Tag Archives: Update

Update from Draft to Digital Print!

Supply Chain Delays May Impact D2D Print

As a user of our D2D Print service, we wanted to inform you of the potential for delays for print on demand services that may arise in the coming months.

Our print partner has informed us that they are preparing for disruptions to various aspects of the print industry, including labor and supply shortages, as well as transportation issues.

Manufacturing supply shortages and labor shortages for the transport of goods are all factors that impact print on demand as an industry and these are unfortunately outside of the control of our print partner. 

Our print partner is implementing steps to reduce the impact of these shortages, such as warehousing materials and working closely with their shipping partners.

We wanted to offer a couple of recommendations to help you prepare and perhaps avoid delays with your D2D Print books: 

Order early—If you will need printed books for an event or any other reason, place your orders as early as possible to allow for enough time to fulfill the order even if supplies are delayed.

List early—If you have any current or future books you will want to be available during the holiday season, we encourage you to get them loaded into our print program so they are available for sale or as a preorder. With the rush we are anticipating in the later months of the year it is likely processing the books and getting them into  the system will take longer than usual.

While printing and shipping delays are a nuisance, we and our print partners are exploring every way possible to reduce the impact. We appreciate your patience as we work through this.

We will keep you updated on any developments.

The Draft2Digital Team

LULU eBook Update

 
 
 
I received this email today and thought I’d share.  It seems we are going to have to pay for Global Distribution for each and every ebook we upload… If you wish GLOBAL…

Dear Lulu Author,

We’re contacting you today because you currently have Ebook projects using our Global Distribution service.

Effective February 15th, 2021, all new ebook projects submitted to Global Distribution will include a one-time fee of $4.99. The fee covers processing your ebook for submission to retail channels. This fee does not apply to existing ebooks using Global Distribution, nor does it apply to any revisions of new or existing ebooks.

If you have any questions or concerns about this change, please contact our support team.

Team Lulu

Createspace Distribution Update

Well it took long enough to sort it all out.  I can’t say I’ve ever seen such a mess from them – not even when they lost my first lot of books, and god knows where they ended up because I surely don’t.

Anyway during the process to help my client with the delivery of their books (which still haven’t arrived in New Zealand) I had to get my name added to her account to get emails stating what they were doing and had done.

The first email after being approved said they had sent another set and gave the tracking number etc and the delivery date.  I cringed. Why you may ask.  Well because they don’t track parcels to New Zealand, they never have and probably never will.  Knowing this, means I knew something else was going to go wrong.  

Since when has New Zealand in the South Pacific been in CANADA.  The tracking number given in the email from DHL was for an address in CANADA.  We have no idea if it was my clients books that were delivered there or not. The parcel was signed for.  This actually makes me wonder if this is how resellers get hold of brand new books to on sell without us making any royalties.  Suspicious yes…Hopefully I’m totally wrong and the tracking number given was just a mistake.  It is doubtful we will ever find out.

My poor client was furious. There again so was I.  So I emailed them again this time telling them exactly what I thought of their customer service – which in my honest opinion has dropped significantly in recent months (Yes there are some great people still there I’m just wondering where!)  I also mentioned I would be contacting the CEO if this issue wasn’t resolved correctly. (It’s nice to know someone who knows someone at times)

Anyway my client received a new email stating that they had sent yet another parcel of books and given her a full refund due to all the issues.  Of course said books are ment to arrive on an inconvenient date so lets hope if they do deliver them that the courier will keep them until she is available to collect.

Meanwhile back at Plaisted Publishing House I am wondering if we should start using LULU or KDP Print as an alternate distributor.  This would be sad! I’ve always loved Createspace overall they do great work.  Nicely printed books and are generally helpful with issues. I just wish some of the problems they are having would disappear and that some of their customer service & others get updated training and also research instead of sending out emails that make no sense.

My last issue with them was over copyright…Hopefully they will get sorted and spring back to be amazing again.  I certainly hope so anyway.