Lulu’s New Direct Buy Button

News 4 min read

Direct sales have never been easier or more accessible.

I hate to say things that are so absolute, but it’s the truth.

Launched on August 18, I’m excited to share with you our newest tool for authors, creators, publishers, and businesses: the Direct Buy Button. This is the next step in Lulu’s mission to bring the best publishing technology to authors, creators, publishers, and businesses.

What is a Direct Buy Button? Basically, exactly what you’d think: it’s a fast and easy way to set up direct sales for your Lulu books without managing an ecommerce store, website, or product listing. This is a key innovation for enabling fast, seamless selling without managing retail systems, payment processors, or web hosting.

With Lulu’s Direct Buy Button, sell your books from anywhere using a direct checkout link or a buy button. Share it in your newsletter. Add it to your social media bio. Drop it into a Linktree. Turn it into a QR code for events. Embed it directly on your website.

No storefront necessary. No coding required. No complicated setup.

Direct Sales Without the Storefront

If you’re an author, creator, publisher, or part of a business that relies on books, you're probably familiar with direct-to-reader sales.

You keep your customer data. Your buyers will be able to opt into marketing when checking out, and you’ll have access to their contact information for future marketing efforts. You don’t send your fans to a retailer to buy your book. You get more control over how and where your book shows up online.

But the setup can get in the way.

Building a website takes time, money, and some design knowledge. Even using a template from WordPress or a similar site builder will require some refining. Then you need to add an ecommerce integration, which can be expensive.

After that, you’ve got numerous things to monitor like product pages, checkout options, shipping settings, payment processors, and sales tax rules. Each piece is important to your business, but also time-consuming and often tedious.

The Direct Buy Button removes those barriers.

To start, you’ll create a free Lulu account and publish your project. Once your print book, magazine, planner, journal, notebook, or calendar is published through Lulu, you can create a Direct Buy Button in minutes.

That means you can sell your book from the channels you already use.

Your social media bios
Your email newsletter
Your podcast show notes
Your website
Your business card
At in-person events

Anywhere you can place a link, you can create a path to purchase.

Checkout Powered by Lulu and Stripe

The earliest creators to adopt direct sales plans were the most tech-savvy. Integrating ecommerce, even with platforms like Shopify that make it easier, was not the simplest thing to do.

Today, the need to offer a direct option is too important for any creator to ignore. That means the solutions need to keep up with the demand. That’s what we’ve built with our Direct Buy Button.

Transactions are powered by Lulu and Stripe, giving your buyers a trusted, secure way to purchase your book.

Lulu also handles the backend work that usually makes direct sales complicated. That includes payments, sales tax, printing, shipping options, and fulfillment.

You do not need to hold or manage inventory.
You do not need to manually fulfill orders.
You do not need to become a shipping expert.
You do not need to manage tax settings.
You do not need to connect a full ecommerce platform.

Your buyer clicks the link, completes their purchase, and Lulu is your print-on-demand fulfillment partner.

The Direct Buy Button gives you access to direct sales without requiring that you build a complex sales operation.

Practical Application of the Buy Buttons & Direct Checkout Link

The Direct Buy Button has four distinct formats you can use.

The button only
Product preview
Product showcase
A direct checkout link

Each option has a distinct purpose and use case. Let’s quickly review each so you’ll know exactly where and when to use the various options Lulu offers.

Sell Where Your Audience Already Is

Not every author needs a full online store. In fact, most authors don’t need a full online store.

It’s a good idea to have a website to drive your audience to, even if it’s not a storefront. This is a hub for your blog posts, videos, podcast episodes, and anything else you create. And it’s where your fans will get on your mailing list so you can email them.

With the Direct Buy Button, you can easily embed your book in all of these places. Design a simple product listing for site pages and use the direct link to sell from your newsletter.

That means fewer steps between your audience and your book.

For publishers and businesses, the Direct Buy Button is a fast way to pilot new programs, test products, or support direct sales without building a custom workflow.

No matter the scale, book sales happen through your own channels, so you keep your brand front and center. It’s the perfect way to build your audience through your own media, earn the most from each book sale, and retain control over the entire sales cycle.