price change. The printing cost increase kicked in August. So this lowered my royalty even more—only 1 to 10% (A$0.19 to £1.78) on platforms other than Lulu. 😭

It’s really weird that the person I contacted didn’t tell me this might have been the issue. In retrospect, I should have logged back into Lulu after getting that response because it’s weird that six weeks went by and my book wasn’t approved.

 

I sent another email to customer service on October 3rd, which was immediately marked “resolved” because it referenced a previous ticket. So I sent a fresh email on October 7.

I ended with: “I have raved about Lulu the last few years because I was happy with the service I received with my original book launch. If my book is not going to be available in other places aside from Lulu, I will have to mention this and stop recommending your services to other authors.”

Response:

New requirements for print and ebooks sold on Amazon require that we evaluate and assess the method we currently use for submitting your books. We are implementing an updated review that ensures we meet their distribution requirements and provides a smooth approval process in the future.

As part of this effort, we are conducting internal audits, reviewing content policies, and evaluating the submission process to make updates to our system.

That is what is causing the delays. That being said, I’ve pushed your book to the approved status in the system. You should see this update in a few hours.

 

Nothing like a threat to make “the system” do what it was supposed to do for us. It’s also interesting that Kendra only referenced Amazon, when my book was still not available on Bookshop and Bol.com, which it previously was. I gave up checking those sites.

While waiting patiently for my book to get back up on Amazon, I thought I should optimize my book description, even just for fun. This entire time I always thought your online book description had to be the same as the back cover summary, and that isn’t true. You can have a different online description that’s more optimized for search vs. what’s on the back of your book.

So, I changed the description for both the ebook and paperback, and saw that the paperback needed to be approved for global distribution again. Fack! I went back a few minutes later and saw that it was approved, and breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Creating a course, removing Audible exclusivity, and selling wide

I did what was supposed to be a 30-minute talk + Q&A to the Burnaby Startups & Entrepreneurs meetup in September and nearly lost my voice speaking for an hour. I learned that doing free talks like this isn’t sustainable.

October rolled around, and I lost a big book project I was hoping to work on, so I got inspired to create an online course so I didn’t have to hustle doing more talks.

While updating information on all the various publishing platforms out there for my course students, I realized I hadn’t sold an audiobook in over a year and I was also tied to Audible. I may as well try to sell my audiobook on other platforms, even if just for the experience.

I emailed ACX to request to be removed from exclusivity and was told this would come into effect December 1, 2025. Meanwhile, I put my audiobook files up on Google Play Books to go live December 1st.

I learned some platforms like Voices by INaudio require title, end, and sample files, while Google Play does not. Google Play honestly has one of the easiest interfaces ever…better than Lulu. But they don’t publish print books.

I didn’t have the option of loading an audiobook to Kobo Writing Life, so I emailed them and also signed up for a Voices by INaudio (VBI) account so I could sell my audiobook on Spotify. I can’t remember now why Spotify was giving me trouble, but it’s probably good I tried VBI as that also distributed to Apple, Chirp, and Scribd/Everand.

KWL asked for my book info and gave me authorization to load there the next day.

KWL was also super easy to use and didn’t need opening and end files. The only thing is I had to set prices for other countries, but I followed KWL’s suggestions. I hit Publish and nothing happened, but the pre-sale listing actually went live immediately. I set the sale date for December 1st.

VBI’s platform was super easy to use and the closest to ACX. It distributes to over 30 audiobook retailers (many I hadn’t heard of except Apple and Chirp) but I deselected Audible, Google Play, and Kobo. I mostly wanted to use VBI to publish on Spotify, but figured I should get as much experience on other platforms too.

VBI wanted me to change my retail price to $11.50 (you can set a sale price and date too, which I did for December 2025) but that would mean I’d have to change it on all the other platforms too, so I left it as $19.95. That’s the same price as the paperback. You can also set different prices for libraries (via Overdrive), and I learned those are typically two to five times higher. I set it at the recommended $25.99.

VBI offers both retail and library ISBNs and since I didn’t have a library ISBN for my book, I figured they could assign both to me. I wasn’t able to use my own ISBN for retail and let them assign one for libraries. Either you provide both or none.

I hit submit on the book on VIB and if all goes well, it’d be approved within 10 business days and live in 20–30 days.

It rejected my book cover even though I met all its requirements, so I had a back and forth with customer service, which was super annoying. Guy said, “If you’d like to update your cover art, you’re able to do this right inside your Voices project, no need to start over! Just upload your new cover art file, save your changes, and republish so retailers see the update.“

This was FALSE because my project was rejected. Wasn’t even available to retailers yet. There was no option of changing my cover art even if I wanted to. God help these new companies and their amateur customer service.

 

8 weeks-post paperback approval

Book was still nowhere to be found online outside Lulu, so I emailed to ask if I could remove my book from global distribution so that I could load it to Amazon KDP instead.

I’m not showing any errors. I can resubmit your files through our system to make sure the files are received by our partners.

You can remove your project from distribution.

 

So I did, and immediately went over to Amazon KDP to load my book there, only it wouldn’t let me because it said, “We have already registered this ISBN to another title.” So then I chatted with an agent to find out why the ISBN was registered, but the title never went live. Here’s that convo:

Kaarthik: Firstly, the ISBN you have provided in the pre-chat questions is not under your KDP account. Could you please help me with the ISBN of the edition which you are currently concerned about not appearing on Amazon?

Me: The new ISBN is 9781778052330. It’s not in my KDP account yet because I distributed through Lulu, both times

K: Please note that once an ISBN is used from an account, even though if it is published or just entered in one title setup, cannot be used again for publication. This is the reason why you are unable to enter the same ISBN through this account.

Me: If KDP is telling me “We have already registered this ISBN to another title.” Why can’t I see the book online?

K: That title is not LIVE, it is under Draft status! If you would like to use the same ISBN, you will need to login to the other account, relieve the ISBN from the DRAFT and then use the same through this account.

Me: Is it possible for you to assign it to my account then? I have no control over it because that was done by Lulu

K: Unfortunately, we do not have the access or permissions to change the ISBN selections through your accounts

Me: Okay so if it is in draft status but not in my control, it will never get published. The only way is if I get a new ISBN and use that with my KDP account. Is that correct?

K: Yes, you are right.

 

So this is what happens when aggregrate publishers send your book to other retailers. The ISBN gets registered under their account, but in my case, my title was perpetually in Draft mode. WTF, Lulu?

Over to Library & Archives Canada I went to grab what’s now my fifth ISBN for this title. Again, thank you, Canada, for making ISBNs free!

Boom. Updated the copyright page. There was one problem: my cover still had the other ISBN on it. I knew Amazon could do the barcode for you, but it’s bigger than the one Lulu gives you, so I needed my cover designer to revise the back again to fit this new barcode. Luckily, she is awesome.

 

Loading to Amazon KDP

Everything looked fine when I loaded the files, and I ordered my proof on December 15. The biggest thing I noticed compared to Lulu were the royalties. Using the same price structure, I only get 28 to 40% vs. Lulu’s 41 to 50%. Boo, Amazon! The things I do for Amazon readers.

My listing went live on Saturday, the 27th, but wasn’t linked on the same page where the ebook and audiobook were, so I chatted with an agent on Sunday, January 4, 2026 to make the request. Sheeba said it would take up to 7 days for the link to occur, but it went up on Monday the 5th.

There you have it folks, a five-month journey converting my book to black and white, and putting it up wherever audiobooks are sold.

 

Need a book coach, ghostwriter, or editor to help you publish your book so you can get it in the hands of readers? Read more about my services here and contact me if you’re ready to begin!