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Rethinking Print and Fulfillment with Emily Bair

Rethinking Print and Fulfillment with Emily Bair

Podcast 29 min read

Publish & Prosper Episode #112
Published March 25, 2026
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Complete List of Channels


In this episode, Matt sits down with Emily Bair, Lulu’s VP of Business Development to explore how brands, publishers, and creators are using print products. Emily shares her insights on topics like: 

🤔 Why more businesses are revisiting and rethinking print products
⚡️ The “aha moments” when print-on-demand solutions click
💡 What authors and creators can learn from these larger brands and businesses

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Complete Episode Transcript

Matt: Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Publish & Prosper. I am joined today for a special episode with Emily Bair, who is the head of Business Development here at Lulu, and she's going to talk to us a little bit today about some really cool stuff. And unbeknownst to her, she is auditioning to take Lauren's job as my co-host.

Emily: Yeah. I don't know about that.

Matt: No? Alright.

Emily: Happy to be here, though.

Matt: Maybe you can take my job.

Emily: Yeah, I'll take that.

Matt: And you and Lauren can run this thing.

Emily: Yeah, that sounds better.

Matt: You probably do a better job than me. Yeah? Alright.

[1:03] - Introducing Emily Bair

Matt: So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Emily: Where to begin? Well, I was born – no, I'm kidding. Yeah. So I am Boston-based currently, and born and raised in sunny California. So don't ask me why I moved to Boston with the frigid cold right now. Married. I have a small zoo of a dog and two cats. And fun fact, I have been a part of the same ladies poker group for seven years that we meet once a month and play very mediocrely.

Matt: That sounds interesting. And also sounds something I'd like to steer clear of.

Emily: Oh, it's – I don’t know, it’s a good time. Ten dollar buy in.

Matt: Yeah? Well, that's probably a little too rich for me. I don't know how to play poker. So maybe you'd want me at your game.

Emily: Well, we use infographics still to this day, so. Very low stakes if you want to join us.

Matt: Sounds fun. Maybe. Tell us a little bit about what you do here.

Emily: So I head up our business development sales department. And most recently, within the Lulu ecosystem, you know we, we're starting to – well, we just naturally started to have some larger enterprise accounts that came in, and we're now being a lot more intentional about that and really realizing, spoiler alert, that like the technology that we use, while it has been great for solo indie authors, also caters to a vast network of brands and large enterprise organizations. So just being a bit more intentional and helping to grow a lot of that –

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: – out for us.

Matt: That's good. Before we get too deep into our topic, do you say niche or niche?

Emily: Niche.

Matt: Interview’s over. You failed.

Emily: Alright, I’ll go home.

Matt: You failed.

Emily: No. Niche! It is niche. Now, do you say vase or vase?

Matt: I usually don't use that word at all.

Emily: No? What do you use then?

Matt: But if I have to say it, I say vase.

Emily: Okay. Yeah. Same.

Matt: Yeah. So you're French when you say niche, but you're not when you say vase?

Emily: Yeah, I don't know, I, I just dabble in...

Matt: Okay. I think Lauren tries to be French all the time.

Emily: Yeah. I also say aunt not aunt.

Matt: I find myself flip flopping between those, though. But more often than not, it's aunt.

Emily: Okay.

Matt: Yeah. I never thought about aunt versus aunt. Yeah. Anyways. Alright. So you just touched on the fact that you work pretty closely with a lot of more enterprise level or what we would call B2B style, brands and entrepreneurs and people that come into our ecosystem because they have a product for sale. Or they have a digital product, they want to turn it into a print product and build a business on the back of that. So you work very closely with them and helping them get connected for, you know, a lot of that back end and fulfillment stuff. 


[3:51] - Rethinking Traditional Production

Matt: Are there some broader trends that you are seeing right now in how brands and publishers and, and even some of these solopreneurs that are coming through the ecosystem, how they think about physical products, especially, you know, print versus, you know, some other things that they might have an inkling to try?

Emily: Yeah. I think one of the, the biggest trends is that people are starting to realize that there are different ways to print than the traditional way of doing things.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: I mean, how long has offset been around?

Matt: Gutenberg.

Emily: So.

Matt: It’s the OG.

Emily: Yeah. And I think that there's been a, you know, misconception that that is the way of doing things and running offset where you have to do large print runs. And now people are starting to gravitate towards the print-on-demand model, which when you look at it at face value, and one of the things that, you know, I coach businesses on, is if you're looking at it at a per book level, sometimes can seem more pricey. But in the grand scheme of things, being able to have that flexibility around having a book of one, not having to have, you know, large print runs where you might be wasting inventory. It really actually, in the long run, helps margins –

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: – for the organizations. And it's, it's really, like, exciting when you see, like, the wheels turning with these businesses and they start to realize that there's a better way of doing things. I think just naturally too, you know, we're moving into a digital age. Like, that's what our whole backing is off of, is technology. And people are starting to realize that there's just a more modern way of doing things. And I think there also has been a misconception in the past where, you know, you will sacrifice quality for these print runs. And in reality it is just as good, if not better in some, in some cases to do a POD, a print-on-demand, print run with these types of quality of books.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: So I think that's one of like the biggest aha moments I get is like, and I love, is when people get a sample and I get that email back being like, this is sick. Like, this is like beyond what I was expecting it to be, in a lot of cases. I think the other thing that's really fun and exciting as well, is that a lot of some of these larger, like, Fortune 1000 companies, and some of the bigger brands, also are seeing a renaissance in print in and of itself.

Matt: Right.

Emily: Just from a, like a brand perception and an actual, like, tangible feel of a book is so different. And it's, it's starting to become now one of like, the main channels that they're using to break the noise in the space as well. So, like for example, we now have Honeywell that we work with, and they were sending out their catalogs, PDF digital format for a long time, and they're now moving back to like, physical copies. Because –

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: – it makes a huge difference in the experience that their customers are having. And you'll just see some luxe brands wanting custom books as well, that they're sending out to their, their customer base as well. Talking right now with a, a company that's doing a bunch of biometrics and DNA type of... of data, for lack of a better word. And they're wanting – right now they have PDFs, and they're wanting to give them physical copies of like, here's your whole nutritional plan that you can have and it’s just a custom experience –

Matt: So that's, that's more of like a personalized thing though, right?

Emily: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Matt: Right, okay. I don't want people listening thinking like, oh my God, there's some biometric data company out there printing books of data and giving it – Yeah. So that one specifically you're speaking of, what they do is they take your information, which you're participating with –

Emily: A hundred percent.

Matt: – and they create a personalized sort of book program for you. Mostly in the health and wellness space. Right?

Emily: Yeah, absolutely.

Matt: Yeah. Okay.

Emily: And that is another thing too, of seeing a big surge of custom books.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: Especially from your creator ecommerce side of things. In the world of, of AI and just being able to create like, book of one of a very custom book, is really becoming prominent within the space as well.

Matt: If you had to guess what percentage of people already have an idea of what print-on-demand is, or how they can use this to to propel their business forward, versus the percentage that you're, you're almost educating from scratch once you get on...

Emily: It – I think it really depends on the audience in which I am speaking to. When you think of more of that creator, the ecommerce side of things, they tend to have a bit more understanding and, have some experience with print-on-demand. When it comes to some of these larger brand entities, like your Fortune 1000, they're not used to even knowing about print-on-demand, like as an option. And those are like the larger, more traditional type of, of companies in the way that they print. And some of them are even using Kinko's because they just don't know a better way of doing things. Like just really needing to be like, hold on. Like there's a way better way of doing this. And like, let us explain it to you. So I really think it depends on the demographic that I'm, I’m speaking with. But I would say to be fair, like for, for us, 60% already do know about the print-on-demand space. But we do have a large component of the ecommerce brands that are coming to us, because that is like our bread and butter and what we're known for from the API technology side of things. 

Matt: Yeah. It's funny, earlier you said, you know, this, this whole shift to digital, but it's, it's somewhat ironical that, you know, it's a, it's a shift to digital to go back to analog.

Emily: Yes.

Matt: I think that you also said earlier cutting through the noise has, has become the problem in this digital and AI age. Because now with AI, especially like over the last two years, if you have a marketing message... To get that message into somebody's ears or across their eyes or into their hands, you're competing with so much more white noise than you were just three, four, five, six years ago. It's getting really bad. And so this idea that, you know, instead of fighting for somebody's inbox, it's a lot less crowded in their mailbox, right?

Emily: Yes.

Matt: If you, if you switch back over to some analog, some, some print. 

[10:07] - Achieving the Aha Moment

Matt: So, why do you think so many businesses are rethinking how they produce and fulfill, you know, physical products today? Is that a big factor in that? And are there other things that are driving them to reconsider this now as a, as an option again?

Emily: Yeah, I think there's... Well there's, there's three main buckets that businesses care about. Like, and I will – when I run trainings I'll, I run through it as the, the triangle. So it's needing to be cost sensitive, or price, is one thing. Ease of use, operations is another thing. And then the third is also quality. And like, there's going to be some tug of war, like, within –

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: – that, those three buckets. But in reality, like when you are thinking through like, print in and of itself, it is a way to cut through the noise. But you do have to do it in a way thats gonna economically make sense, like for your business as well. And so that's where, you know, from a price perspective, like the lack of having to have inventory, it can drop ship – like, you don't have to have any operational capacity in the back end for it, like it's all fulfilled for you. I think even from, that, that, that, that operational side of things as well. And like the fact that, you know, we have a global reach that they can also tap into is, is huge. Because really it's one API integration, one platform that they're able to integrate with. And it'll do all of that essentially in a drop of a, like, or a click of a button, really. And then quality is, is always going to be a concern for businesses, right? Like you want the best quality, but you want it to be within an economically sound... I don't know what I'm trying to say, but. But you want the best quality, but you need to have it in a way that's going to positively impact your margins at the same time.

Matt: Yeah, I think that, those are three solid core, you know, drivers and motivators. I, I think the, the second one is really important, not just from an overall cost perspective in terms of, you know, looking at your, your outlay of cash and things, but thinking about, you know, even the smaller side of, of who you deal with. So, you know, first time founders or solopreneurs or, you know, somebody that's got an idea, they've started an app that's like an educational app for, let's say, K through 12. And they want to now, you know, go to the next level and be able to provide printed, you know, manuals or books or copies and things. They typically don't have a lot of operating capital up front.

Emily: Exactly.

Matt: And so they can't afford a model where, you know, they would have to invest in 5,000 copies upfront and then have to warehouse that and pay for the orders to be fulfilled each time. So, you know, there's a lot of different sort of facets of that financial component, that motivator. And, you know, again, outside of the Fortune 1,000 companies, when you're dealing with these smaller entities, that zero inventory piece that you touched on is a huge, huge, determinant in whether or not you can go to market sometimes.

Emily: Yeah.

Matt: So, you know, that one can't really be slept on.

Emily: Yeah, I agree, and especially with some of these smaller entities as well. You know, they need that flexibility as well. And they need to be able to move quickly. And if you're thinking about even some of these companies, like let's say that they are a K through 12, they need the ability to be able to you know, update the type of content that they have. So having some of that flexibility is huge for a lot of the entrepreneurial type of, of organizations.

Matt: Yeah. You said something earlier too, that I, I meant to come back to. I'm going to come back to it now, you talked about that aha moment. And I know from our perspective, you know, more on the marketing side when we're at events or if I'm in a speaking session or whatever, like there is that physical aha moment when you're talking to somebody and you can see it in their face, whether they see anything or not, you can see it where the where the light bulb just kicks on. They're like... oh, okay. is there any one thing that you feel like when you get to that part of your conversation with them, that's the aha moment? Or is there a couple of things where, depending on who they are, like, that's when you can see that light bulb flicker on?

Emily: Yeah, I think again, it's dependent on the audience that I'm speaking to, but in particular when I'm talking, for example, to someone about offset versus print-on-demand. For them, like a lot of times the aha moment there is even just like the speed to market. If you're dealing –

Matt: Right.

Emily: – with offset, it can take six to eight weeks. Like from, from a production standpoint. When you're using print-on-demand, like it's, you know, a week, maybe two weeks, depending on what type of shipping you're using. But it is, it is a pretty quick speed to market. And people tend to, like, that's an aha moment for them. They're like, oh wow, I can get this in front of my customers a lot more quickly. It doesn't have to be this time spend for, for me to get a good quality book into the hands of my, my end users. We just talked about this, but that flexibility in content creation and deployment as well, I think, you know, we we do have some people right now that we're working with where, maybe they have backlog issues or, you know, they have magazines that have been digital and now they're moving them back to print. And like, being able to have like, flexibility with that. And not having to worry about, you know, if they're testing a new market. Like what, what like, inventory do they need to have, or anything like –

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: – that is, is huge. It's just like, a lower risk factor in general, I think is, is, some of the main things that they're like, oh. Like, this is actually a way better solution for me, I hadn't thought of that before.

Matt: Yeah, that's a big one, too. The, the, the flexibility there for, for testing a product. Again, depending on what scale you are or what size you’re at in your, in your journey. And not having a lot of upfront capital but needing to be able to, to test different products or types in the market, or even to a controlled market, you know, or a controlled group of users is really important. And not having to put a bunch of money up front and having the tools where you can do that quickly and effectively and then get the data back and figure out, yeah okay, we'll run this product type, but maybe it needs to be a different size or a different paper weight or, you know, people are responding better to this particular variation of the product. So I think that's, that's really key. You know, removing that risk I think is, is huge for people. So I think that, like... more often than not, when I see that aha moment, it is also around some of those types of activities. Again, that ability to be quick to market, especially right now when it seems like AI, it's just accelerated everybody's path to market. And if you're not, you know, a first mover in certain things, like, that can be a big deal. That can be a make or break moment for you. So having, having more speed and more flexibility, I think is super important right now. When you think about, you know, what we're talking about right now and kind of the audiences we've been talking about, we've been talking a lot about, you know, B2B, enterprise, you know, larger businesses, you've mentioned Fortune 1000 a few times. But I think what we're talking about is a model, right? A workflow, a process, however you want to call it, that can work for anybody. And we, Lauren and I talk a lot, you know, at the, at the end of that spectrum, the, you know, far left end of that or, right, left, whatever. You have these indie creators, some of them are first time, some of them were more experienced. All the way at the other end of that spectrum you have these, these Fortune 1000, Fortune 500, enterprise-level companies, and then you have all these little steps in between, but. 

[17:54] - Reaching Businesses Across Our Ecosystem

Matt: What do you think, you know, authors and creators and, content entrepreneurs can learn from how these larger brands approach print and fulfillment for these, these physical products?

Emily: Yeah. And I think that's – you, you hit the nail on the head, around – it, it is the same process, no matter if you're an indie author or a large entity. And I think it's just on the, the empowerment of the individual author to, to say, hey, like, you are running a business. Like, and you now have, you know, the keys to the castle, so to speak, by you – when you're using Lulu, because you do have access to all of your customer data. We have ecommerce integrations for you. Like, you can actually treat this as a business. And I think that is one of the things where if they're learning of this from some of the larger enterprise companies, it is – there along the line of like, they are thinking of this from the, from the business aspect of it. And, and like, there is a way that you can do this and have that flexibility. But also keeping in mind like your margin and being able to go to market in a way that is going to produce revenue for you as well, like that is a big possibility for you.

Matt: Yeah, margin’s a great word because it's not one that typically indie authors or creators are particularly prone to use very often. And, and so, you know, at the beginning of that, you said, you know, this is a business, and it is. And, you know, it's sometimes a hard transition for, you know, creative people or creators and other types to, to deal with that part of it. But it, it's the, it's the reality of if you want to build a business where you can step away from the cubicle life and just be able to do this full time. But margin is a, is an important and somewhat scary word for some people. And earlier you touched on the fact that, you know, we tend to deal in per unit prices. So when you're thinking about how you would set up physical inventory, print and fulfillment, delivery, those types of things – per unit cost is a, is a conversation you and I have with a lot of people. If you're comparing offset printing to digital, you know, print-on-demand, the unit costs, as you said, are going to be higher. You have to look at your cost breakdowns and your margins from a holistic standpoint. And so that's one of the other aha moments I tend to find when people, is if I literally will get out of pen and work through some of that math with them, where it's: okay, right now, you know, or one of your options if you're not doing it right now, is offset. You can order the minimum quantity, which can be anywhere from 2000 to 5000 units, whatever that might be. You're going to get a lower per unit cost on them, because they're going to set that job up on the machine and run every one of those copies and be done and move on to the next job. And it's a different style of printing. But then you're also going to be paying, you know, a heavier shipping fee, you now have to store those somewhere, potentially with a warehousing and fulfillment operation. And then either you're fulfilling every order yourself, you know, out of your garage or wherever that might be, or you're paying this warehousing and fulfillment company to fulfill every – So all of those things carry a cost. And on top of that, if you estimated wrong the number of copies that you needed on that first run, either up or down. If you estimated too heavily, you could be sitting on an excess amount of units that you're still paying to be warehoused for whatever amount of time, you know? Infinity potentially. Or making the hard decision to, to recycle them. Which also carries a cost. Conversely, or inversely, if you didn't order enough and you're lucky enough to hit one of those viral spikes, and you run through all those, then what? It's another six to eight weeks to get more from the offset printer. So POD, or print-on-demand, has a very distinct purpose. And yes, the per unit cost is higher, but it's because you cut out the rest of that overhead and, quite frankly, a lot of that resource-intensive workflow –

Emily: Yep.

Matt: – that comes with it. So by the time you factor in all the costs on the offset side, the per unit cost is actually higher, in most cases, than on print-on-demand.

Emily: It is.

Matt: It doesn't mean print-on-demand is always a replacement for offset, right?

Emily: Right.

Matt: Like if you've got a business that needs 10,000 copies of something, print-on-demand is not the right tool for that.

Emily: Right.

Matt: It's not the right solution. But print-on-demand is often not only a really good complementary model to go with maybe an initial run in offset, but it's great for a gap filler, short runs, you know, replenishment, out of print titles, things like that as well. So, I just wanted to make that distinction very clear. And, and, you know, you mentioned earlier and I wanted to pick back up on that. That's always one of the big aha moments for me too, is when I’m met with that rejection of like, well the per unit cost is higher. It's like, well, hold on a second, let's talk about that. And I think people don't often... You just forget about all that other stuff you have to do when you're warehousing. Or, you know, if you're dealing with a Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000, they've got whole teams that are dedicated to every facet –

Emily: Yup.

Matt: – of that project. And the costs just compound like crazy, so. When you think about brands that are kind of expanding their product offerings or reach, let's take a, a Fortune 1000 brand, for example. And, you know, like everybody, they're looking for new sources of revenue. Or maybe a product has hit a point where it's a little bit stale. Or again, they want to try and cut through this white noise and take some of their digital content that they've been invested in for years and years and turn that into physical. Typically, how do you see Lulu fitting into that larger ecosystem? Like when you have these conversations with them, is it a combination of the things we just talked about? Like, how do you make sense of what we do for them to get that desired outcome of, you know, again, being able to have these physical product offerings? Like, what is it? How do you position us?

Emily: Yeah, I think in a lot of those cases, it's them using product as a marketing tool. So for them it's not that this is something that they're adding as a channel or a resource, and so it's not part of their day to day operation as it relates to like, what their current use case is.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: And so the way that I explain it to them is, this is again, something that is very easy for you to onboard into, to integrate into, and add as an additional solution for you without having to make the book product itself the, the main part of your business, if that makes sense what I'm saying in that. So like they don't typically have like full teams that are dedicated for the book printing process in and of itself. And so this allows Lulu to be that partner for them that, you know, they upload their files, they integrate within our systems, and then we're able to do all that back end fulfillment for them. And to your point, there is no inventory. There is no need. So we, we act as a team for them in the back end to help with that. So that way they can still get all their main objectives, main day to day business done. And this is an easy solution for them in the back end, to be able to just bolt on to, to their marketing programs.

Matt: Yeah. If there's one product right now, or product type, or Of all the brands and companies you're talking to right now, is it mostly like, you know, nonfiction-style trade books they're creating, or catalog or magazines? Like, where are you seeing the concentration of products kind of fall right now?

Emily: Yeah. So for some of the larger companies, where we're seeing a trend right now is a lot of, it is within like the, the teaching space as well. So needing material for training courses and things like that. So we have CorePower Yoga, for example, that they actually took their, their yoga trainings and all of their stuff was digital and now actually offered physical books, both for the trainer and for the individual.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: And so, you know, we've seen that. Obviously like the educational space in and of itself, we get a lot of that. And then, across the, across the board too, we've, we've also had larger organizations, like that do, like, electricianal... like recertifications and things like that. So for the larger entities, I would say that that, that is a trend for us. And then, we are seeing an uptick in magazine resurgence as well. Of, again, a lot of companies that went digital with their magazines now wanting the physical copies.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: That's been huge for us.

Matt: The magazines one is really cool. Magazines did get hit hard for a while because of digital and, you know, materials, costs, and all that stuff. And just like vinyl records, like magazines are making a comeback. But they're doing it in a cool way where they're doing nicer, you know, thicker quality papers –

Emily: Yup.

Matt: – and stuff like that. Also, you said electricianal. Is that a word now?

Emily: I made it up.

Matt: Okay. We'll, we'll go with it.

Emily: Yeah.

Matt: We're going to stick with it. We'll have Lauren put it in the show notes. We'll create a definition for it and everything.

Emily: Thank you, I appreciate that.

Matt: The magazines one is really cool, yeah, I was hoping you would, you would touch on that. I know you've, you've already now worked and closed with a few accounts that are magazine-heavy. And, and Lauren and I have talked about this before. Magazines are such a cool medium, especially for content creators who are very niche in their –

Emily: Niche?

Matt: – their content focus. We're seeing lots of really cool like, quarterly magazines come out where, you know, doesn't matter what the subject matter is. It might be, you know, New England style woodworking –

Emily: Yeah.

Matt: – or something like that, or like French bulldogs or whatever it might be. Disney. Pizza. It doesn't matter. I just think that's really cool. You don't have to create, you know, a full blown book or something like that. You can use a format like magazines for any topic, subject, brand, business, single creator. Like, it's a really cool way and somewhat low cost way to, to get your content into the hands of people. There's very creative ways to use them too, you know. You can create a magazine that's all about electricianal content but still be from a brand, and get that into the hands of people and have that, you know, have value. Where at some point they start to sort of associate your brand with expertise in that area. They're getting these magazines, there's, there's content in there that's about electricianal stuff. Right?

Emily: Electricianal, yeah.

Matt: Yeah I'm going gonna use that as much as I can. And, you know – but it's, it's coming from a brand, but it's acceptable because the content in there is helpful. It's, it's not just a bunch of ads or things like that. And, and again, that's – it's a great way to build credibility and authority. So, I –

Emily: Yeah, that one’s been really cool to, to see take off. Because I know that with, you know, some of the brands that I was working with to get these projects off the ground, the reason why they wanted print-on-demand in the first place is because they didn't know what the volume was going to be. Because it had been in a digital format –

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: – for so long. They have taken off. Like, people really want the physical copy.

Matt: Yes.

Emily: You know? And it's, it's, you know, some of them are magazines that they grew up with that went out of print, and now they're coming back. And so there's a nostalgia to it as well.

Matt: I think there's a desire in general, too, from – for people right now to, to want more reasons to, to set the phone down.

Emily: Yeah.

Matt: Or the tablet or close the laptop and get away from screens a little bit. We went through this period of time where everything was digital. Everything, you know? You watch TV and movies on your laptop or TV screens or your phones. You, you read books and newspapers and magazines on a device. Like, everything was on a device. You listened to music on it. Like, there was no almost disconnect. And I think people really, again, going back to the vinyl example, like – myself, my kids, lots of people I know are back into, you know, buying and collecting vinyl –

Emily: Yup.

Matt: – and just listening to records at home instead of just popping your phone out and opening up Spotify or whatever, and then running it through a speaker or your headphones, like, sometimes you just want to disconnect. So magazines are really cool for that. Books have always been cool.

Emily: Yes.

Matt: I’ll always fight for books because I'm a book nerd. But yeah, I really like that magazine product. But there's definitely some other cool stuff that, that's going on there too. Is there anything else that you might see that is, is something that stands out when you're dealing with, you know… when you came to, to Lulu, when we hired you, you didn't have a publishing or books background.

Emily: I did not.

Matt: Like you came to us from –

Emily: Just a love for books in general.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: But who doesn’t?

Matt: A traditional almost, you know, SaaS world, right? Is there anything that stands out? Like, when you started working here, like oh, this is different, you know? Like even within the realm of what you do, like in, in the business development world, like, you know, was there something where you're like man, this is, this is different, or this is cool, or this is a dumpster fire?

Emily: I think, I think that for me, I always just had it from the lens of being like, the end user of a book and not really thinking through the process of how a book is created.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: And now, knowing that there's so many different ways for a book to be created, and it can be customized based on the need is that, I don't know, I find it fascinating. I think what was a big surprise for me, too, of how traditionally there's been such a waste in the space, as well, for books. And like, the fact that there's this opportunity to eliminate waste and, you know, help companies be more productive. I don't know. I just nerd out over, over that in and of itself. I think –

Matt: It's funny, because when I came to Lulu, almost ten years ago, I didn't come from publishing. But like, you know, I went to school for it. And I've always been a book nerd. But my answer would probably be the exact same as yours was.

Emily: Yeah. It’s –

Matt: Which is crazy.

Emily: Yeah. It opens your eyes to the whole process.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: In and of itself. I think what is really cool and fun for me is that there is just like a passion behind book making. It's not the same as like, selling a SaaS software that's –

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: – you know, going to, you know, help like with time capacity and things like that. Like, you get to talk to people every day that are so passionate about what they're doing. And so it just creates this extra layer of just enjoyment out of it that, that is really fun and cool to work with, too.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. I think our answers would have been almost identical. That's crazy.

[32:44] - Getting to Know Emily

Matt: Outside of this, I want to switch it up a little bit.

Emily: Kay.

Matt: What's one topic you think you could easily do an off the cuff like, hour long podcast episode about? Without any preparation, just because you're passionate about it.

Emily: Well, one would have to be playing poker mediocrely. Obviously.

Matt: Being a mediocre poker player?

Emily: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That would –

Matt: You think you could do an hour long podcast off the cuff about that?

Emily: Definitely.

Matt: Easily?

Emily: Yeah, I think I could. One that's really boring, but, like I – nobody would listen to it, but I could definitely do it for gardening and, like, understanding your gardening zones and, like, what you can –

Matt: Okay.

Emily: – like, perennial versus annual and like, when and like how to make it like look super cool.

Matt: But you live in Boston. Doesn't everything just freeze?

Emily: No, not if you have perennial. Perennials are ones that’ll, they’ll die and come back.

Matt: Okay.

Emily: It's, it's knowing your zone that you live in and what’ll, what will actually grow.

Matt: I actually didn't know that about you.

Emily: Yeah, I love gardening. I also could do, and I have done, a training on how to read tarot cards as well. So that's another one I could do.

Matt: Oh. Okay. I wouldn't have thought that either. Yeah, I'll steer clear that one for now though. But I'm fascinated by this poker thing. Like, what is it that you think draws you to poker?

Emily: I... the weird thing is, is like, I don't have an affinity for gambling, but I do – I am competitive. And there is a component to it that is logic-based, but also, like you, you have to like, mask and trick people. And I don't know. So it becomes, it's a multifaceted game and it's – I don't know, it's, it's fun because then like, you try to learn the cues of your friends, and because we played together for so long, we try to understand, like, who's bluffing, who's not, and it – but we're so bad at it that it's just funny. Like, it's, it's I don't know. It's, it's fun.

Matt: So I also know that you're a Disney fan.

Emily: I am.

Matt: Like Lauren and myself. What's your favorite park?

Emily: So mine is Animal Kingdom. I think that's your least favorite one. Isn’t it?

Matt: It is my least favorite one. There's like one good ride in the whole park. Maybe, maybe two.

Emily: I like, I like the vibe of it, but it's because I grew up in – I grew up in California, so I didn't go to the Orlando parks until I was an adult. And so that one is just so vastly different from the ones in, in California.

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: And I think that's why, because it was just something so like, new and different for me.

Matt: What's your favorite ride out of all the parks?

Emily: It would have to be... Well, they call it the Incredicoaster But it was – what was it called before?

Matt: I have no idea.

Emily: Yeah. California screamin. Yeah. That one is my favorite.

Matt: For those of you that didn't realize, Lauren's off camera, and just fed the answer to her.

Emily: Yeah.

Matt: And also made a weird face when she said Animal Kingdom, as she should have.

Emily: No, I knew I was going to get that reaction out of you guys. But, you know what, I like what I like.

Matt: That's fair, okay. We’ll, we'll let you have that one. That's fine. As long as you’re a Disney fan, you can have some... you know what, I'll say questionable choices there. Are you going to listen to this episode when it comes out, or are you going to avoid it at all costs?

Emily: I'm going to be slow to warm up on that one. I'm just like, I'll avoid it for maybe like a week, and then I'll eventually, like get the courage to, to watch it. But I will eventually.

[36:22] - Episode Wrap Up

Matt: I’ll ask you one last question. I'll tie it back to what you do, though. What would you say is one thing that you really like about working with the spectrum of, you know, creator entrepreneurs, small businesses, medium-sized businesses, and enterprise – Like within this publishing ecosystem, what you're doing right now, what's something that you, you really like about it?

Emily: I think for me... This is going to sound so convoluted, but it is like so diverse, but so simple at the same time. Like, it doesn't matter if you are a solo entrepreneur sitting at your house, this is your side gig right now, or if you are a, you know, a large brand. Like, the process is the same and like, you can have –

Matt: Yeah.

Emily: – the same results out of it. So while it's like, one day I'll be talking to someone that does want to write like, some romantasy book, or then the next one is like, I have these like, catalogs that I need to print. Like, the process is still going to be the same for them. And I think that that's super cool.

Matt: That's awesome. You did it. You made it.

Emily: I think so.

Matt: You ready to take Lauren's job?

Emily: No. I think, Lauren has a very impressive job. I'll, I'll let her keep doing it.

Matt: You can have my spot.

Emily: Okay, cool.

Matt: I keep this chair pretty warm. Full of hot air, one might say. Or Lauren might say. Alright, well, for those of you that made it this far, thank you. You probably made it this far because of Emily, not me, that's for sure. We want to thank Emily for joining us.

Emily: With pleasure.

Matt: If you haven't already – I don't know why you haven't already – you should go hit the like button and subscribe. You should leave us a review and talk about how great I am and how terrible Lauren is. I'm gonna take all the opportunities since she's not in that chair. Just kidding. But, yeah, please go hit like and subscribe. Leave us a review, leave us a comment on Spotify if you want. There'll be tons of information in the show notes. Maybe not tons, but some. Until next time. You want to say bye to anybody? What about your dog, your French bulldog?

Emily: Copley?

Matt: You want to say bye to Copley?

Emily: Yeah. Bye Copley.

Matt: Alright. Thanks for listening everybody, and we'll see you next week.

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Lauren

Lauren is the Content & Community Manager and co-host of Publish & Prosper, Lulu’s publishing, ecommerce, and marketing podcast.

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