Blurb fan?

[timmy]

I'm not a photographer. I'm an illustrator. But I find so many useful tips here.

Anyway, a niece of ours wanted to do something special for her parents 25th wedding anniversary. She asked me if I could make a story book for them. So I did. I got her to choose some of her favorite family photos and a couple of stories she remembers to incorporate in the book.

I uploaded the book June 20th. My niece purchased the next day. Today she phoned to tell me they arrived. So that's 2 weeks from upload to delivered.

She told me they look better than she imagined they would. I'll see them on Saturday but mine may come in this week. I ordered one in their basic paper to compare to the premium paper my niece ordered.

You can view the first half of the book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/515920/d80aeaa8d1811cc1879382d27af286a9. The back half of the book is the same story from the other point of view and is meant to be read by turning the book over and reading from the back.

[timmy]

Wed, July 8: received copy of the book from Blurb with their basic paper. Printed well. I couldn't visualize how small 7"X7" is. With Blurb you have to use all the pages within a price range that you can to get your money's worth. For 20-40 pages of interior pages it's about $13 soft cover, $25 hard cover. Add a few dollars for premium paper. I'll see the hardcover/premium paper on saturday.

[robertwatcher]

I received my copy of your book today. The quality looks pretty nice (MINE WAS ON PREMIUM PAPER)  - and amazing having a book printed and delivered that quickly.

[robertwatcher]

One thing that I noticed with children playing with their books last night - - - many were the same small size as your 7 " book and many had only 15 or 20 or at least relatively few pages - - - but all were hard cover and looked far more substantial than the softcover book that I received of yours. I don't mind it and neither does Anne, but I wonder whether limited books with that few pages to a Hard Cover design would be a better option? Don't know - just a suggestion. My 80 page vendor book is quite thin also, but on par with my many photography books that run around 100 pages - so I don't mind the soft cover of that size, but if I make up a 40 page book of some of my content, I will probably do the hard cover thing.      

[timmy]

Yah, I agree.

When I was making the book, I wasn't making it based on how many pages I could have done in blurb within one price point. I only wanted to 'draw' that many pages and my neice only sent me 9 photos.  We actually could have filled up the centre of the book with more family photos.

If I use blurb again I'll make use of the full 40 pages. It'll be wonderful and you'll have to wait at least 5 years for it to be done.

By the way, I'm still waiting for the LULU book. I actually ordered it first. I noticed their hardcovers work out about the same price as Blurb. So it's not a matter of cost but quality.

[timmy]

Had the big anniversary party on the weekend. Hardcover looks great. Everybody was suprised and impressed. They all wanted to know how we did this.

Didn't notice a huge difference with Blurb's premium paper. Amanda got her parents the hardcover and everbody else the softcover books.

Some comments were:
"This would be a great idea for wedding favours"
"This could be used for promotion"

to see half the book- http://www.blurb.com/books/766132

ps- Still waiting for LULU book!

[timmy]

The book from lulu came in yesterday.

I don't think photographers would like the quality. Their lettering comes out good but the pictures don't have good colour density. They look grainy. It might be fine for what I want to do. But as a promo tool, it almost looks like it could have been done on your colour lazer printer.

Lulu offers some larger sizes for about the same cost (Blurb's book looks tiny). I think for b/w comic books it would be a good choice.

With Lulu my full bleed pages got trimmed funny, so that there are some pages with an eighth of an inch white edge (top and side). But, maybe I didn't set it up right. Blurb has nicer book making software package.

In the picure it looks like the blurb book has white edges too, but their covers curl so you're seeing the inside. Lulu's covers don't curl.