Forum: Author Hangout

Lulu e-pub rejection information

Ernest Bywater 🚫

Today I had an e-pub rejected by the Lulu checker, as sometimes happened. However, this time it included information that it had been rejected by the iBook checker and the B&N checker - info that's not been provided before. I recreated the e-pub and it was accepted. But the big thing is I now know who's getting their nickers in a twist about the e-pub despite the books not been made available for sale through them.

CW - I told ya it wasn't Lulu themselves but the marketing partners giving me issues.

Replies: Vincent Berg

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

CW - I told ya it wasn't Lulu themselves but the marketing partners giving me issues.

And I told you, that Apple only applies those standards to books submitted thru Lulu, as they've never rejected any of my books for doing the exact same things your books are being rejected over!

True, Apple is ultimately responsible, but Apple is making you jump thru hoops simply because you're publishing via Lulu. My books, submitted to iBooks via SW, sail through with nary a problem, despite including everything they complain about your your books.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

I always knew they were being dicks about, but all the complaints about not knowing who's bitching has resulted in the system being changed to say who. Also, it proves Apple etc are bitching because I use someone else and won't sign over the same level of rights they demand if you go through their system, so this is how they fight back to try and force me to switch.

I always said the problems never existed before the system changed to have all the epubs checked by the market partners at the start, so the problems had to come from the others.

I have worked out part of the issue is - I live in their future, so if the file has a date and time after their current date and time they bounce it unless the date and time is under an hour old. I always use the same base odt file and use calibre, but if I make the epub on Monday and post on Monday night it gets rejected. However, if I make the epub on Monday night and post within the hour it goes through - I can't figure out why they do it like that.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

I can't figure out why they do it like that.

Shits & giggles?

Just to be assholes about it?

Vincent Berg 🚫

The biggest issues i had with posting to Lulu was with chapter titles, and their (?) odd demands for non-standard capitaliziation rules. My solution, don't submit anything at all to 3rd party distributors, but you say that no longer works.

My other solution, is that I use graphic titles, so it's relatively easy to use the titles I want, while also specifying the TOC they want, without the readers ever seeing their crappy TOC (if they read sequentially, that is).

In either case, I don't need to upload to any distributors, because SW also handles that without all the rigamorole that lulu triggers. What's more, SW offers more download options for my readers than lulu does (epub only). I'm not even sure when I last sold a book on iBooks. As far as I can tell, Apple effectively killed off their own bookstore years ago, and hardly anyone uses it anymore. Trust me, you're not losing much by not being able to post to them (not that you are, in either case).

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Vincent Berg

The biggest issues i had with posting to Lulu was with chapter titles, and their (?) odd demands for non-standard capitaliziation rules.

I often use capitalisation of titles outside of their rules, and all I've ever got was a warning it's outside the rules and the marketing partners won't accept it. I then simply tell it to go ahead, and it does.

The biggest issue is uploading an e-pub I made today but more than an hour ago upsets the marketing partner system due to them not liking uploads from their future.

The few books I do make available to the partners, usually the public information freebies, are passed on to them by Lulu and what they do with them is outside of my hands. I provide valid, and checked, e-pubs to lulu and the rest is up to them.

I'm too lazy to embed graphics for chapter titles, so i just use text.

I downloaded my sales info for the last decade from Lulu last night and I still get sales of the freebies from iBooks, but only sold 4 books for money through them back in 2015 and 2016 (2 each year). Nook has 24 total freebies with none this year. 979 books via Amazon of which 14 I got some money from, the rest were freebies.

Countries from all over the world have bought my books. I don't even recognise some of the country codes. The most are from the USA, then Australia, Germany, Canada, United Kingdom is the fifth biggest.

I still have no actual explanation for why one entity would by 135 copies of the same freebie (Writer Guide) but there are many who buy multiple copies of it, with 20 to 30 being the most common quantity group.

Replies: Bondi Beach Vincent Berg

Bondi Beach 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

I downloaded my sales info for the last decade from Lulu last night and I still get sales of the freebies from iBooks, but only sold 4 books for money through them back in 2015 and 2016 (2 each year). Nook has 24 total freebies with none this year. 979 books via Amazon of which 14 I got some money from, the rest were freebies.

Countries from all over the world have bought my books. I don't even recognise some of the country codes. The most are from the USA, then Australia, Germany, Canada, United Kingdom is the fifth biggest.

In the last 60 days I "sold" (all are free downloads) 99 books:

76 Amazon
9 iBooks
9 Lulu
5 Libri GmbH

All Libri were from Germany (no surprise); all from Lulu were from US; iBookstore sold to US, Canada, and Australia.

Amazon sold everywhere (again, no surprise): pretty much the same as Ernest—US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, plus Netherlands, Spain, Zambia, Hong Kong, India.

bb

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫
Updated:

@Bondi Beach

In the last 60 days I "sold"

Well in the last 60 days I sold 214 books of which all but the ones below were via Lulu. 108 of the books were for money, too.

Libri GmbH - 2 - free copies

Booktopia - 1 - free copies

iBookstore - 3 - free copies

Amazon - 91 (16 lots of multiple copy sales)

Amazon - 1 paid for copy of a book withdrawn from sale with them several years ago.

8 Freebies sold via Lulu as well.

I still don't know why some people buy multiple copies of the same free book, unless they're to hand out to people at a talk or something.

edit to add bold and this: Just shows what I was saying about not being able to stop Amazon continuing to sell your book. The fact they show a royalty payments shows it's not a re-download of a a prior sale. The ID codes shows it to be an older version as well. Of the $4.35 they sell for they send me $1.18 of which I have to pay tax on - now guess why I don't like Amazon's pricing structure.

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

I still have no actual explanation for why one entity would by 135 copies of the same freebie (Writer Guide) but there are many who buy multiple copies of it, with 20 to 30 being the most common quantity group.

A writing class?

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Vincent Berg

A writing class?

That's my guess, too - but I can't be sure. If it was so, I wish they'd contact me direct for special permission so I'd know and I can give them a good master copy for their own server with the written approval for it. Having it sued for such would be a good thing for my author resume.

Replies: Vincent Berg

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

That's my guess, too - but I can't be sure. If it was so, I wish they'd contact me direct for special permission so I'd know and I can give them a good master copy for their own server with the written approval for it. Having it sued for such would be a good thing for my author resume.

Maybe it's "How to Steal Copyrighted Text" from Hacker U?

Switch Blayde 🚫

It sounds like, except for Ernest, most sales come from Amazon. If you were exclusive to Amazon you could enroll in their Select program and get paid for pages read.

I don't know if they would pay you for pages read on a free book, though.

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Lulu e-pub rejection information

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