Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover self-publishing. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Lulu | StreetLib | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | From $99 |
| Pricing model | Free | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | Usage-based | Annual only |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | 15% of what you earn |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | Self-Publishing, Merch & Print on Demand | Self-Publishing, Digital Products & Storefronts |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Print and sell a book with no minimum order
Lulu prints one copy at a time and will drop-ship it under your own branding, so a creator can sell a workbook from their own site without holding stock or handing Amazon the customer. An API connects it to Shopify or a custom checkout. Print costs come out of your margin, and a colour interior turns a cheap book into an expensive one.
Our note
Choose Lulu over Amazon KDP when you want to sell direct and keep the buyer's email address, and KDP when you want to be found by people already shopping for books. Plenty of creators do both with the same file.
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Ebook distribution that states its cut up front
StreetLib distributes ebooks and audiobooks to the stores an author cannot easily reach one by one, and is unusual in charging for the service rather than only taking a share. It publishes what it keeps, which is more than most aggregators do. For an author already selling through Amazon alone, the question is whether the other stores add up to more than the fee.
Our note
Against Draft2Digital, which charges nothing upfront and takes a larger share, this is the better arithmetic for anybody already selling. Work out your annual net revenue: below roughly a thousand dollars a year, paying nothing and giving up more is cheaper.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.
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