Lulu Responding to the Digital World

Lulu Enterprises, Inc. and Lulu Press, Inc., collectively known as "Lulu," has been responding to and taking advantage of the digital world that we live in today to benefit the company. Although it seems to be a little obvious for most companies to have a website, Lulu has a website that not only provides information about the company, but it also gives the option to publish, buy or create online. As stated in the other blog, Lulu offers printing and publishing services. In addition to that, to keep up with modern technology, Lulu also offers online order fulfillment as well as the option of electronic distribution rather than simply physical copies. The Lulu online store, known as "Lulu Marketplace" offers publications for sale on their website.

According to Lulu.com, the company is currently working on a new model in publishing, called open publishing. Open publishing allows for more creators (authors) to sell more content to more readers in a way that is more profitable than ever before. To do so, Lulu is "helping creators make works available in multiple formats and markets and improving discovery so buyers can more easily find the content they need."

Lulu is a company that is adapting to the world of technology that we live in today and in doing so, changing the ways of publishing.

Lulu.com Company History and Revenue

Lulu.com is the website for Lulu Enterprises, Inc. and Lulu Press, Inc. Lulu is a company that offers publishing, printing and distribution services to authors. The company was founded in 2002 by Bob Young followed by a merger with OpenMind Publishing (a publisher of texts for college professors) also in 2002. The company headquarters is in Raleigh, North Carolina. In just nine years, Lulu has published over 1.1 million titles by authors in more than 200 countries. Every month Lulu publishes approximately 20,000 new titles to their catalogue, proving to be a fast growing and successful company.  Lulu's products include hardcover and paperback books, eBooks, mini books, photo books, calenders, cookbooks, travel books, CDs and DVDs. Lulu also offers services including ISBN assignment, distribution of books to retailers and electronic distribution.

The cumulative revenue earned by Lulu was nowhere on the company website, so I tried to find the information elsewhere, but was unsuccessful. However, I discovered that of the total net profit of the book (after removing the manufacturing cost from the total price), Lulu earns 20% of it, and the creators earn 80%. For example, if the net profit for a book is $10.00, the creator revenue is $8.00 (80%) and Lulu's commission would be $2.00 (20%).

Personal Blog Intro

I am a member of the track and field and cross country teams at University of Maryland. I am also an Elementary Education major (although I am strongly considering switching to Kinesiology). Technology definitely has an influence on cross country and track and field. It can be very useful to athletes on a daily basis. With the internet, runners can look up the results of other runners in a matter of minutes. This can be beneficial in some cases to know what times the competition is running, but it can also be discouraging and have a negative effect on a runner to compare himself/herself to other athletes.  Additionally, many coaches now use email and/or other websites to send out important information to their athletes to keep them updated and to keep the entire team on the same page. My coach uses email to send us our weekly workouts and mileage. We also have a team page on flotrack.org to record our summer training and to stay connected as a team when we cannot all practice together. Additionally the team uses texting to send updates to our team members about locations of practice, change in plans, pick-up times for practice, etc. Texting is extremely convenient for changes on short notice. Considering all of the athletes on the team usually have their phones with them, texting is the perfect way to get information out to everyone.

While taking this course, I really want to develop better writing skills. I also would like to become more experienced with technology and learn how to implement it more into my life. Possibly being a future teacher, I want to be able to use technology in the classroom with my students to hopefully make class time more enjoyable for them.