Taking school on the road is one of the great perks about homeschooling. Nothing can match being out in the real world, learning about something from an expert who lives and breathes the subject. We’ve met some pretty great ones through the years, but last week we met a bunch of them all at once.
We visited Lulu.com in Raleigh, the first open publishing company. Lulu provides a wide variety of services, including publishing print and digital books to creating book ‘kids’ to help kids become published authors. We hoped to find out exactly how books get published, and we learned that – and much, much more.
Nestled on a busy street near a college campus, Lulu’s home matches the people who work there. It’s a mix of modern and renovation, full of light and energy.
Our tour began in a conference room with juice and doughnuts. Many of the kids were won over right there. To make it even better, a Foosball table and basketball game rounded out the room. Lulu values creativity and isn’t afraid to play when inspiration is needed. How much fun must it be to work there?
Glenn Hunt, senior technical writer for Lulu, kicked off our tour by sharing the history of the company and the way that this open publishing system works. Lulu prints on demand, so there is no stash of books waiting to be sold anywhere – instead, they work with printers around the world to get your book to you soon after it’s ordered. Their website allows you to plan every aspect of the books that you publish so that you retain complete control over your work – as well as 80% of the profit. Wow!
Next we took off for a tour of the building and each department. We learned about the complexities involved in running an international business from a financial standpoint, about the creative services offered by Lulu, about customer service, new products, and computer engineering.
After our tour, we headed back to the conference room to prepare our own stories. Lulu was super generous and gave each student a publishing kit. Several employees came out to help the students plan their stories. They talked about characters and plot, about storyboards and flow. The kids loved it!
There’s nothing like being inspired to write by people who publish books every day.
Since leaving Lulu, I’ve heard that several of these students want to grow up to work at Lulu. They were impressed by the creativity and teamwork. Several more are hard at work creating stories and can’t wait to see the finished product.
Our visit to Lulu was excellent. They went above and beyond the call of duty to teach us about the publishing world. The staff at Lulu planned our visit with exacting detail, and I can only expect that they put the same care and attention into their work.
Thank you, Lulu, for setting such a great example of innovative professionals – and for opening your doors to our group. You gave our students a fabulous experience – and great lessons we couldn’t learn from our classrooms.
To learn more about publishing with Lulu, click here.
