Matt: I mean, I can run fast. I can sprint fast.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: But like.

Lauren: Just long enough to get away from the bear.

Matt: Exactly. 100% or the police, depending on where you grew up. Well. I didn't grow up around bears.

Lauren: Neither did I.

Matt: Alligators. Alligators and police.

Lauren: Can you outrun an alligator?

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Aren't they pretty fast?

Matt: You just gotta zigzag. Yeah.

Lauren: Good to know.

Matt: And they give up quickly, by the way. Running. On land.

Lauren: Yeah, they get bored?

Matt: They’d much rather have you in water. Yeah.

Lauren: Checks out. That's... I'm wearing my - I'm not wearing my Alligator Loki shirt, but it is a Loki shirt.

Matt: So you have a shirt with a knife and a snake, and I have a shirt with knives and snakes.

Lauren: Oh my God, we didn't even plan that.

Matt: Mine has a heart on it, though. Yours is just evil looking.

Lauren: Mine is, it's Loki. It's actually Loki and Taylor Swift in the same shirt.

Matt: Oh my God.

Lauren: It was a Lost Bros –

Matt: I know.

Lauren: – like, lucky mystery = I know.

Matt: Wow.

Lauren: I know. It's great. We're doing great.

Matt: Welcome back to Publish & Prosper, where we are discussing the merits, or lack thereof, of Taylor Swift slash Loki crossover t-shirts.

Lauren: There are... there are only merits.

Matt: ie...

Lauren: There are only positives.

Matt: Lauren's entire closet.

Lauren: I mean, this is actually like.

Matt: You matched your bracelets.

Lauren: I did.

Matt: You’re color coded. What do they say?

Lauren: So they also...

Matt: We’re going out of order, by the way.

Lauren: I know, we really are. I did match my bracelets, and one of them says Love is a Dagger, which is a quote from Loki Season 1. One of them says Let's Get Lost. And one of them says Sing To Me, Paolo, that I made specifically for the Hilary Duff concert that I went to a couple weeks ago.

Matt: I'm sorry everybody. I didn't mean to open that can of worms.

Lauren: Well, you did.

Matt: If you're watching us, you notice we're in a different space.

Lauren: We are.

Matt: If you’re not watching us, shame on you. But we're in a different space.

Lauren: Yeah. If you're not watching us, why not?

Matt: Well, there's probably a number of reasons why.

Lauren: That's fair.

Matt: I have a face for radio. We have just moved offices. We being Lulu. So we've moved into a different office, a different space. So we are in the process of building out a new podcast recording area. Or, you know, something along those lines. So right now we've just found a cozy little corner, and that's what we're recording today from. So.

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be transitional for a little while as we...

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Get set up in this new space. But we have some things that we were really excited to talk about and didn't want to wait to talk about them.

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: So.

Matt: That's very accurate.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

[2:56] – Episode Topic Intro

Matt: So today we're going to be talking about selling direct at every stage of a creator or author's journey. We talk a lot about selling direct in various different ways through various different channels and lots of different ways to optimize that process. And we dig really deep into those things. But, you know, at a high level, the basic level, like depending on where you're at in your journey as an author or creator, knowing kind of where to start or which, which type of direct sales toolset or platform works best for where you're at is extremely helpful, and would probably save a lot of people a lot of legwork and maybe even some money. So we figured we'd back up a step and, instead of continuing on the path of, you know, always digging deeper into direct sales or things like that, let's, let's back up and start at the beginning for for anybody new to watching us or listening to us. Or just new in general to selling direct, books specifically, and you don't want to go back and listen to our old episodes. Which we wouldn't blame you for that.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: But.

Lauren: That's, that's fair. Yeah. I just, I think that, you know, well, I mean, we've - and we've talked about this in other episodes too, that over our time at Lulu, and especially even just in the last few years. We have seen that shift where we had to go from even just explaining what it meant to sell direct and, and now people are aware of it, interested in it. Sometimes we're at events and they actively come seek us out because, specifically, they saw or heard the words direct. But there's still always some kind of but in there. And it's: I want to sell direct, I understand all the benefits of it, but I don't have my own website, or but I don't know how to set up XYZ, or but I don't want to be beholden to just

Matt: That is a lot of buts, you’re right.

Lauren: Right. Like there's always a... you know.

Matt: Single T, not two Ts.

Lauren: Correct.

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: Yeah. But there's always, there's always something. There's always something that - and it can be even the opposite direction. Like, I don't want to be limited to, like, just what you've provided here. I want to create something custom, or I want to be able to do some really like…

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Modular, creative, different things. And so I'm, I'm pretty sure this is going to be the episode where we dispel 95% of those buts, if not all of them.

Matt: I don’t know about dispel them, but, you know, help counter them and make people feel better about... you know, the buts are valid. That’s a weird statement.

Lauren: I will be clipping that for a soundbite, thank you so much.

Matt: But yes, the buts are valid. And so I don't necessarily want to dispel them in the way that I think people would typically use that word, but we definitely want to... We definitely want to call attention to them and confirm those are valid buts or fears, but there are very simple ways around those buts.

Lauren: That’s it.

Matt: Single T, not double T.

Lauren: Perfect.

Matt: Okay, enough about buts.

Lauren: Alright.

Matt: So, you know, we're going to talk about essentially four ways you can sell direct in various different fashions, from the easiest and most beginner level all the way up to like the most advanced, fully automated like, you know, technical supernova. And for each one we're going to talk about we're going to explain kind of what it is. Who or what it's best for, like the type of direct sales or the type of creator or what stage you're at. Some of the necessary sort of tech stack or things you would need to, to have or have a command of in order to do it. And then we'll talk about some of the advantages and, and sort of disadvantages or trade offs there.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: This is going to be, as always, kind of a high level summary, overview, introduction, whatever term you wanna, you want to choose there, for each of these. We do have so many resources available that'll let you dig deeper into learning more about them, how to set them up, what you need, whatever.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So I will make sure I have a bunch of resources linked in the show notes. If you hear something that you're like, ooh I like, I think that's going to solve the problem that I needed to solve. I'd like to learn more about that. Check the show notes, for sure. And if you don't see the answer to your question there, you can always reach out to us and we'll be happy to help. But we just we can't dig into the nitty gritty of every single one of these in this.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: So high level intro. And then let us know if you, if you have any questions or need more help.

[7:49] – Order Import Tool

Matt: So the first one is kind of the, the base level, the easiest. The most rudimentary, if you will. It's essentially, I hate to say this, but spreadsheet-based.

Lauren: I love, I love anything spreadsheet-based.

Matt: Well, yeah. And I think that's super easy for most people. And that's kind of how, how we developed the, the internal tool here at Lulu or what you would use to, to be able to facilitate this. And so if you are somebody who utilizes crowdfunding like Kickstarter and those types of things. Or you have a Patreon or some other subscription service you use, whether it's Ream, Patreon, Substack, it doesn't matter. Or you happen to have some other way that you're intaking, you know, orders. Like at an event, maybe you're literally like, taking orders down on a spreadsheet with people's names, addresses, and that they paid. There is a tool, there is a functionality on Lulu, within your Lulu account, called the Order Import tool. And all you literally do is upload this CSV, this spreadsheet and essentially we print and ship every line item in that. You know? So it's white labeled, fulfilled, like - and that's it, right? That's the easiest, most rudimentary way, partially manual, to just literally be able to, to utilize direct sales. Or, you know, crowdfunding as a form of direct sales as well. Right? Like Kickstarter, things like that. So. Being able to upload that, I think, it solves the problem of wanting to have a direct sales connection, but not wanting to utilize any of the other ways that we're going to talk about to do that.

Lauren: Yeah it's, it is still manual, like Matt said, but we're eliminating a big part of the time that goes into it.

Matt: Yup.

Lauren: So you're manually taking orders. But if you were going to do this, the really, really manual way you'd be manually taking these orders in whatever circumstance you're taking them in, and then one by one –

Matt: Yup.

Lauren: – either placing them and having Lulu or your POD provider dropship them, or you personally would be manually fulfilling them one at a time. And so this is –

Matt: That’s more common.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Like, back in the day before there was all this technology, you would have to order 5,000 copies of your book. They sit in your garage. We've talked about this before. And as you get orders you, you pick and pack and ship, you know, and that's all on you. The other one that you mentioned is you could go to your POD provider like Lulu and then hand enter each order separately, you know, one at a time. You would literally be sitting at your computer, depending on the number of orders you had for, you know, hours potentially. This way it kills all of that. It's essentially take your spreadsheet, upload it, and you're done. So yeah, this is really good for, again, crowdfunders, people who are taking orders at events.

Lauren: Preorders.

Matt: But it does necessitate - what’s that?

Lauren: Preorders.

Matt: It works for preorders as well. It does necessitate that you either have access and a command of Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. You know, somewhere a spreadsheet you can keep track of that. You obviously have to have a way to take payment from people. So whether you're doing cash only, good for you. Or, you know, you have some other way, a Stripe account or whatever, that you're taking payments from people, that's fine too. But. So again, it's fairly easy, fairly manual. Not complicated at all. And it really is a good way to, to kind of test the waters of direct sales without a huge investment.

Lauren: Yeah. I think that's actually the, the really attractive part of it is that it is virtually no setup. If that is - like, if it's something that you just want to test it out and see is it worth it for me to invest further into selling direct, or selling a book at all, or trying to automate whatever it is that I'm doing?

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: This is a great way to experiment with that. You, like Matt said, you literally just need like a basic working knowledge and access of how to fill out a spreadsheet. You can download a template, a CSV template, from your Lulu account so you know you have exactly all the information that you need in there. And then everything else is, is just kind of smooth sailing at that point.

Matt: Yeah. Again, the biggest advantages to using this, it's extremely easy to do. It is scalable. Because you're only limited by the number of line items in the spreadsheet. So, you know, technically you could upload a spreadsheet of hundreds, you know, potentially thousands of, of orders. You know, again, if it was a very successful Kickstarter, great. Good for you. Or you have a subscription service or, you know, database where you've got hundreds of subscribers, where you need to fulfill something monthly or quarterly or whatever. So it is scalable. It's obviously repeatable. And again, the trade offs we've already talked about, there's some manual effort there.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: So. And you have to have a way to process those payments.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: Right? Again, on Kickstarter that's already happening. But if you're selling at events or things like that, one would assume you have some sort of a Stripe account or something that –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – you’re using for payment processing.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: However, however you make it work, there are different ways that you can make it work, but it is a little bit more DIY –

Matt: Right.

Lauren: – than, than the rest of these that are in this episode.

Matt: That's right.

[13:33] – Direct Buy Button

Matt: The second one is... maybe you've tried this, maybe you haven't. But now you think you're ready to, to, to sell direct from other channels. Whether you have a blog or a website or a newsletter, you know, even your social media channels. You don't have a dedicated ecommerce storefront or dedicated page on your website or something for selling, but you really want to try direct sales. This next one is for you. It's still very low lift. And it's called a Direct Buy Button. So Lulu has a new feature, product, called the Direct Buy Button. And this essentially allows you to create a link from your book project in your Lulu account and put that buy button or link anywhere you want. And essentially when a user clicks on that, they're able to purchase your book.

Lauren: It's, it's having a custom cart experience without having a whole storefront built out. Which is... I'm going to say pretty cool. Because if we're going back to those early days buts of, of what... You know the, the number one hesitation that we get from people is but I don't have my own website. Or but I don't want to have to do all the management of my own storefront, my own website –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – my own ecommerce store, whatever it is. And, and we heard you. Okay.

Matt: Yeah. Again, you may only have one book out. Maybe you wrote a nonfiction book. That's it for now. Maybe forever. You don't want to go through the process of building out a website for it, or a dedicated storefront on Shopify or something for the one title, but you really need a quick, easy way to sell it direct so that you're still capturing customer data, you're still maximizing profits, and you're keeping that brand, sort of, identity and that customer journey, you know, within your control. This is the best thing for that. So, you know, again, other than having to set up your own Stripe sub account, which is easy, and you get walked through it during the Lulu process. Lulu basically handles everything else, you know what I mean? Like. So it's really easy for people who want to get a start in selling direct. But again, don't want to commit to full website builds. All you really need - Obviously you have to have a Lulu account. As you start to build out your first Direct Buy Button, you'll get walked through the Stripe sub account process, which is pretty easy. And then you just have to figure out where are you going to want to put the buy buttons. You know, in a newsletter, your social media channel, your LinkedIn, whatever. And just start testing where are you having the best success with it?

Lauren: I think that's probably - to me, and I'm sure there are a lot of a lot of different use cases for this. We've talked about this in other circumstances, where it's always really cool to see what creative ways people come up with to, to use a new product or a new feature that we put out. But for me, I think that of the things that makes this so cool is the fact that you can put it in places other than a website. So if you are somebody who... I mean, you know, we know people that are primarily newsletter. Like that's, that's what their main content channel is, is a newsletter. They might not really be driving a whole lot of traffic to a website.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And we know from experience and from stories from other creators, that it's really hard to get people to click on links in a newsletter, go to a website, and then take action on that website.

Matt: Right.

Lauren: So this kind of eliminates that step where now you can put something like this directly in your newsletter.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And that's really cool.

Matt: Yeah. Being able to do that and reap all the benefits of selling direct... I think is super cool, I agree. You still have not quite full control over the customer experience, but a, a great deal more than –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – you would if you were only using, you know, something like Order Import tool, or if you weren't selling direct at all. This is still a great, you know, again, stepping stone to get into a more fully direct approach. But again, you don't have to commit to something expensive. You don't have to, you know, lock into a plan with a site provider or anything like that. You don't have to worry about any of those things. So really is another easy way besides the Order Import tool or crowdfunding or things like that, where, where you can, you can try it out and... You know you're, you're virtually not out anything up front to try this. So it really is a risk free way to, to see if this works for your brand and for your book or books. It's really good if you've only got one or two titles, a couple of different titles maybe, and you can play with different types of links.

Lauren: You can have more than one.

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: So.

Matt: Yeah, absolutely.

Lauren: So you can have, if you do have a several on a page together that’s –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – that's totally fine. You can do that.

Matt: I will say that, you know, if you get more than a handful of them, it starts to get a little unwieldy.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: And you're gonna wanna be careful with that.

Lauren: But this is also - I mean, again, in the same way that, that we said the Order Import tool was a great way to experiment with just like, getting started with selling direct without really, really committing to it. This is a great way to do that too. If you're just testing the waters and you're like, okay I’m not, you know, I like the idea of it, but I'm not convinced that I'm going to be able to get my readers to come here instead of Amazon or –

Matt: Right.

Lauren: – or to buy directly from me. I would love a little bit more proof of concept before I invest in an annual Shopify subscription and and do all the work to set up a website or whatever.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: This is the way that you do that. This is the way that you can test the waters. Like explore that, that, get that proof of concept, and then say okay, now I'm going to build out the whole thing.

Matt: Yeah. Yep.

Lauren: Which is our next...

Matt: That's right, yeah.

[19:58] – Lulu Direct Ecommerce Plugins

Matt: If you've tried one or two of those ways we've already talked about. Or even if you haven't, but you're ready to, to have like a dedicated storefront or, you know, website. Or maybe you already have like a Shopify or a Wix or a WooCommerce. This next one is for you. This is, you know, now you're getting into like plugins and integrations. Now you're getting into a little more tech savvy approach. You're gaining more control over the customer experience. You're starting to reap more benefits of having that customer data by being able to plug in, you know, email providers and things like that to start to fully automate your marketing. So what we're talking about is using, you know, ecommerce plugins. Lulu Direct has plugins for Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce. These make it really easy for you to, to choose one of those providers. WooCommerce being the one if you already have a WordPress site or if you want to build a WordPress site. Which, you know, depending on who you are or your level of comfort and expertise, I would put that lower on the list than Shopify and Wix, but, you know, have at it. If you're somebody that really likes that control and already has experience of WordPress. But, you know, Shopify and Wix, you're going to pay anywhere from... I think $40 a month on the base plan to, depending on how expansive you want to get, a hundred and something dollars a month, to have a full fledged website with an ecommerce storefront built in, other pages if you want. Using the Lulu plugin it's, it's literally a one-click connection between a book in your Lulu account to a product page on your Shopify or Wix website. And you can be up and running selling books, you know, within a matter of couple of hours. Definitely less than a full day. And this is really great if you have a much larger catalog. Or again you really want to establish that fully direct connection.

Lauren: This is the... like, historically when we've talked about selling direct, this is usually the default that we're talking about when we've been talking about it. And I do definitely want to make sure that we're not discouraging anybody in any way. Cause we said, you know, entry level early stages, and now this is a little bit more robust. This is still very doable for the average person.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: You know, you do not need to be a dev wizard or tech expert or any kind of like, pro at any of this. You absolutely can go this route if you want to. And it's very accessible. We've seen people go from having no experience with any of this at all to, to selling an insane number of books and making –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – great profit from their Shopify stores or whatever. But it does take a little bit more setup than the previous two that we've talked about. So it is still totally doable. It's not crazy out of pocket. It's just a little bit more involved. We've done several episodes on setting up your own direct store. We've done recently the –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – the choosing the right ecommerce platform episode and the cost of selling direct and stuff like that. So.

Matt: This is the option too that probably comes with the most buts.

Lauren: Yes, I think so.

Matt: And again, they're all valid. You know, everybody's at a different stage in their journey or has a different comfort level with these types of technology or platforms. It's all understandable. And yes, they each have their drawbacks and limitations, but they also each other advantages. You know, the, the, the biggest buts for ecommerce plugins are working with a Shopify or a Wix or things. Like that is, you've graduated from having a platform take care of most things for you. You know? Like shipping and taxes and stuff like that to, you know, when you take more control over that, that customer experience and more of your profits, you also are having to take more control over, you know, some of those logistical and mechanical aspects of the sales process. So yeah, you will be responsible for things like shipping and understanding the mapping that goes into regions for, you know, US versus Europe or, you know, even more narrow than that. Taxes, you'll have to, you'll have to understand a little bit about that and how to collect it and when to collect it. The beauty of those platforms like Shopify and Wix, and WooCommerce or WordPress, is that they have a lot of plugins just to deal with those things.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Right? Some are free, some are percentage based, some are just a flat monthly fee. But again, it can be a very easy process to build, let's say a Shopify storefront, get a plugin to handle taxes for you. And VAT if you're selling, you know, outside of the US. Get a plugin to help with the shipping mapping. Or like, with Shopify, if you pay for your plan yearly, you'll get free live shipping rates built in, which handles most of that for you. So that's great. But again, you know, there are other ways around those things. So there are a lot of buts that come with ecommerce plugins and building, you know, stores on these platforms. But again, they're all surmountable. There's, there's nothing that's, you know - based on your comfort level. But, you know, I... I imagine there will be people that will probably never have an expansive catalog of books that could probably use the buy button for, you know, the bulk of their career.

Lauren: Absolutely.

Matt: As a creator, or an author, as a small publisher. You don't have to graduate up to a Shopify store or Wix or WooCommerce. That being said, I think a lot of people, depending on their, again, technical abilities or, you know, bank accounts, could skip that one altogether and go to the next one we're going to talk about. Which is, you know, a direct API connection. So.

[26:13] – Building Your Split-level House from the Ground Up

Lauren: I think this - sorry, I have a weird analogy in my head. I don't want to interrupt your flow though.

Matt: By all means.

Lauren: I already did.

Matt: I love weird analogies.

Lauren: Well so... which I'm also now, in this moment, panicking of is this a regional thing? I don't know. But, it's like a split level house. Right? Is that a thing that, that happens that happens in places other than the northeast?

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: I'm assuming so.

Matt: I don’t know if they call it that. But yeah.

Lauren: Sure. So when, when we talk to people, when we've talked about selling direct in the past, when people have approached us to learn more about selling direct the, the Lulu Direct plugins for Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, whatever, are kind of what people think of when they think of selling direct.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And, and that's where you said that, you know, this is where there's probably the most buts, hesitations, roadblocks, issues, whatever. So if the entry way to your split level house is selling direct with your own ecommerce platform storefront, the one level down, that is... maybe this is easier, and less customizable but easier, is the Direct Buy Button.

Matt: You putting them in the basement?

Lauren: Yeah. The, the basement’s always like the hangout spot. That's the cool spot.

Matt: I know I said I liked weird analogies, but I don't... Okay.

Lauren: Well.

Matt: Keep going.

Lauren: And then upstairs is the, the slightly harder, slightly higher level. What about just going up and down stairs? It's not they’re in the basement, they’re - it's, it's a lot easier to go down a flight of stairs than it is to go up a flight of stairs.

Matt: What if we do this? What if we say... Order Import tool and Direct Buy Button. So crowdfunding, subscription, and, you know, here's a Direct Buy Button just using your newsletter or whatever, is like you're still living with your parents.

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, building your own, you know, ecommerce storefront using plugins, things like that. You're now in college. You've got your own apartment, you've got your own place. And then the API is like you bought your first home.

Lauren: You are building your home from the ground up.

Matt: Fair enough. You're building your first home.

Lauren: Nailed it.

Matt: Is that better?

Lauren: Perfect.

Matt: Yeah, the split level thing...

Lauren: I - made perfect sense to me.

Matt: It does. But yeah, I don't know. It's more appealing if I look at it in graduated phases of housing.

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: Versus just different levels of one home. But, you know what? Both are fine.

Lauren: Please feel free to comment –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – with whatever analogy makes the most sense to you. Or, or just come up with a better one.

Matt: Or that they’re both just stupid. Either way. Yeah.

Lauren: Well, I mean, obviously.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Correct us.

Matt: Anyways. Well, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to stand up for mine even more because I do think you could go... Could you go from your parents house to building your own first home?

Lauren: Absolutely. I think so, because I think a lot of people, especially –

Matt: That’s one hell of an overachiever, but good for them.

Lauren: Well, I think that especially a lot of people in my generation moved back home after college to save money. Like to, you know, I want to pay off my student loans. I don't want to be spending a lot of money on rent. I am going to, you know –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – by the grace of my parents move back home, save money for a few years, and then have enough downpayment to, to buy a house, or buy a plot of land, or build a house. So I think, I think that's very realistic.

Matt: I'm having premonitions of my kids never moving out. And it's starting to worry me.

Lauren: I'm sorry. I can't help you with that. I absolutely moved back home.

Matt: Alright. Well.

[29:56] – Lulu Print API

Matt: Fourth and final stage –

Lauren: Alright.

Matt: – of your, your creator, author journey or, you know.

Lauren: The one, the one where we're building the house from the ground up.

Matt: The one where we’re building the house from the ground up. Or, or you're going for - You know, I would consider this, again, probably the, the upper level of direct sales. It does require, you know, either a little more knowledge or the ability to work with a developer. But the use of an API –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: – like Lulu's Direct Print API. Like, being able to plug in something like an API to your website is, is a game changer when you know how to use it, and you can take full advantage of all of its benefits and features. Right? But having, having an API installed means you're not really bound to any of the limitations you might have with the Shopify plugin or, you know. So with an API you can do full customization on a per book basis, you know? You might want to set something up so that every order your, your reader, your customer has the ability to customize maybe the first page, the intro page of the book, you know? Or customize it as a gift to somebody else. You could do that with a print API. You can you can do all kinds of really cool personalization and customizations that you can't do when you're using, you know, a Direct sort of plugin, or even a Direct Buy Button or things like that.

Lauren: And that works in a variety of different ways too.

Matt: Sure.

Lauren: Not just in terms of the content of the book, but it also you can, you can be more custom with the shopping experience –

Matt: Oh yeah.

Lauren: – with the customer experience, the user experience on your page. If you already have a website built out but you are not hosting it on WordPress or Wix or Shopify, and you don't want to have to switch your whole website.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: You can use the API plugin to design a custom that builds right into your existing page. Even if you're not doing something like custom or modular book content –

Matt: Right.

Lauren: – but customizing the experience –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – itself.

Matt: There

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: – there's a lot of creators and businesses that already have extensive websites built, you know, for whatever their service or product or whatever that might be. And they need something that, that is literally just gonna work on the backend so that they don't have to make any front end changes that they don't want to. So plugging in the Print API is literally just the backend fulfillment piece, you know, the production and fulfillment. You know, at the creator level, you can take somebody like Justin Moore, who already had a beautiful, robust website with lots of different, you know, entry points and funnels for, for how somebody came in and, you know, where he was trying to get them to. And, you know, to have to do something like plugin a Shopify plugin or something like that would have really created a disjointed experience. And for somebody like Justin, that would have been a deal breaker. But being able to just plug the API in to the experience that already existed, you know, create some other things for the actual, you know, check out component. You know, when you're purchasing the book and things like that. That allowed him to maintain 100% continuity between what he had and then the ability to now sell this book directly from his website. And it, it looks beautiful.

Lauren: Yup.

Matt: And if he wanted to he could, again, personalize and create modular content, you know, based on who's buying the book or what industry vertical they're in or why they're buying it, you know, what are they hoping to get out of it, things like that. So the API really does... And for a business, you know, or a publisher, somebody with a massive catalog of publications, whether it's books or magazines or a mix of all different types of products. Again, the API gives you that full flexibility and freedom to, to have those experiences set up however you want them for your customer. And the APIs literally just transmitting the orders to be produced and fulfilled. All white labeled, by the way.

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: So again, it's the ultimate in flexibility and freedom. Full customer data comes to you. Full profit realization. It is the pinnacle of, of building your own home on your land. Nothing rented. To take it back to our favorite metaphor... Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: It's my favorite product.

Lauren: It is very, very cool. It is a very - And we've seen some really, really incredible stores and creators and businesses and entrepreneurs use this in ways that have been just genuinely inspiring. There is the counterpoint of the more customization, the more robust the features, all that, the more setup it takes. The more experience, the more knowledge –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – access to dev tools or somebody who actually knows what they're doing. This is not a plug and play experience.

Matt: That’s right.

Lauren: This is - yeah.

Matt: This is not for beginners. It's - this isn't even really for intermediates. Like

Lauren: Right.

Matt: If you're at the upper band of the intermediate, like about to cross over into advanced, then yes.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: But again APIs not for the weak of heart. It's not for somebody that doesn't know what an API is necessarily. Unless, again, you have the budget to just pay somebody to do this for you. If you can pay somebody to integrate the, the API for you, and build out the necessary components of your site, then great. Like.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: You know, that's what you're going to get is what we just described, a fully customizable experience where, you know again, you're realizing all of the benefits and not really sharing those with, with any single third party.

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, go back to the building a house analogy. Depending on, on what kind of expert versus how much budget you have, you might be the person that all you did was bought the land and you went to an architect and said I have an idea, can you design the house?

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And then I'm gonna hire a bunch of professionals to build this for me. Technically, it's your land, and you came up with the idea, but you outsourced the resources that you need. Or maybe you built some of it on your own. You can build a foundation, you can build the walls and the roof, but you're not an electrician, that you're just hiring somebody to come in and do the wiring for you, or the plumbing for you. Or you built the foundation, but you're not an interior designer, and someone else is going to come do the graphic design for you. Whatever. Whatever it is.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: There's... you know, this is very DIY, very customizable

Matt: You like my analogy better.

Lauren: I do like your analogy.

Matt: You're really –

Lauren: I still like my split level –

Matt: – you’re really running with it.

Lauren: Well, it works with the API very well. I will say that. I'm a little... I'm less enthusiastic about the living at home with your parents part –

Matt: You can't take it back now.

Lauren: – but. Well.

Matt: I mean, a lot of people would be less enthusiastic about –

Lauren: Well.

Matt: – living at home with their parents, but that's a conversation for another day.

Lauren: I mean, I'm not shaming or shading anybody that, that does that. That would be very, very hypocritical of me. But I am grateful to be in a position in my life now where I am alone in my apartment with just me and my cat.

Matt: I’m not, I’m not gonna touch that.

Lauren: Complete creative control over that space.

Matt: Okay. Yep. Again, just very quickly, because there are a bunch of buts associated with this one too. Yes, once again, this is for the advanced. This is not something where it's going to be plug and play. But it will, on the spectrum of the four that we've talked about, give you the most flexibility and freedom. And again, I think it's probably our, our most favorite option you know, especially for an advanced creator, business, publisher. We have users of all different walks of life and levels of, of business using our APIs. From single, you know, creator slash entrepreneurs with one product or a few products, all the way up to some very large, enterprise name businesses and brands that use our API to deliver their, their printed content. So, it is a great product. It's very flexible.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: And a lot of fun. So.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

[38:18] – Exploring Different Solutions at Different Stages

Lauren: I think there's also... I don't, I don't want to have presented this in a way that, that people think that these are siloed in, in any way. I think there are –

Matt: No.

Lauren: – ways that you can use them together.

Matt: Together. It's definitely a graduation as well –

Lauren: Yes.

Matt: – like we talked about. But yeah, you can use them together. That's, that's a good point.

Lauren: Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe just while you're getting your API storefront or your ecommerce storefront set up, while you're waiting for that to get set up and everything squared away there, you're taking preorders and going to use the Order Import tool to fulfill those preorders. Or you're using the buy button as a supplement to

Matt: In your newsletter or something

Lauren: In your newsletter.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And then like the, the ads that you have running are sending people to your website

Matt: Right.

Lauren: – but your newsletter and social media have the buy button. Like, these are moving pieces that can work together

Matt: Sure.

Lauren: – in tandem with each other. They're not - as always, you do not have to choose. In the same way that you do not have to choose between selling direct and selling through third party retailers, you also don't have to choose just one solution. You can pick and choose what works best for you and how they work best with each other.

Matt: Yeah, it's a good point.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah, I agree with that. There's obviously some, some fairly popular alternatives that we haven't named when it comes to plug and play solutions that are out there right now, especially in the, the world of ecommerce. There's a lot of them. We do have people that, that like to use other solutions like ThriveCart and stuff like that. You can, you can still use Lulu with some of those. You can build, you know, a zap through Zapier to make that work. The most popular way people are doing this right now, especially with, with our API, is using things like Claude Code or building an MCP to connect your experience to our, our back end via the APIs. So, you know, even if you're not or you didn't hear, you know, something in the ecommerce realm that works in lines of what you're using, they're still ways to do it. And we always have people, you know, here that are, that are happy to talk about it and help you through that. But.

Lauren: Yeah, these are the, the bridge solutions.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: I think. So I think it was just important to mention them at least a little bit. I mean, and we've talked about some of these in the past as like, there are people that have used Zapier to connect their Etsy store to –

Matt: Right? Yeah.

Lauren: – to a Lulu as a, a Lulu print solution.

Matt: Yup.

Lauren: So it's not - which is not like entirely selling direct. It's not entirely automated fulfillment, but it is in the, in the realm of that. We've talked about that before. We talked about, I haven't checked this recently, but the last time that I was looking into it, ThriveCart actually has documentation on their website for how to plug ThriveCart into the Lulu API.

Matt: Yes.

Lauren: As a subscription tool.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So...

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: You know, that's on their end, not on our end, but they, they have recommended ways to do that.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: So, you know, those are solutions. If any of the things that we said in here you were, you're still like well doesn't solve the problem that I'm looking for, or that I have, my main but out of all of this, maybe one of those will.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point too. You know, and on the front of maybe not having all of the, the technical ability to be able to do some of these things. Again, there's no shortage of ways to find help. A lot of these sites, they have their own marketplace for, you know, developers, consultants, things like that. You can go to somewhere like Fiverr, for example, and there are people already on there advertising other services where they're, they already know the Lulu ecosystem, and they can do some of this work for you on a contract basis. I would imagine Upwork and 99designs, potentially, same thing. So yeah, I think there's solutions at every stage, at every phase of the way to be able to do this. And again, you know, this episode really was to take a step back. And for all those people that maybe have heard us talk about direct sales on the many, many occasions and just kind of felt like they still weren't ready for or just wasn't something they were capable of or could afford to do, or, you know, those types of things. We wanted to make sure that, you know, everybody understood that it doesn't matter where you're at. If you're ready to try direct sales, or level up your, your direct sales game if you're already trying it, like, there is something for every stage of the creator journey. Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

[43:15] – Episode Wrap Up

Matt: I don't really know that there's anything else I wanted to dive into with this one. We start getting any deeper and now we're repeating episodes that people can go find.

Lauren: Which I will, I will make sure I have those linked in the show notes. So –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – definitely check the show notes on this one. I'll link all kind of resources in there. But yeah, I mean, as, as we've proved quite often over the last few years - you know, we're coming up on three years. It's almost three years. But we - this is something we could talk about all day. So.

Matt: We generally do.

Lauren: We, we generally do. Whether or not we're recording. But I'm sure we will, we will dive into more on each of these in future episodes. We have in the past. If you have any questions about any of them, we'd love to hear it.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: We'd love to help you figure out which of these is the best option for you. Which of these is the best option for you to grow into, maybe. Help you get set up with that, help you get started with that.

Matt: Yeah. Hopefully the audio is fine and people aren't too put off by our environment, but.

Lauren: It's, it's a work in progress, much like all of our creator journeys.

Matt: That's true.

Lauren: So. Yeah, sorry... I guess not sorry in advance. Sorry retroactively, if it does not sound or look the way that it normally does. We will be working on that throughout the next few episodes in the next few weeks.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: And we promise we will get it to a place that we all are just thriving. Absolutely.

Matt: That's a good word.

Lauren: I love that word.

Matt: Alright. Anything else you want to say before we close it out?

Lauren: No? Thanks for joining us in our new office space. That's exciting. Half of our team hasn't even seen this office space yet.

Matt: No, a good portion of our team has not.

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah. So congrats on the first look. I guess that might be a... I mean, I can't imagine why you wouldn't be watching these episodes. But if you are watching, thanks for getting a sneak peek at our new space.

Matt: Yeah the most boring corner of it, by the way.

Lauren: I know. We’re, we're taking recommendations - not recommendations. We're taking suggestions for how to decorate. My only, my only vote is that we're not putting a purple wall behind us.

Matt: You mean for the podcast.

Lauren: Right.

Matt: I was gonna say, I'm not taking recommendations for how to decorate my office.

Lauren: Oh, no. And I know you're not.

Matt: But for –

Lauren: This is, this is Matt’s office

Matt: – for podcasting, yeah.

Lauren: But. Yes. But yeah. Yeah.

Matt: Sure. Why not?

Lauren: Why not?

Matt: Alright.

Lauren: Let us know. You can always leave a comment. Leave a review. Like and subscribe. You can comment on YouTube episodes and on Spotify episodes. Or you can email us at podcast@lulu.com.

Matt: Yep.

Lauren: And until then, same time next week?

Matt: We'll see.

Lauren: Alright. Thanks for listening.

Matt: Later.