Billy Young's Blog - Posts Tagged "lulu"

What is happening with Lulu support recently? I got in touch with them last week over some issues that have been bothering me recently as well as sales that haven’t appeared on my account though I know I made them because I ordered the books myself and got them from Amazon. Yes Lulu has to wait for Amazon to tell them about the sales but other sales that I made in March have shown on my account that I also knew about, not from me though. It doesn’t garner confidence in Lulu, especially as I have now waited over a week for support to get back to me about my concerns. All of this is not making me want to continue using Lulu though they are cheap. With the Social finally sorting out my claim and me nearing completion of Bublos, I was hoping to get on with publication of my book. I will get on with finishing Bublos and see how things go with Lulu, though I shall be holding off in getting the book put to print. I’m not happy about it yet I feel I have little choice than to look at more expensive competitors that will require more saving. Still if I get a better service then maybe it is the way to go. I’ll just need to see how things go at Lulu until then.

Lulu still hasn’t addressed my problems with them. I did get a reply from support but it was unhelpful to say the least and by the answer they gave me, it looked like they failed to actually read what I was saying. I have now gone to the Better Business Bureau to make a complaint to them. Whilst at their site I noticed that Lulu is being reviewed by them at this time. I only hope that this action will lead to Lulu sorting things out for me and others but by the way things have went so far I don’t hold much hope of it.
Bublos is being re-edited by me after my wife asked a few questions. I thought I had everything neatly wrapped up. Still if I need to work on it some more to get it right then that’s what I need to do. Most of it is background or to explain what happens next to the main character. As I said, I thought the end was answered, hopefully it will be by the time I finish reworking it this time.
On brighter news, I start work on Monday. Again it is with the company that I worked for before, so it is only for three weeks. Still that’s better than nothing and I’m looking forward to be earning again. It may not be my dream job, yet does it really matter when the bills are piling up and the kids are making their never ending demands for the things that they see as essential, no.

What a rotten day; though the weather has been good. My job ended today, yes it was supposed to last longer but a contract has been delayed. The day started bad, my water bottle burst in my bag and then I gave myself a nasty knock on the elbow; it still hurts; going to have a big bruise tomorrow. I also got an email from BBB, they got an answer from Lulu but it was the same rubbish they hit me with. As you can imagine this has been adding to that crappy feeling all day as I thought it over. Anyway if Lulu want to cause upset and ignore their users then they can’t be surprised if we start looking closer at their dubious practices. One that I have noticed is that all my sales to date, whether they are in the USA or else where, have be subject of the famous Withholding Tax. Now correct me if I am wrong but is that not supposed to be only for US sales? If so maybe it is my duty to looking into, who I should report this matter to – the IRS or Inland Revenue? I might not be taken seriously; then again it does look dodgy to me. As I said before If they treat their customers badly when they have concerns then they can’t just expect us to sit back and take it, can they? No.
As you can tell from my rant it has been a very, very bad day.

Started work again, Adcraft phoned me on Tuesday. So that was me back at work by the next day. It’s only for three week, with the usual, if more work comes in it could be longer. It would be nice but three weeks is better than nothing, especially as I had to pay out for a new power pack. The computer is fine though and the new PSU is a Tagan 680w, plenty of power there. It’s also the quietest unit I’ve had, which is an added bonus.
Got another answer from Lulu but it just adds to the first problem. I got a reply from my question regarding withholding tax. They said all my sales were from the US none in the UK. So that still leaves me wondering where the UK sales are. I know I have had some but they aren’t on my account. Saying that, others have been told that Amazon seems to be using a US printer for books sold through them. This means all Amazon sales are classed as US sales. This all seems to be a little confusing for me. Mind others are saying that they are missing more sales than has been reported. In the end it still leaves me wondering about my own troubles with Lulu. After all they haven’t given me anything but the run-around. I even was told off from a Lulu staff member for posting about my doubts concerning getting help from support in the forums. If Lulu doesn’t want to hear people complaining the sort out customers’ problems, don’t ignore them or give them the brush off with lame excuses.
I have four more chapters to edit in Bublos this weekend. I’m also getting some feedback from fellow writers on Authonomy.com. I’ll wait for more before I decide to make any more changes as I want to get to my next story. A follow up to Banshee Angel of Judgement is beckoning and sitting Bublos to the side till I can get it published might be a good thing. It would then let me give it a fresher look at it and give me an idea of where I need to fix it. I will at one time put the whole story on Authonomy for a bit but not yet and only for a short time, to get feed back with any luck.

I was looking at Createspace this week as a way to publish Bublos. After checking it out though I realized that it doesn’t offer much in the way for distribution. At first I thought that their Pro Plan would offer at least distribution through all of its parent company’s many sub domains but unfortunately no. This is sad because if it had then it would have given me a way for my books to be on all of Amazons’ sites world wide, as they are the ones that own Createspace. Ah well, it doesn’t and they don’t.
I will keep looking though the cost of other publishers seem very high, from $399 up till you reach the silly money. I’ll need to save a lot before I can afford to publish again by the looks of things. Saying that, if Lulu were to get around to sorting things out, then I might be able to get on with setting up Bublos for the market. I don’t think that is going to happen though, it’s been to long and they don’t seem to really wish to answer my calls for them to come clean.
Whilst I save I can start writing my next story, Banshee 2. There’s a sub title that I won’t reveal at the moment. Mandy will be back for the funeral of one of the two men that died in the first book. I’m still working out their relationship, as there is a gap in the years separating them. Aunt, Great Aunt? As I said something to figure out this weekend, maybe.

Slept in for work yesterday but still managed to get there in time. Though it left me feeling like it was Saturday for some reason. A strange day all in it was, the heat added to that lazy weekend feeling. Today was all go in comparison even though there was little slacking yesterday. Today was busier as I had the machine I’m work going full tilt. Four bins were filled with waste that gets recycled by another firm.
Lulu seemed to be looking at my complaint more seriously. A member of staff by the name of Nick is looking into it and said he would keep me notified of progress. Now that is what customer support should be like. Maybe I might finally get everything sorted soon then I can get back to publishing Bublos. Fingers crossed.
In the meantime I’ve started sorting out a plot for Banshee 2. Detective Munroe will play a part in this one and Mandy’s family. Micky one of the characters from the first book is Mandy’s great nephew, so that will be the tie in. I’m enjoying working out the details to this one first, usually I just dive in and start writing. This time I’m setting out the plot first so I know where I want to take it. I wrote half a plot last year for it but I can’t find it now. It has forced me to start from scratch yet I think this is good because I have let the ideas from the first inspiration grow and mature a little. The plot, I hope, will add to that making for a better tale. Well that what I’ll be trying to do this weekend. At least Saturday won’t feel like Thursday or so I hope.

It’s been a long week suffering with the bug I caught last week. It left me just wanting sleep, which is all I seemed to do. I even had to get my wife to call the jobcentre to tell them I couldn’t sign on. They sent out a form to fill in that was done when I got out of bed feeling like a truck had run me down. Anyways the wife posted it back to them the following day and we got paid our benefit on time. It surprised me as I thought that we would have to wait till the form was processed but luckily not.
I have missed out on doing anything because of how rough I was. No job searching, no checking out the sites on the web like Authonomy and even my garden has been left for me other half to see to.
Luckily I am now feeling a lot better and will be getting back to normal. I have plans to get on with Banshee 2 this weekend. I also want to put more of Bublos onto the Authonomy site. I’m still trying to get more feedback on it before deciding how to move forwards with it. Lulu has sent me an email this week saying that they are trying to sort out problems they are having with Amazon.co.uk. It shows that they haven’t forgotten about me at least or that’s how the email made me feel. They have also changed their packages and it reminds me of the old system that first caught my eye. Yes it cost a little more but if the service is back as good as it used to be who can complain. As I said though first for more feed back before I make my mind up. It also lets me see how Lulu shapes up over the next few weeks.