Lulu Press — Local services in Morrisville

Lulu's "print ready" process (which happens automatically after uploading your graphics) causes deterioration in graphics, and unfortunately, the people at Lulu just don't want to admit this (or they don't see it, which would actually be worse).

My book's front and back covers have gradients on them, and Lulu's automated "print ready" processing caused severe banding in the gradients. I pointed this out, and instead of acknowledging it and telling me I just needed to work around their limitation (which I would have done - I'm a flexible, reasonable person), they told me that my original supplied graphics (PNG) had banding in it.

I posted to a forum of graphic designers asking if anyone saw banding in my original supplied graphics, and everyone said the gradient was perfectly smooth. I also got proofs from a couple local printing companies using the same original PNG cover that I uploaded to Lulu, and there was virtually no banding. (I say "virtually" because a tiny, negligible amount of banding is to be expected since professional printers are apparently well-known to have trouble with gradients. The printing companies explained to me that although my supplied graphics have no banding, I have to expect banding to occur during the print process when taken to professional printers. Lulu was unaware of this - or worse, they were aware of this but withheld the information from me through many exchanges of e-mails.)

The banding in Lulu's proofs was severe. Additionally, I made a video just for Lulu (recording my PC desktop) that empirically proved there is no banding in my PNG: I measured RGB values of 100 horizontal pixels in a row in my original PNG and Lulu's generated PDF. The RGB values in my PNG each changed independently of each other, they only changed by 1 value at a time, and they changed in a "scattered" fashion (toggling back and forth between two neighboring values for a while before finally switching for good to the new value). This is as smooth as a digital gradient can possibly be without actually being analog (i.e. real life brush strokes on physical paper).

In the video, I created a table in Excel that contrasted this with Lulu's generated PDF (the software-produced "print ready" file that results after uploading the PNG), and the RGB values of Lulu's processed graphics did not change independently of each other, there was no "scattering" when they did change, and the values stayed the same for 50 or 100 pixels at a time. SEVERE banding. After all this, one of the high-up print professionals at Lulu (Cary) said he still saw banding!

I asked him to forward my e-mail to others in his department to view on their own computer monitors. He said he would to see if he was "missing something." Ne never got back to me.

Again, I would have been willing to adjust my graphics - I may have even been willing to get rid of the gradients and try something totally different. It wasn't the gradient that was the issue. It was how Cary handled this very simple problem, blaming me for it and failing to acknowledge that their print-ready process absolutely obliterates gradients. When faced with overwhelming evidence that does not support their position, they ignore it. I would have given this feedback directly to Lulu instead of posting it here, but I am way beyond that with Lulu. They had their chance and they blew it.

I should note that the girl who first answered the phone was always very nice, but unfortunately she had limited technical knowledge to comment on my issue - she passed my issue on to others, and to my knowledge, I don't think anyone other than...

If I could give 0 stars right now, I would. I placed an order for expedited shipping as I have an extremely important meeting surrounding the item I published this week for my business. I received the order yesterday, however, it is not what I created and ordered. It is another one of their customer's book so I'm only assuming that someone else received my order. This is a huge concern! The correct packing slip was included, but not the right item! How does that happen? I put in a support ticket as soon as my order arrived and I have not received any response other than the automated one. I tried to call customer support, but for some reason this is not currently an available service for customers. Extremely unfortunate. If you are going to only offer email support, the ability to reach out to your customers should be done in a more pressing manner. I have reached out on IG and Facebook. I received promising response on IG, but when I followed the responders request to send a DM via messenger, the response was horrible. There is no urgency to resolve customer complaints. They responded by saying they have significantly more complaints....well, duh! This is what happens when your customer service platform is not set up appropriately. I will never use them again and will share my experience on every platform...

I used Lulu for my first book, was pleased, and never had any issues until they did a major overhaul of their site with zero warning. The site has so many bugs, one of which released a draft of my book early and had people buying the wrong version for months despite customer service reps insisting that this wasn't possible, until I finally ordered a copy for myself and had physical proof. Shortly after this, revenue stopped going into my account. I had the receipts to prove that people were purchasing the book, but I've yet to be paid for any of it. When the site was overhauled, they took down all phone support lines and I notoriously cannot get a representative to consistently respond to my emails. It took over a month to get the titles removed from distribution in the first place, and I doubt I'll ever see the money they owe me. I filed with the BBB, but still have not reached a conclusion and have been ghosted by multiple reps. I'm mostly reviewing so that independent authors and self-published writers can stay away from this massive scam of a website. It's really horrible to treat customers this way in the first place, but knowing that many of them are indie authors who have trusted this site for years is even...