Simplify Selling Books with Lulu’s Order Import Tool
Fulfilling customer orders is one of the most time-consuming aspects of selling anything. For books, whether you’re a solo creator or a small business managing larger distribution operations, this task can be a huge drain on your resources.
Historically, selling a book to one of your customers would mean one of two things:
- You point that customer to a retailer to sell and fulfill your order.
- You have books stacked in your garage or pay for a warehouse and use an ecommerce platform to take the order, then manually pack and ship the book.
Both options suck for their own reasons. The first option means you give away some portion of your revenue and all of your customer data to that retailer. The second means you have to pay for books upfront, pay to warehouse them, and use your own time to pack and ship each sale.
With these struggles in mind, Lulu built an Order Import tool that seamlessly allows you to import orders into our system. Once imported, we’ll handle printing and shipping the books to your customers around the world for you.
Let’s dig into ways this tool will save you time, effort, and money.
What is an Order Import Tool?
Lulu offers on-demand book printing and fulfillment, as well as retail distribution, for authors, creators, and businesses. The Order Import tool began as a quick and easy way for authors and creators to fulfill pre-sales or crowdfunding campaigns.
You could take orders through your website, in-person at an event, or use a platform like Kickstarter, export a list of orders, and use that list to fulfill your orders through Lulu.
The requirements are that you’ve uploaded your book on Lulu. That’s it. When you’re ready to use the Order Import tool, you just reference the books you’ve uploaded and we’ll print and ship them to your customers directly.
Who Can Benefit from Lulu’s Order Import Tool?
While we were thinking about indie creators and authors who do crowdfunding and book launches, the Order Import tool has proven to be useful for businesses as well.
One common example is a business with a book that is updated regularly; such as an annual report or guide that your customers will want each year. Using the Order Import tool to fulfill these orders makes your life easier and ensures you won’t have to worry about overhead or extra copies (thanks to Lulu’s print-on-demand).
Another very common example is businesses that offer a book or magazine as part of a subscription. If you’re sending out a new edition each month or quarter to a group of known subscribers, all you need to do is update the information in your CSV, upload the new list, and place your order!
How to Use Lulu’s Order Import Tool
Using the Order Import tool is straightforward. We’ve refined this to help creators and businesses meet their needs with minimal hassle. Here’s how to get started:
1. Create a Free Lulu Account
Head to Lulu and sign up for a free account.
2. Upload Your Book
Go to My Projects and create a new project.
We guide you through the process—the main part of publishing involves uploading your interior PDF. You’ll also need a separate PDF for the cover, though you can use Lulu’s built-in cover creator for that as well.
Once you’ve created your project, it will be listed under My Projects. You’ll use the Project ID listed there as a reference number when creating your Order Import CSV.
You can create as many projects as you need—using the Order Import tool allows you to select as many different projects as you want!
3. Collect Orders
Collect those orders! Our CSV is built around a similar structure to the one you’ll get at the end of a Kickstarter campaign, but the format is simple enough that it will work for anyone.
4. Download and Complete a CSV Template
Now you’re ready to get into the Order Import tool itself. Go to My Stores and select the Order Import tab.
The first thing you should do is download the CSV template and review it. Then you can add your customers’ information to each line, along with the corresponding Project ID.
5. Upload Your Completed File
Once your CSV file is filled out, upload it back into the Order Import Tool. We’ll provide some options to add details, such as creating a ‘channel’ for this order that you can use to sort additional bulk orders. This is particularly useful for recurring orders that will benefit from the Order Import tool, like subscriptions.
If you’re a Lulu Direct user, you can also opt to select your ecommerce store as the ‘channel,’ allowing better tracking if you used that ecommerce platform to sell your books.
And that’s it! Once you submit the order, we’ll handle all the printing and shipping.
6. Bonus: Send Shipping Notifications!
We recently added a cool new feature to the Order Import tool: the option to send automated shipping notifications. While preparing your import, you can opt to have Lulu send notifications to your customers, using the email address you collected from their purchases. We’ll create a non-branded email with shipping information when their order leaves the printers.
Simplifying Pre-orders, Recurring Orders, and Bulk Sales
Pre-orders and pre-sales are an exciting way for authors and creators to generate buzz before a book launch. They also offer a solid method for gauging demand and securing some revenue immediately.
Recurring orders for regularly published content is another great way to generate revenue and can be greatly simplified thanks to the Order Import tool.
Here’s a quick recap of the top three ways authors, creators, and small businesses are using the Order Import tool to simplify fulfilling book orders:
- Pre-Sale Campaigns - Many creators run pre-order campaigns to give loyal fans or customers early access to their books. By coordinating pre-sales through their own website, content creators retain more profits. Lulu’s Order Import Tool ensures they can fulfill these orders without logistical headaches.
- Crowdfunding Campaigns - Rewards for Kickstarter or GoFundMe backers often include personalized copies of books. With the tool, it’s simple to manage unique customizations, like special editions, bundled orders, or gifts.
- Recurring Sales - Use a list of subscribers to build custom orders each month for the latest edition of your magazine, journal, or guide.
Your Free Lulu Account
Create a Lulu Account today to print and publish your book for readers all around the world
Take Advantage of Lulu’s Seamless Ordering Process
Whether you’re fulfilling pre-orders, managing pre-sales for books, or running a crowdfunding campaign for your latest launch, Lulu’s combination of print-on-demand services and global shipping ensures you can deliver your books to your customers easily.
Using the Order Import tool, alongside direct sales solutions and reliable print-on-demand, means you’ll always send your customers high-quality books in a timely fashion.
