I will never again order a Hardcover product you've published, if it's coming from Lulu. Period.
I am sick and disgusted by yet again, really looking forward to enjoying an item, only to have it arrived fucked up, bent and with an utterly shitty glue/binding job.
If a bookseller at a physical location tried to sell me an item like the one I received today I would laugh my ass off and tell him to go to hell!
Now, I get to deal with the utterly tedious process, that is Lulu Support. The last time, my replacement item was every bit as fucked up as the original and I just gave up.
This is the fifth such book, that those bastards have had the temerity to mail to my address!
I've got three more, with merely piss-poor, loose binding jobs. I was willing to deal with those, though, I bloody damn well shouldn't have been willing to do anything of the sort! But, binding that's just shoddy, is typical enough in RPG books, nowadays. Bloody, fucking hell!
There's three other times, where Lulu has gotten it right enough, that I didn't feel like I was being taken advantage of.
Three times out of eleven I was pleased. Three times, I was willing to settle for what I got. Five times, Lulu's service was totally, completely, unacceptable.
I certainly don't expect perfection from POD. And very, very few publishers of any sort, go to the trouble of crafting a decent book anymore. But this repeated, egregiously slipshod quality control from Lulu is one bit of bullshit, I refuse to put up with, any longer. They have, to my mind, proven themselves unwilling to go to the trouble of producing even an acceptable low-quality hardcover with anything, anywhere near consistency.
I am not blaming anyone but Lulu here, but I would urge you to look into other options, when it comes to POD. Lulu is just not making the cut and it will factor into my decisions, about where I spend my money.
Because enough is fucking enough.
The hardbacks I've had from Lulu have been great.
ReplyDeleteLulu doesn't print themselves, but instead use a variety of printers around the world. It's sounds like the one near you is a slip-shod outfit. Unfortunately if my experience is anything to go by you're unlikely to get any satisfaction from Lulu.
My first couple of issues of Fight On! were printed in and mailed from the US at exorbitant postal costs, but I was willing to pay the price. Then I got an issue that was printed here in Australia and the bastards still charged me international postal rates, not to mention the packaging was inferior (the just chucked the thing in a large envelope). I tried complaining to Lulu but they said it was nothing to do with them and blamed the printer. I contacted the printer and they just ignored me.
I don't know about other options though, I've heard that RPGNow uses the same printers as Lulu.
This is why all new D101 releases (such as the upcoming Crypts & Things book *plug*plug*) are coming out via DriveThru and our backcatalog will be gradually moved over. Much better quality and value books, and much, much better customer service :)
ReplyDeleteThat's disconcerting to hear.
ReplyDeleteI've ordered several hardbound (10+) books from lulu and all were beautifully bound.
ReplyDeleteI got some bad hardcovers once, and the majority of them in that mailing were messed up. Every other thing I've ordered from them has been quite good (for that type of binding, anyway).
ReplyDeleteOuch.
ReplyDeleteI've been lucky, I've noticed all of mine were printed in Lavergne Tennessee.
ReplyDeleteI have not had issue, My copy of OSRIC is a little weak, but so is my Pathfinder Tome...
ReplyDeleteIt is food for thought though...
I'm glad if no one else is having these issues. I expect books like OSRIC and Pathfinder to have loose bindings, but the book I received today (and the four other ones) went far beyond that.
ReplyDeleteSad thing was, they actually used a nice grade of paper, this time.
I'm not trying to piss on anyones parade and I have no intention of ceasing to support OSR publishers. It's just maddening as hell and while I certainly believe I had every reason to get pissed off, it came at a really, really bad time and I got far angrier than I normally would have.
I've also had issues with Lulu, but since I've also had issues from traditional publishers I just figured it was an rpg industry problem.
ReplyDeleteDriveThruRPG and Lulu both use Lightning Source, so I don't think there will be any difference in quality.
ReplyDeleteI'm in Canada & all my Lulu purchases to date have been printed, bound & shipped to me in about a week. All just as nice as what I've had from the FLGS (or even better... The Munchkin RPG hardcovers were the worst I ever paid for.)
ReplyDeleteYou've definitely given them more chances than I would have. Good luck.
I was actually thinking of leasing a DocuTech and doing POD for cost in order to break even on it. This might be an even more compelling reason to do so.
ReplyDelete@Pat Not in the UK they don't. DriveThru uses Lightning Source based in Milton Keynes while Lulu uses a Southampton based printer (whose name currently escapes me).
ReplyDelete