Self-publisher Lulu CEO, Robert Young, insults own customers

Sometimes I miss a unique angle on an article I’m reading for this blog. I must have been asleep at the wheel when writing this post about self-publishing. The New York Times article was about how self publishing is doing pretty well because of so many writers are willing to pay to see their work in print.

Today, I came upon this interesting article from WritersWeekly.com that talks about the angle I missed: The CEO of self-publishing company Lulu, Robert Young, had some interesting things to say about his company’s own customers:

Indeed, said Robert Young, chief executive of Lulu Enterprises, based in Raleigh, N.C., a majority of the company’s titles are of little interest to anybody other than the authors and their families. "We have easily published the largest collection of bad poetry in the history of mankind," Mr. Young said.

Talk about a buzz kill! And let’s be clear, the "customer" in Lulu’s case is the writer, as they are the ones paying for the services the company offers.

Lulu website paints different picture

Yet if you visit Lulu’s website, you get quite a different feeling that yes, maybe you can have a little success publishing your work and maybe even make some money off of it. Maybe Mr. Young needs to re-read his site’s own FAQ section:

Lulu.com is a marketplace for digital content on the Internet, created by people in more than 80 different countries. Lulu enables authors to publish their work themselves with complete editorial and copyright control and empowers them to sell directly to their customers and the rest of the Lulu.com global marketplace. With free web storefronts, social networking offerings and available global distribution, Lulu creators are fully supported to profit from their work.

I realize the site is geared towards marketing Lulu’s services to writers and other content producers, and part of that is creating an atmosphere that makes people believe they can successfully publish their work (the word "success" has many meanings in self-publishing, depending on who you talk to).

As the CEO, Mr. Young should be his company’s own best cheerleader and offer nothing but encouragement to those who pay for the services Lulu offers, and ultimately pay Mr. Young’s salary.

Customers not happy with Mr. Young’s comments

And what do the writers who publish with Lulu think about this? As you can imagine, they are not too happy. Luckily for Lulu, they have a community forum on their website where members can discuss everything from their writing, publishing, and even the comments by Mr. Young.

Even traditional publishers churn out bad stuff

While it’s easy to criticize self-publishing and those who take advantage of it, one can also argue that the quality of writing from the traditional publishing houses isn’t always up to par either. And the way that traditional publishers throw up barrier after barrier for new authors, it’s no wonder that writers are running to self-publishing in mass droves.

I still maintain, like I mentioned in my original post, that sometimes the only way to get the attention of a large publishing house, is to publish your book yourself and sell a lot of copies, proving there is a market for your work. It can be done. It has been done. And this is something Mr. Young should be taking notice of.

There’s always a possibility that Mr. Young was taken out of context, or even that he was joking and the reporter forgot to mention that in the article. But since there has been no retraction or correction, I highly doubt that’s the case.

(Brad’s Note: The working title for this post was "Lulu CEO bitch-slaps own customers", but that’s not the tone I have set with this blog. But it’s still a funny title.)

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