Blurb Books - A destination for your photos

I have always liked the idea of making a photo book, but I have heard negative stories about the quality of some online printing services. Blurb was recommended to me by a fellow photographer; he also mentioned there was a 20% off promotion on all new orders. Without delay I downloaded the free book creation software, BookSmart, and placed my order.

The book came within a week and it was carefully packed in strong cardboard.

I was pleasantly surprised that the book was packed in bubble wrap for extra protection.

After I ripped off the shrink wrap I was impressed with the quality finish of the hard back cover.


The picture below is what the copyright page looks like. I was free to customise this page, so I added my copyright details and a picture of myself. However Blurb will add their logo on this page and the last page of the book; there is an option to have their logo removed to use your own, but this comes at a price which varies depending on the book size ordered.


I was really amazed by the quality of the printing; the full bleed (the ones printed to the edge) pages were the most impressive. I opted to pay extra for the premium paper which features a "100-pound text silk-finish"; I can confirm that the pages are so thick that sometimes I think I am turning two pages instead of one.


The pages that are not full bleed can have a header and a footer; I chose to have the book title and page numbers respectively.


This is a macro shot of one of pictures in the book; this should give you an idea of the image quality of the printing. Remember the viewing distance of a book is not four inches :)


My wife recently bought a new oak book shelf that I plan to fill up with many more books from Blurb. Below you can see that the title and author is printed on the spine of the book; this is only available if the book is at least 80 pages.


Tips:

• Before completing your order check your headers and footers for mistakes; they like to disappear when you fiddle around with different layouts; reapplying your theme should fix this.
  
• Make sure none of your images have important details on the edges if you use full bleed.
  
• Check your book as many times as you can to avoid mistakes.
• Order a book over 80 pages to get text printed on the spine.
• Blurb price their books by a range of page counts in 40 page increments. Therefore do not waste your money and order an 81 page book because that will cost the same amount as a 120 page book. Instead be a harsh editor and delete a page and save money.
• Look out for offers to save money on the book price, shipping or both.
  
• Don't crop too tight when processing your images to ensure you have options when placing them in your desired layout.