Are Amazon shipping rates to Canada and Europe less than Lulu?

The Evil DM · June 22, 2009, 01:15:20 PM

Amazon has lowered the price of Legends of Steel - Savage Worlds Edition to conform with the Lulu price ($22.25).
When I began offering LoSSW I was told by many that Lulu's rates to Canada and overseas were high.
Does anyone know if this will help the folks in Canada and Europe who would like a hard copy but don't want to deal with Lulu?

Mythmere · June 22, 2009, 03:27:03 PM

Quote from: The Evil DM;309763Amazon has lowered the price of Legends of Steel - Savage Worlds Edition to conform with the Lulu price ($22.25).
When I began offering LoSSW I was told by many that Lulu's rates to Canada and overseas were high.
Does anyone know if this will help the folks in Canada and Europe who would like a hard copy but don't want to deal with Lulu?

Amazon's rates to Canada are less than lulu's. In the case of Europe, it depends on the trim size of the book. Most trim sizes can now be printed in Europe, which lowers the shipping cost. Hardbacks can still be printed only in the USA. So in the case of hardbacks, Amazon's price is probably better. In the case of softcovers to Europe, it probably makes no significant difference.

Complicated answer: sorry. But it's a weird situation in terms of the shipping costs.

That Guy · June 22, 2009, 07:11:08 PM

Quote from: The Evil DM;309763When I began offering LoSSW I was told by many that Lulu's rates to Canada and overseas were high.

Amazon's rates to Canada are less than Lulu's, dramatically less. Just about everyone's rates to Canada are less than Lulu's. The reason is that Lulu ships exclusively via FedEx, not offering a USPS option.

Quote from: The Evil DM;309763Does anyone know if this will help the folks in Canada and Europe who would like a hard copy but don't want to deal with Lulu?

Europe, I couldn't tell you. However, sadly this will not help people in Canada as this is being sold through Amazon, sold by and shipped from Lulu, and in fact if purchased in this fashion cannot be shipped to Canada at all.

Benoist · June 22, 2009, 10:21:10 PM

Quote from: Mythmere;309776Amazon's rates to Canada are less than lulu's.

Yes, by far.
As for Europe, I do not know.

RPGPundit · June 24, 2009, 03:21:18 AM

I don't know if anyone else knows about this yet, but it seems that Amazon is doing its own self-publishing now; I forget what its called but it seems like an extremely competitive alternative to Lulu, since any books published by this arm of Amazon automatically gets listed on Amazon.com.

RPGPundit

Claudius · June 24, 2009, 04:05:48 AM

Last time I bought anything in Lulu it was a long time ago, there was some special offer for the EU or something back then, and shipping was very cheap, 2€ or 3€. I'm checking right now what the shipping costs are now and it's 6€ with the cheapest option.

With Amazon USA, I've got to pay more or less 4€+4€ for every book, more or less.

It's in my location, but just in case, I live in Madrid, Spain.

Did it help?

The Evil DM · June 24, 2009, 04:12:21 AM

Thanks for the input guys. It looks like there is no way around the shipping costs.

Warthur · June 24, 2009, 05:24:46 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;310076I don't know if anyone else knows about this yet, but it seems that Amazon is doing its own self-publishing now; I forget what its called but it seems like an extremely competitive alternative to Lulu, since any books published by this arm of Amazon automatically gets listed on Amazon.com.

Yeah, I do wonder how long it's going to be before Lulu falls to bits completely. I have a friend who's trying to get stuff printed through them and the print job just. keeps. failing, and they're completely unhelpful about it.

Lulu are big in the print-on-demand market because they were the first company to present the service in a user-friendly and reasonably easy to understand way. But if Amazon are offering the same service with cheaper overseas delivery and automatic listing on their site, I can't see any reason why someone coming into PoD publishing would pick Lulu over Amazon.

J Arcane · June 24, 2009, 06:29:43 AM

I've a secret project of sorts that I set up on Lulu with the intent of ordering a copy solely for my personal use (it's in a sort of hazy area copyright wise), but I never got around to ordering a copy, despite at the time it being less than $10 with shipping.

Recently though I had a bit of cash in my pocket so I thought I'd give an order, but I was stunned by how much the rates had gone up. The same book was now claiming to cost as much to make as it previously did to ship.

I had heard rumblings from sites like this that they were going a bit south, but honestly it did make me second guess using them for a serious, for-profit project.