"Your Lulu order has shipped..."

I received an email from Lulu this morning confirming that my book has been shipped. This was a lot quicker than I was expecting, although I am still unclear exactly how long I can expect it to take and where its coming from (US or UK). Lulu suggests 10-15 business days, but it could be up to 30. (Why? Do they bring it across the sea by coracle????) But anyway, the fact that it has shipped appears to be a good sign. Apparently I would have heard by now if there were any major problems, because having purchased the Global Distribution option, it is a much more professional service and the printers are more exact over margins, spacing, layout etc, returning the upload to the author to sort out any problems before printing. In theory, any mistakes I might find when the preview copy arrives should be minor ones and easily corrected.

Global Distribution, for those of you who are interested in publishing through Lulu, means that the book will be assigned an ISBN immediately, will be included in the Books in Print bibliographic database in addition to the Lulu website and will be listed with Ingram Book Company and in the UK through Bertrams and Gartners.

So far so good.....!