Just when I was becoming anxious that I would not be able to get an interview or speak with someone from Lulu I searched Dan London after reading several of his posts and many of his comments on Twitter I thought it very necessary to get a hold of him. On his website I looked for his contact info. In contacts it reads: Please send a message via Twitter (if you do not have a Twitter account, you should) or simply leave a message on any post in the comments section.
For the sake of an interview I made feeble attempts to figure out how I get Twitter to work and finally tweet Dan saying, okay, I'm here, could you please email me, I'm lost in Twitter (but...more direct than that. 140 character limit and all).

Dan is the Lulu's Director of Online Marketing. A pretty title that doesn't really tell you much about what Dan does, and I can't truly tell you that either. In any case, he certainly helped me get to know a little bit more about Lulu.

Firstly, I wanted to know about the blogs since so many had asked during my presentation:

We found that not many Lulu users were using them. The functions were not as comprehensive as what was available outside of Lulu. We allow users to import their own blogs via an RSS feed and felt that was a better option for them. We also had a huge issue with spammers using the blog functionality.

In addition Lulu is currently revamping storefronts (currently there are only 3 designs I believe).

When asking Dan how he has seen the Lulu Community options used he responded

we have quite a bit of forum traffic. most of the lulu users "congregate" there, I don't think that there are many places on the web that all types of self-pub authors come together and talk about issues. our forums bring together all types of writers, photogs, etc. and allows them to discuss issues that impact them all.

Lorilei: Do you see/know of users taking these connections outside of Lulu?
[...]
we do. there are author meet-ups around the country. lots of lulu authors get together and discuss writing and also how they market their books and issues that effect them.
there have been a few in the UK as well

(For instance I know Dawson connected and did a book signing with another author at their local library together.)

Dan noted the Lulu Book Review (mentioned in previous posts and linked to the side) but they are not interested in speaking with me at this time.

Dan planned and launched the LuluBlog and explained its purpose and function to me.

I wanted a site that we could update easily and offered a bit more functionality that we currently had on Lulu.com at that point. Also, having it be its own URL, we could use it for SEO. until then, we really didn't have a blog team or anyone posting regularly. I wanted to mimic what dell was doing with their customer facing blog. The main goal was to inform our users and also use the blog to promote Lulu. I try to write posts on how to use social networking to promote books, but I seem to be in an author interview kick. which isn't bad, as it gets people excited
[...]
Lorilei: What do you mean/see that makes you say "it gets people excited"

people like to get attention. lulu once had author's pictures on the homepage. but we moved away from that. using the blog to focus on lulu authors kind of allows us to bring back that feature.

We got into a discussion about social networking which is best to crop straight from the transcript.

LoriLei: So, you mentioned social networking to promote books. What tools have you seen used?

Dan: twitter, friendfeed, plurk, stumbleupon, digg, delicious
twitter is really useful

Lorilei: what have you seen happening on/with twitter?

Dan: the use of it has been huge. authors generally share their content via their twitter friends and that link gets passed around. We see a ton of lulu users taking advantage of facebook as well to promote their work


Lorilei: Do you find this use directed by suggestions/posts on the Lulu Blog, or cropping up on its own?

Dan: I think a number of users have taken our advice, but lots of people have begun using social networking on their own. self-pub authors know they need to do everything and anything to promote their work and twitter, etc has given them a better way to do so. They can cast a wider net

Speaking to the marketing world, I wanted to know what Dan was seeing between offline/online marketing (as his LinkedIn tells me that he started out with marketing offline).

Dan: Offline marketing is dwindling. The cost vs return can't rival what online can. look at newspapers. the online ads on some newspaper's websites earn enough money to keep the print in business.
a person with a small budget can compete now.

online marketing, that can be highly targeted, is the future
look at facebook
you can target by age, location and interests.
you know exactly who will see your ad


Lorilei: So are we talking sort of niche marketing? Or is there another term for this shift?

Dan: online marketing can be targeted better and the return on investment can be determined easier. we tag all our online campaigns and can track down the exact revenue from each click

There is much more I'd like to put in this post, but the important information is here. As I was wrapping up our interview I asked Dan if there was anything he'd like to add that seemed important or interesting.

The most successful authors are the ones that market themselves. They know their audience. They know who will read the book and who is their target market. we try to give them all the tools they need so they can reach them effectively.

Social networking has become so important and the authors who use it effectively are successful.

Thanks again, Dan!

Dan London
Lulu Blog
Lulu.com

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