Whither Lulu?

A cautionary tale for both my readers and for other Authors! Please read on…

Not that Lulu. Unfortunately.

One of my loyal readers has informed me that the paperback versions of The Magus Trilogy are not available from Amazon except through third party sellers and then only for silly money! On investigation, I found the facts to be as follows:

• Whilst this is true about the paperback versions, the Kindle versions are still fully available, and at the prices at which I intended them. They are also available electronically from other sites such as iTunes, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords at similar prices (the links to these three sites can be found via my web-page).
• The paperback versions of “A Fairy Story By Any Other Name,” “Taromancer” and “Eternal Witch” are available from Amazon as normal. So too are they from Barnes & Noble – which doesn’t have paperback versions of the Magus Trilogy at all.

On redeeming the Sumner Family Brain Cell from the local pawn shop and re-engaging it, the truth dawned on me. Of all my novels, the three books of the Magus Trilogy were published via the website http://www.lulu.com which I had used on the understanding that it would distribute the paperbacks through Amazon for me anyway. The Kindle versions however I published through Amazon’s own Kindle Direct Publishing.

Hence, it would appear that both Amazon and Barnes and Noble have decided to arbitrarily stop selling the books I created via lulu.com, but are quite happy to continue to sell those via Amazon’s own CreateSpace!

Might this have anything to do with the fact that Amazon earlier this year were consolidating their CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing ventures into one streamlined whole, and were therefore wanting to edge out competitors?

What bugs me, though, is that whatever the real explanation for this predicament – I received no notice of it from either Amazon or Lulu!

This may very well mean that you may be seeing new paperback editions appearing on Amazon via CreateSpace in the not too distant future. In the meantime, I encourage you to save a tree in the Amazon rain-forest and treat yourself to a Kindle version all the same.

Are you a Lulu-published author and have you been affected like this? Please respond in the comments below!