Lulu creators have until July 19 or, er, September 19 to move or lose their digital projects (even eBooks!)

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I feel like I need to keep covering this story since it seems like no one else is. Here’s the official announcement to creators that Lulu sent out at 3 AM this morning.

In our mission to ensure creators have access to the best tools and resources to help them sell more content, we must retire certain products and services that have not proven to be as popular with our community of customers as we initially thought they’d be. As a result, we will no longer be offering your Multimedia for sale on Lulu.com.

You’ll still be able to access your project(s) under your “My Lulu” tab, make revisions, and save any changes to your computer until July 19, 2011. We still see the value in these works and want you to share them with the world, so please read on for detailed suggestions on other options available to you. But to be clear, as of September 19, 2011, your project(s) will no longer appear in your project list and customers will no longer be able to purchase these titles from the Lulu Marketplace.

While we no longer support the above product types, we are committed to providing ever more dynamic ways to help you sell more of your content through Lulu. And we encourage you to convert your project into a multimedia ePub file through the Lulu eBook wizard. ePub formatted eBooks have become the universal standard for mobile devices owned by millions of customers all over the world and are a great way to get your digital content to reach a larger audience. Learn more about how to convert your project to a multimedia ePub in the Lulu Forums (http://www.lulu.com/help/sunset_faq). Otherwise, feel free to try the following channel:

Digital River

For more information, please visit the Lulu Blog. We have been proud to be a part of the publishing process for your titles and greatly appreciate your contributions to our catalogue. We hope you’ll consider us for any of your print or eBook needs in the future as we continue to help a new generation of creators bring their content and expertise to their customers quicker and easier than ever before.

Best,

Lulu Enterprises, Inc.

Well… that… clears things right up…?

The only thing I feel like I learned from this was that even eBooks aren’t safe unless they are converted to ePub which is something a lot of people probably wouldn’t have realized otherwise. But what’s with the two very different deadlines? Which one is the real one?