The Publishing Performance Show

Matt Briel - Lulu.com's Secret Weapon: Spiral Bound Publishing Success

• Teddy Smith • Episode 16

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Matt Briel is the Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Lulu.com, one of the pioneers in print-on-demand publishing. With over 22 years of experience in self-publishing solutions, Lulu specializes in offering unique printing options including spiral binding and direct sales integration. In this episode, Matt shares insights into print-on-demand technology, spiral binding capabilities, and successful case studies of authors using these formats.

In this episode:

  • Overview of Lulu.com's print-on-demand services
  • Detailed explanation of spiral bound book production
  • Limitations and possibilities with spiral binding
  • Success stories and case studies
  • Direct sales opportunities through Lulu
  • Print-on-demand global distribution networks
  • Tips for choosing the right binding format


Resources Mentioned:

  • Lulu.com print-on-demand platform
  • Lulu Shopify plugin for direct sales
  • Global print network facilities (US, UK, France, Australia)
  • Free downloadable interior files and templates
  • Lulu cover creator tool
  • WooCommerce and Wix integrations


Book recommendations:


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Connect with Teddy Smith:


Join our Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/publishingperformance/



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[00:00:00] Teddy: Spiral round books are one of the big topics in the print on demand world at the moment, which is why I'm so happy to be speaking to Matt Briel from Lulu. Now Lulu is one of the print on demand book services, and they're one of the most high quality ones, and they do have lots of integrations with Amazon and Spotify and lots of other places.

[00:00:22] Teddy: And if you are doing self publishing, you've probably heard of them already. But what they do, which is different to everyone else, is they do spiral bound books. And that's one of the main things we're going to be talking about today. So we're going to be looking at bounds, the sorts of books that work well with spiral bound, how you can sell your books on Spotify, Amazon, and different places like that.

[00:00:40] Teddy: We're also going to be looking at the formatting and how you can create your spiral bound books and much, much more. So if you are thinking about doing spiral bound books with, for your low content books or normal content books or anything else, then check out this episode with Lulu, Matt Briel, because I think you're going to learn loads.

[00:00:55] Teddy: So I hope you enjoy the show and we'll see you soon. Hi everyone and welcome to the publishing performance show today. I'm really delighted to be joined by Matt Briel, who's the vice president of marketing and sales at lulu. com. So welcome to the show, Matt. 

[00:01:10] Matt: Thank you, Teddy. Happy to be here. 

[00:01:12] Teddy: Thank you. So just for anyone who hasn't worked with Lulu, hasn't heard of Lulu before, could you just give us a brief overview of exactly what Lulu does?

[00:01:19] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Lulu is a self publishing platform, and we utilize a print on demand technology. We were started in 2002, so we've been around for about 22 years now, going on 23. We were started by a tech founder named Bob Young, but essentially our core functionality is self publishing print on demand.

[00:01:39] Matt: And we were the leaders are the leaders in the space for direct sales. So Shopify plugins, things like that. 

[00:01:47] Teddy: Yeah. I know you do a lot of work with Shopify and people who are doing direct sales, their customers. And we will be touching that again a bit later today because you, but I just wanted to cover one thing particularly, which was spiral bound books, because a lot of.

[00:02:02] Teddy: The authors who lists, who listens to show a lot of them publish on KDP and a lot of them use print on demand. And I guess a lot of them do it direct through KDP including myself. So I think people don't necessarily know that they can do spiral bound books. And I was, I kind of found out about them really.

[00:02:19] Teddy: Cause I was doing some book research on Amazon and I saw someone had a book in spiral bounds. I thought. That'd be so helpful if I could just poop, do my book in spiral bound. So why don't you tell me a bit about how that works? 

[00:02:31] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Probably the most important thing to note though at the top of this conversation is that.

[00:02:38] Matt: Amazon and Ingram and most of the other distributors, they won't distribute a spiral or what we call coil bound product. When you do see a coil bound or spiral bound product on Amazon or some of those other channels, they are selling it in a different way, not directly through KDP or Amazon or Ingram.

[00:02:58] Matt: So they're either selling it as like, maybe they have a merchant seller account on Amazon or something like that, where they're fulfilling it themselves. 

[00:03:04] Teddy: Right. 

[00:03:04] Matt: And so they'll do a print run. You know, initial print run, and then they fulfill themselves or they found some other way to fulfill those through a fulfillment and kidding center or something like that.

[00:03:14] Matt: So everybody should know at the top that you can't actually create a spiral or coil bound product in most of these distribution channels and then distribute it through those channels. It is one of the reasons why we've moved to the forefront for that particular product, because not only do we offer it, But you can sell it through the Lulu bookstore.

[00:03:34] Matt: So, you know, again, as we talk about this, I think it's important for people to understand where they might find some limitations. And you may have found some of this in your research as well. Coil bound or spiral ground products are a bit elusive for a lot of people, especially in a lot of markets outside of the US.

[00:03:49] Teddy: So, so when you say that Amazon won't do distribution when booksellers have got the spiral bound books on their listing, are they integrating with Lulu? So the order comes straight through to Lulu to process the order, or is it working in different way? 

[00:04:04] Matt: No. Again, if they're selling spiral bound or coil bound books on, on Amazon or some other retail channel.

[00:04:10] Matt: Nine times out of 10, they are fulfilling it themselves. There is no direct connection to the printers on the backend for Amazon or Ingram or Lulu or anybody else. I think because it's probably a complicated product for them to set up through their normal distribute, like, you know, you published on Amazon.

[00:04:27] Matt: So you understand the processes. You upload your files and your Amazon account, it goes through an approval process, and then it just gets published onto Amazon. And then when a book sells, if it's print, you know, not ebook, Amazon, print it and ship it for you. They're not set up to print and bind coil or spiral, which is why they don't you can't really do it direct through Kindle and same for Ingram and some of the others.

[00:04:49] Matt: So if you see people selling it, they're either more traditional. Publishing companies where again, they've got an inventory somewhere and they're warehousing and then fulfilling it as the orders come through. Or it's an individual author who is also doing the same thing on their own. They've ordered, you know, X amount of copies, 100 copies, 1000 copies.

[00:05:08] Matt: And as they get an order on Amazon. They're set up as a merchant seller, not through KDP, they're fulfilling that order themselves. 

[00:05:15] Teddy: Right. Okay. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So the, so the spiral bound books aren't with even through Lulu, they're not printed on demands. They're actually pre order up front.

[00:05:24] Matt: Well, the difference there is it's through Lulu. If you create your coil bound or spiral bound project through Lulu and you sell it on the Lulu bookstore. Yes, it's print on demand. Everything we do is print on demand. So you can sell a coil bound or spiral project. Through the Lulu bookstore. So instead of pointing users to your Amazon page, you would point them to your Lulu store.

[00:05:43] Matt: And every time somebody orders one, we print it and ship it in the normal print on demand fashion. So you can do it through Lulu that way. You just can't do it through the typical distribution channels like Amazon and Ingram and some of the others. 

[00:05:55] Teddy: Sure. So that makes perfect sense. So why don't you give us a bit of an explanation about how that print on demand process works?

[00:06:03] Teddy: Like Sure. What the production process is like and things like that. 

[00:06:06] Matt: Yeah. It's actually extremely similar to any other book that might be done on print on demand. The biggest difference is not only in production, but file preparation is you're just not dealing with a spine. Which for most people is great although these days, most tools will calculate spine width for you.

[00:06:22] Matt: And the most complicated piece is getting the title and everything on the spine, you know, centered properly and not down on one edge or the other. But the biggest difference is you're just not dealing with a spine. So your cover file is slightly Different, but everything else is the same. So, if you wanted to take a book that you've already done, let's say it's a cookbook or a health and wellness book.

[00:06:42] Matt: Those are very popular categories for coil bound. And normally you have it done as a perfect bound or a paperback and you want to try coil bound. It's actually really easy. You'd use the same interior file. Nothing different about your interior file. The only thing that would change about your cover files, you would just remove the spine.

[00:06:58] Matt: It's just a one piece. And again, you're just uploading the two files, cover file and interior file. You're choosing coil bound instead of perfect bound. And then you're off to the races. It's in the system the same as any other book would be. And every time one's ordered it's printed and shipped.

[00:07:12] Matt: The difference in production is that you have less time needed for, you know, glue to dry when you're binding because you're just doing a coil bound and most times it's run through a machine. That winds the coil automatically. So you can typically see a day, sometimes two days shaved off your production time.

[00:07:29] Matt: If you're doing a coil bound project versus perfect on a hard cover, cause you're not waiting on glue to dry and things like that. 

[00:07:36] Teddy: Yeah. Are there any particular requirements when you're uploading or does the path, does the Lulu platform reformat it into the. Right size for spiral. 

[00:07:46] Matt: Well, the requirements would still also be the same.

[00:07:48] Matt: So, you know, for any other book, you're going to want to make sure that your interior file is sized to the trim size you want to do. So if you're doing eight and a half and 11 or eight and a half by 11, make sure that the trim size is still, you know, eight and a half by 11 for the interior file, but there are no other special requirements.

[00:08:02] Matt: And the system will tell you if you, let's say you upload your cover file and it's saved at a resolution, that's too low. So the image will come out, you know, it's less than 300 DPI. The system will tell you, Hey, you should consider increasing the DPI, saving this at a higher resolution rate so that your cover looks better.

[00:08:20] Matt: But again, outside of that, no, there are no special things you have to do. 

[00:08:24] Teddy: So if I've already got a book and just say, for example, it's in a relatively standard format, like a six by nine or eight, as you said. I could use that exact same manuscripts up, give it to Lulu and say, I'd also like this in spiral bounds and you could sort that out.

[00:08:37] Matt: That's right. Yeah. There'd be a separate cover file, but that's it. And normally all you got to do, you could upload your existing cover file into Lulu in our cover file creator and just turn that into a cover fit for a spiral bound. So again, in essence, you can just take the files you already have.

[00:08:54] Matt: Upload them into Lulu, the interior file probably wouldn't have to change. If it was previously used on a different platform like Amazon or Ingram, you might have to tweak your bleeds just slightly to match ours, but they're, the variances are very small. And in many cases, you can upload a file, an interior file from another platform and it works perfectly on ours.

[00:09:13] Matt: But again, the system will tell you if there's something wrong in your interior file needs to be adjusted. It'll tell you that, but otherwise. It is pretty straightforward to do a coil bound from an existing book or set of book files. And it's almost equally as easy to create one from scratch. 

[00:09:28] Teddy: Yeah, that's amazing.

[00:09:30] Teddy: I mean, the way I think book, the spiral bound books would be good is for things like workbooks and notebooks, because this is my notebook now and it kind of doesn't lay flat. So when I'm writing on it, it kind of just sort of pops out of there. So I tried to get I try to get spiral bound ones when I can.

[00:09:45] Teddy: What sort of books have you seen that works best for this spiral bounding? 

[00:09:49] Matt: Yeah, I mean, you nailed it. So, what works best or the content that is best fitting for spiral bound is things like workbooks, journals. Notebooks. What's really popular right now, cookbooks, because like you said, that there's that lay flat element, right?

[00:10:04] Matt: You can lay it on the counter and look at it as you're cooking or health and wellness is a huge category right now with spiral bound coil binding. Because again, you know, if it's a book on yoga poses, you can open that thing up and lay it flat and look at the book while you're trying to do the thing.

[00:10:19] Matt: So, you know, any type of mostly nonfiction, utilitarian content, content that's going to lend itself to something for reference or how to, or like you alluded to anywhere where it might be more convenient to have that open and lay flat online courses. It's really popular right now. Somebody has an online course to also do a corresponding workbook with that online course.

[00:10:40] Matt: And I'll show you some examples in a minute. Yeah. People love if they sign up for an online course to get an actual workbook in the mail and then be able to follow along and make notes in that workbook. So again, utilitarian types of content, mostly nonfiction, the areas or categories of health and wellness.

[00:10:59] Matt: Cooking and then, you know, again, standard business marketing type workbooks. And then lastly, you have what's called low content or no content. So creating notebooks, journals, and planners that are made specifically for people to write in and do things are extremely popular and selling really well right now.

[00:11:15] Teddy: Yeah. I can imagine the one thing that I thought would be really interesting would was cookbooks because. When you buy cookbooks in the shop, they're obviously, they're amazing. They're really nicely bound. They like have amazing pictures. And I think it's quite hard to compete with a book like that on a like for like basis.

[00:11:30] Teddy: But if you can create a book that's in a similar category, but it's much more easy to use and for actual cooks, I think that could be a nice way of standing out. And it kind of takes away that need to have that. Unbelievable, like production value that you would get with the very expensive hardback books.

[00:11:44] Matt: Yeah, that's right. Again, you go into, you know, for you, a Waterstones or something like that for us in the States to go into a Barnes and Noble and you go to the cookbook section. You're right. Some of those cookbooks are so beautiful and so well done that you're free to crack them open them on your counter and then put something to hold the pages down.

[00:12:01] Matt: And then you're afraid you're going to spill something on it. And it's like, before you know it, your 50 cookbook is, you know, this is a great way. And we do see a lot of cookbooks that come out with variations. So you'll see somebody load a cookbook onto Lulu to sell it and they'll offer it in hardcover and it's beautifully done, you know, and it's something that somebody will put on their shelf in the kitchen because they love the way that it looks, but they'll also offer it in coil bound.

[00:12:24] Matt: For to actually be able to use it at obviously half the cost too. So, you do see a lot of people offering those options or variations on a book so that you could kind of choose which format you want or both. Yeah. 

[00:12:36] Teddy: Yeah. That is really, that's really interesting. I, that was the main, that was one of the things I thought of cause I get asked about cookbooks all the time and my first reaction is.

[00:12:45] Teddy: Maybe think about it because obviously you've got to spend loads of money on photography. Like, you know, you've got to get these really expensive binding, make sure it's, you know, the printing costs in color is expensive. So you've got to make sure it's profitable, but if you can do it in this cheaper format, then that is a great way to stand out.

[00:13:00] Teddy: A bit different. Yeah. A 

[00:13:02] Matt: slightly cheaper format and again, a more useful format. More useful. 

[00:13:05] Teddy: Yeah, definitely. With the spiral bounds, is there any limitations on things like sizes and also page count? 

[00:13:14] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, you know, for lots of reasons, but there are some limitations. The most obvious one would be page count.

[00:13:22] Matt: So for Lulu, we'll only allow up to 450 pages in a spiral bound. That's still 

[00:13:29] Teddy: big though. 

[00:13:30] Matt: It is still big. So this particular coil bound, um, is, is an author planner and I believe it's at 372 pages, so you can see it's, it's pretty thick there, but you can also see how big the, the coil starts to get creep up to that 400 page mark.

[00:13:50] Matt: So we don't recommend going up to 450 pages, but you can go up to 450 pages, which is Again, as you can see, that's a lot of pages. So, you know, your average cookbook or even health and wellness book that we see coming through, it's typically more around 150 pages, sometimes 200 if they're pushing the envelope with a lot of pictures and things like that.

[00:14:13] Matt: And that's, you know, again, that's perfectly fine. You can have something like this one. Um, so this one is just over 200 pages. Uh, coil still manageable. It's not big and wielding necessarily. Uh, it'll still open up and lay flat perfectly. Um, this is a conference workbook. Uh, weekend workshop workbook. Um, and again, you know, you get this thing handed to you at a conference and, and you're ecstatic.

[00:14:39] Matt: Like, this is great because now I don't have to worry about, you know, opening my laptop to take notes or, or, You know, bringing in a separate notebook. I've got this workbook that is also packed full of all the information that I'm going to learn in this workshop plus my notes. And so if you're somebody who's doing workshops or online courses or things like that, this is again, like you said, a great option.

[00:15:00] Matt: And again, yeah. Just over 200 pages. It's not, you know, unmanageable at all. It's a pretty decent size. 

[00:15:06] Teddy: Yeah. Nice. And with the actual paper and things like that, can you change different types of paper within the book and the cover? Okay. 

[00:15:15] Matt: Yeah. So, you know, aside from page count you can also do pretty much any trim size we offer.

[00:15:20] Matt: You can do six by nine. You know, five by eight, eight and a half by 11, all of the major trim sizes, and even some of the weirder ones you can experiment with different paper weights. So, you know, thinner paper, heavier paper you can experiment with doing, you know, just black and white in the interior or color on the inside to, to play around with your pricing levels and quality levels.

[00:15:41] Matt: We actually have a couple of creators on our site. They're both cookbook creators, but they've done a great job of offering not only. You know, hard cover and coil bound. But within coil bound, they offer an even cheaper version. You can get the cookbook. It's all black and white on the inside. It's straight up just the recipes and some photos, but it's all black and white and it makes the book a little bit more cheaper.

[00:16:03] Matt: You can get a coil bound that's full color. It's a couple dollars more than the black and white, or you can get the hard cover. That's obviously full cover and it's twice the price, but you know, again, offering all those different options. And when you're able to play around with paperweights, interior print colors, um, you know, some of those things you can really start to play around with pricing and your profit margins.

[00:16:24] Teddy: Yeah, definitely. I know you've got a calculator on the site for working out the prices of the printing, but could you give me a rough guide for what we're looking at for say something that's 150 pages, a rough, kind of rough. Yeah. 

[00:16:35] Matt: Yeah, so for something that's eight and a half by 11, 150 pages you know, something like this one.

[00:16:42] Matt: So just a little bit trimmer than the one I just showed you. But again, eight and a half by 11 black and white interior on standard, you know, white pages, it's about 11 U. S. dollars. Yep. Which. For you, great British pounds. You're probably talking, you know, I don't know what 

[00:16:58] Teddy: eight or nine or something, 

[00:16:59] Matt: eight or nine, something like that.

[00:17:00] Matt: Yeah. If you're moving volume, you know, we obviously apply discounts to that too. Conversely, or, you know, on the other side of that coin, if you're looking at paperback, that same trim size, pad, page count, everything would probably be almost 2 cheaper, but if you were doing hard cover, it'd be almost 4 more expensive.

[00:17:21] Matt: So, you know, coil kind of lands somewhere in the middle. Which is also something to consider when you're thinking about doing it or offering it as a variation. 

[00:17:28] Matt: But we always tell people, you know, never create with your wallet. Never create, you know, based on what you like. You and I might like a coil bound you know, for a project, but somebody else might say, well, that coil bound is great, but I really want that, that hard cover, because I want to display it in my kitchen or whatever that might be.

[00:17:45] Teddy: Yeah. 

[00:17:46] Matt: You have those options and that's the important part. 

[00:17:48] Teddy: Yeah, definitely. It's a slightly different, different use to the to the hardback book. I can definitely see that. 

[00:17:53] Matt: That's right. Yeah. 

[00:17:55] Teddy: With the let's go through a couple of examples that have done well because people always love seeing the case studies and you've shown us a couple of just then I think I recognize the first one was that the writer's planner.

[00:18:04] Matt: That's right. Yeah. I 

[00:18:05] Teddy: think it's that Audrey Hughes. That is Audrey. Sorry. Uh, yeah, 

[00:18:09] Matt: you'll see her in a couple of weeks. Well, I've actually interviewed her for the show already. Yeah. Uh, Audrey Huey does, um, a couple of different projects with us. They're all coil bound for the most part, and they're all centered on, on helping writers, um, get through the writing process and, and writing books and getting their novels published.

[00:18:28] Matt: This particular one is the author planner. Yeah. And she does a new one pretty much every year. Like I said, this thing is about 372 pages. From cover to cover extremely helpful, by the way, but again, you know, beautiful project now she does on average She sells an average of about 300 per month Well through the lulu site, right?

[00:18:51] Matt: And so when you sell through the lulu bookstore the online lulu bookstore Uh, it's an 80 20 revenue split So the author keeps 80 of the revenue and lulu takes the 20 to cover You know, the transaction charges and all the stuff that we do behind the scenes. So she has a couple of other also coil bound books that do really well.

[00:19:11] Matt: But again, on average right now and for, you know, I'd say the last six months or so that she's, I've been tracking her stuff. It's an average of about 300 units per month that she's selling. Yeah. We have another one. And as you can see that the trim size, the most popular one tends to be eight and a half by 11.

[00:19:29] Matt: Um, this one is, uh, she does, um, uh, that's, there's a machine called a cricket. I don't know if you know what that is, but a lot of people might it's, it's, it's used in crafting and sewing and things like that. But, um, she has these, she has two of these now that she does. And they're basically like, uh, pattern guides and things.

[00:19:47] Matt: Um, she does actually, uh, full color interiors. Um, so, you know, these, these actually are very colorful on the inside, lots of different charts and graphs and, uh, pattern, you know, layouts and things like that, about 150 pages. Um, she has been having remarkable success with hers. She is averaging around 25 a day that she's selling.

[00:20:12] Matt: Um, last month she did about 900 units. And then since she's started publishing these, that's been about 21, 000 units that she sold just under 2 years. So, you know, that's a lot of book sales. And for most people listening to this, if you're actively trying to sell books, you'll know those numbers, even the 25 a day.

[00:20:33] Matt: Uh, consistently that's impressive. You know, for most authors, if you could sell, you know, five to 10 a day consistently, you'd be pretty happy with those monthly numbers and those royalties she actually sells direct. So she uses our Shopify plugin. And so she's actually keeping more of the profits because when you're selling these things direct, Lulu's not taking any revenue or royalty there.

[00:20:55] Matt: We're only taking the money for the manufacturing and the shipping of the book itself. 

[00:21:00] Teddy: Right. Okay. 

[00:21:01] Matt: So added benefit there for her on this 21, 000 units she sold over the last couple of years. 

[00:21:06] Teddy: Yeah, 

[00:21:07] Matt: her profit margins have been way larger than, you know, people who are selling them in other ways. Yeah, 

[00:21:13] Teddy: definitely.

[00:21:14] Teddy: And for those type of books, they might also be selling different formats in Amazon or in other places as well. So it could be, you know, they've got the similar books, got multiple different revenue streams just in the one book. 

[00:21:25] Matt: You're absolutely right about that. And to go back to Audrey Huey in the right services, you know, what she provides, um, she, she does a lot of like, in event selling or at event selling, so, you know, you'll see this too, but she goes to a lot of author events and she'll order a hundred copies through her author account at Lulu, something like that.

[00:21:44] Matt: She'll take them with her or she'll have them shipped from us to the event. And then she'll sell them there on the spot as well. And then, yes, you can sell other formats. Some of these things are great, you know, also for ebook. And so you can, you can do that through Amazon or Ingram or even through Lulu really anywhere you want or other versions to paperback as well.

[00:22:01] Matt: Yeah, you're right. 

[00:22:02] Teddy: Yeah. What do you think it is about those particular examples? And I'm sure you've got many more, but those are the ones that are most relevant to us. What do you think it was about those books that made them successful? Have you seen any trends between the books that do well and the ones that maybe don't do quite as much?

[00:22:18] Matt: I think it has to do, in my opinion, and from what we've seen it's less about the book itself per se, and more about the audience that you're selling into. 

[00:22:28] Teddy: Yeah. 

[00:22:28] Matt: So again, you know, for Audrey Huey. She has a very niche audience. She's selling into other authors, um, lots of times first time authors or maybe second time authors, and they still struggle with productivity or things like that.

[00:22:40] Matt: So she has a very niche audience that she's selling into. And because the content, like we talked about is very utilitarian, it's very reference and how to based that. That trim and binding combination of coil bound and 8. 5x11 works the best for that audience she's selling into. They really resonate with that, and it's something that they can really relate to.

[00:23:02] Matt: So I think that helps her sell more copies as well. If she was offering that, And a hardcover, which I think she did at one point. It's still a beautiful book, but like we've talked about when you've got a almost 400 page hardcover book That's supposed to be something that you can either write in or that you're using every day to help you with productivity It gets a little unwieldy.

[00:23:22] Matt: You know what I mean? It gets a lot heavier on the bookshelf and carrying it around too Yeah, which is also something you need to consider. So if these were fiction books It'd be a totally different story. This wouldn't be the right binding or format for those. But again, you know, nonfiction utilitarian content.

[00:23:37] Matt: This is her other one, by the way, I forgot I had it. So obviously smaller in size, like a five and a half by eight and a half. This is a more of an actual focus planner that she does. Uh, this one is just black and white on the inside. And it's again, just a way to track, you know, habits and things. It's kind of a.

[00:23:53] Matt: Uh, companion to the bigger one if you want it again, small, great content. This is what we would call low to no content because it's made specifically to write in. Um, but again, these things do really well because I think when people find the right audience for their content, and it is that utilitarian, helpful content, there's no better format than this, you know, again.

[00:24:15] Matt: Not for fiction, but when you're talking about, you know, little journals and notebooks, yearly planners, we actually do a thing with our team. You know, we like to have fun. We just did it again this year where everybody on the marketing team has to create a journal or notebook. 

[00:24:31] Teddy: And then 

[00:24:31] Matt: we, we have a little contest.

[00:24:33] Matt: And as you'll see what we're doing this year is that author nation, which is a huge author event, the winner on our team, whoever had the best judged, Notebook, we'll do a couple hundred copies of them and give them away for free at the, at the show. So again, it's just a fun format. It's very easy to work with, very easy to use, you know, and we even offer free downloadable interiors.

[00:24:55] Matt: So if you just want to try it and do like a straight up weekly planner. You can actually get this file on Lulu for free, download it and use that as your interior file. And then all you have to do is create a cover and recover tool. It'll literally take you maybe 20 minutes to do the whole thing. And then you can get a pretty solid feel for whether or not this is a format that you want to play around in.

[00:25:15] Teddy: Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Cause I, a lot of people I speak to do low content books and some of them are really innovative. I did actually once one that was a dive planner, so you could plan your drives and track them and it sold really well. And then it became really competitive, but. Um, you know, stuff, there are some really good and unique type of books that are coming out about the, with the, this back bit, sorry, let me say that again.

[00:25:37] Teddy: There are some really unique book types that the spiral bounding would work for. So I think it is about being original and yeah, finding something a bit different. 

[00:25:44] Matt: I guess it's definitely a format that's catching on too. So to date this year, we've printed in total about 250, 000 coil bound books. Yeah.

[00:25:55] Matt: So, you know, almost at the end of October, 10 months into the year, about 250, 000 units last year for the whole year. We did about 260, 000 units. So each year we're growing by, you know, double digit percentages on the amount of coil bound projects that we're printing through our networks. And that's globally.

[00:26:14] Matt: So. This isn't just available in the U S we actually do coil bound in the UK, France, Australia, and a few other markets too. 

[00:26:21] Teddy: Perfect. So just going, I just want to go back to the first question I had, cause it was about the distribution with Amazon. Just let's just say I do have already have a book on Amazon.

[00:26:30] Teddy: I want thinking, okay, I want to sell this the exact same book in spiral bounds on Amazon. What would be the steps I would need to go through? Is that something I would work with Lulu with? 

[00:26:39] Matt: To sell it on Amazon? Yes. Well, you could use us for the printing of it, but again, there won't be any connection between the printing and Amazon.

[00:26:48] Matt: You'll have to actually sell it as a merchant seller, which means, yeah, you can create it on Lulu. You can order, you know, 50 copies, a hundred copies and have them sent to your house or whatever that might be. But as they sell through on Amazon, you would be responsible for packing and shipping those. So technically, yes, you could do it, but again, it won't be in the traditional Distribution sort of setup or workflow that you're used to.

[00:27:10] Matt: Again, you're used to with distribution for any other trim size and binding that Amazon or Ingram or the others offer it's hands off for you, including Lulu. So it's the same thing. Um, you don't have to do anything. It just happens for you. That's the beauty of print on demand. 

[00:27:25] Teddy: But 

[00:27:25] Matt: again for something like this, where they don't offer that, so they can't print it.

[00:27:30] Matt: They're also not going to allow you a direct connection in that sense to us for that. It's just the way distribution works. Yes. Again, you can do it through the Lulu bookstore, not a problem. You can do it if you're selling direct, we will print and ship it directly. But if you want to sell it on Amazon, you can actually create it and order copies from Lulu, and then you fulfill it on your own through whatever channels you want to sell it on.

[00:27:51] Teddy: Sure. Okay, great. That's, that makes sense. So, but you couldn't say when an order came in, you couldn't say, okay, an order's come in, go to Lulu, do an order direct to get sent to that customer. Well, I guess that would be a call of work, wouldn't it? 

[00:28:02] Matt: Not through Amazon. No, and that's an Amazon thing, not a Lulu thing.

[00:28:06] Matt: So I'm trying to dance around this delicately, but Amazon doesn't want to deal with it. They don't want to offer it. And so if Amazon can't print it, they're not going to allow any direct connections for somebody else to do that. So that's just the way distribution works because you can actually put your books in a distribution through lots of places as you're well aware, you can go through, we have global distribution, so you can publish something on Lulu.

[00:28:28] Matt: That's not coil bound, obviously. And then you can say, I want it on Amazon. I want it in Ingram. I want it on Lulu. I want it everywhere. And you can do that at Lulu and Amazon will accept those titles from us, but they still want to print it when it sells, if it's a print book. 

[00:28:42] Teddy: So, 

[00:28:42] Matt: you know, again, it's a very proprietary type of thing.

[00:28:45] Matt: So that's why you'll probably never see that happening where you got an order for a coil down on Amazon and they allow somebody else to print it and ship it directly. You would have to fulfill that yourself. 

[00:28:56] Teddy: Great. Well, that's very clear. And I totally get that now. So thank you. So just lastly, just wanted to go through Lulu just a bit more widely, like a bit more generally about Lulu.

[00:29:06] Teddy: So what are the advantages of publishing through Lulu compared to printing through a different print on demand platform? 

[00:29:13] Matt: Yeah. I mean, so the obvious ones are what we're talking about right now. So again, when you talk about product flexibility and wanting to do something different, like coil bound or spiral bound or some of those things there are some benefits to working with Lulu aside, you know, or outside of Amazon or some of the others.

[00:29:29] Matt: Yeah. We have probably the largest amount of trim sizes available for most people that's not necessarily a thing, but for, you know, maybe 25 percent of the population that's creating content, many of them do want some other type of trim size. That's not the standard 6 by 9 or 5 by 8. And so, you know, having that flexibility to Lulu really helps.

[00:29:48] Matt: The other big thing for Lulu outside of flexibility is the ability to sell your titles direct. A lot more people are now starting to experiment with that. So having the ability to sell your books direct as well as keep them in distribution, which is fine. That's something where Lulu is kind of the innovator in that space.

[00:30:04] Matt: And so that's an offering we have that most others don't. And we have it for a large number of platforms, not just Shopify. So we also do Wix and WooCommerce and a bunch of the others. And then lastly, Lulu has a pretty large in house customer service department. Um, and while it may take some time, you know, especially during the holidays, a couple hours to get back to you.

[00:30:24] Matt: We have actual live human beings here in our offices in the U S where we take every single, you know, ticket. Issue question, whatever, and we answer that. We take the time to walk people through certain things or find the information. They need. We have a ton of free resources on our site to help people get through whatever it is.

[00:30:42] Matt: They're trying to get through as well as like I talked about earlier. A lot of really free are really cool. Free downloads like these interior files where you can play around with certain formats and trims. And then, you know, we have print networks set up globally, so our quality is probably the best out of the print on demand companies.

[00:31:01] Matt: But the best part is you could set up, you're based in the UK, you could set up your book on Lulu or, you know, to sell direct from your store, your website. And let's say you had a buyer in the U S we would print and ship that order from our U S print facilities. That way your buyer doesn't pay extra shipping or any of those types of things or have to deal with weird customs laws.

[00:31:20] Matt: If you had a buyer in France and they bought your book, we would print it and ship it from our print facility in France. So, Having that global network really helps with timeliness because print on demand sometimes takes a little longer, obviously, but it also helps keep those shipping costs a little lower depending on where it's going in the country.

[00:31:36] Matt: So, you know, we like those features and most people do too. 

[00:31:40] Teddy: Yeah. Nice. Well, thank you so much for your time today. It's been a, it's been really interesting speaking to you. I've wanted to know about the spiral bound books for a long time. So. It's nice to do it on a podcast where I can, you know, get a podcast done and also learn about how spiral printing works at exactly the same time.

[00:31:55] Matt: Yeah. Kill two birds with one stone. 

[00:31:57] Teddy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you very much. So that's really that's really helpful. So just before we go just wanted to ask you a question, last one last question, and that is one, what is one book recommendation that you think everyone should be reading? 

[00:32:10] Matt: I actually have two because my chosen genre is horror.

[00:32:15] Matt: So a lot of people don't read horror, although it's getting bigger. So my favorite book that I read regularly is Salem's Lot by Stephen King. But I do have a book here that is a self published author. It's somebody that we really enjoy working with. She wrote this book called Write, Publish, Repeat, which is a really good book for people who are either just starting out or who are feeling like they need a little bit of extra inspiration and motivation to get through, you know, writing that book.

[00:32:43] Matt: Um, this is a great book to help with some of those things. There's a, it covers pretty much the entire spectrum of self publishing, all the different aspects of it. It touches on some traditional publishing stuff too, so you know the difference. But it's a really great book. It's a good resource and I've read it a few times.

[00:33:00] Matt: Her name is Lynette Greenfield. She's based in Australia. But again an amazing book She also has a companion that goes with it like a journal to go with it, too So those would be my two that I would recommend. 

[00:33:12] Teddy: It's her companion journal spiral bound. It's not right now 

[00:33:16] Matt: But at the time she created it we hadn't yet been offering spiral bound in Australia So I think she's probably going to switch over to it.

[00:33:24] Teddy: Yeah. Nice. Great. Well, that's been great chatting to you. Thank you so much for letting me all know about spiral bound books. We've got, I'll put links to all those, all the books you've mentioned today in the show notes so that people can go and buy them, but yeah, no, looking forward to meeting you in person soon and see you in a few weeks.

[00:33:38] Teddy: Yeah. Thank you. Speak soon. Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing Performance podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. Now just before we wrap up, let me tell you about Publishing Performance, the number one platform for authors who want to increase Amazon book sales, but I'm not really sure where to start.

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