blurb.com - absolutely FAB photobooks

[NettieB]

we are talking professional quality, coffee table I am a professional quality, photobooks, IMAO.

blurb.com

Cousins, who are quite good amateur photogs, had several of the hardcover with dust jacket books when we met up over Christmas and the weight of the paper, the vibrancy of the photos, the quality of the binding was equal to any book I have purchased from any retail bookseller.

And the prices are reasonable - or at least in line with Shutterfly.

It's only their sizing is wonky when you start thinking digi scrapping, unless you spring for the 12x12 book! But do go check them out . . .

 

[Sarah8914]

Really? that's good to hear.

I use blurb, for my blog book... every year... and i absolutely love it for that. But I felt like my photos were extremely grainy (I keep them small though--should that help it or make it worse?). Anyway, i do agree binding and everything is great though. I'd love to see an actual photobook, as opposed to my blog book that is 97% journaling.

 

[NettieB]

Sarah, think perhaps - and we need Sheri here, ha! - that it's ppi? web is usually 72 and blurb wants the books at 300ppi minimum?

 

[Sarah8914]

Hmm, maybe, i never really thought about what ppi it is since it just slurps the blog. that would make sense if they condense the pictures when "slurping." I'm going to go see what I can find right now about it!

 

[Stacey42]

I used blurb to print my Project 365 books for 2008 and 2009. I really love the look of them. Very professional look. High quality paper. The photo look wonderful. Very clear & crisp. I get the hard bound image wrap covers & they look & feel wonderful. I had the landscape size last year 10x8. I used their software to assemble the photo pages & dropped a layout in for each new month. This year because I had more layouts to include I went with the 7x7. Love the look and feel of it but it's small. But that is entirely my problem for not being able to think spatially. I have a couple books from VioVio & Inkubook that are 8.5x8.5 and I was thinking it would just be a bit small than them, but 7x7 is significantly smaller than 8.5x8.5.

They can be a little spendy. My new book is 138 pages and was $42 plus shipping. At 12x12 it would have been $103. Last year's was around $55 but it has stood up to many viewing and much handling by little boys.

My review of last year's book and some photos are on my blog here
http://www.havocandmayhem.com/2009/01/2008-project-365-book-arrived.html

 

[gracielou]

Really? that's good to hear.

I use blurb, for my blog book... every year... and i absolutely love it for that. But I felt like my photos were extremely grainy (I keep them small though--should that help it or make it worse?). Anyway, i do agree binding and everything is great though. I'd love to see an actual photobook, as opposed to my blog book that is 97% journaling.

I had no idea you could do a blog book. I would love to have something like that. I am a huge blogger and I have always wanted a way to somehow preserve all of it for my children one day. What blogging service do you use and is it pretty easy to do a blog book? I have looked on the site but it still is not completely clear to me how it works for your blog.

 

[Teresa]

I saw a Blurb book for the first time in person last week and had been meaning to rave about it here. The quality was fantastic and I'll definitely be using them for Ella's first year/P365 book. The prices are a bit higher than some other places, but of those I've seen in print, this was my favorite!

 

[joelsgirl]

Very cool. Thanks for the review!

 

[Sarah8914]

I had no idea you could do a blog book. I would love to have something like that. I am a huge blogger and I have always wanted a way to somehow preserve all of it for my children one day. What blogging service do you use and is it pretty easy to do a blog book? I have looked on the site but it still is not completely clear to me how it works for your blog.

Oh yes, it's amazing, fabulous and super easy!!! you just download "booksmart" and slurp your blog. I used blogger, but it works for these too: Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and WordPress.com.

The only thing I don't love is that each entry gets it's own page so I have to spend hours cutting and pasting to condense it, but I'm sure it'd be like that anyway.

Look around a little and see what you figure out. I actually did a mini mini tutorial/help thing on my family blog (which I don't share), but I could probably copy and paste it for you. Probably not tonight, but I could for sure tomorrow.

 

[gracielou]

Oh yes, it's amazing, fabulous and super easy!!! you just download "booksmart" and slurp your blog. I used blogger, but it works for these too: Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and WordPress.com.

The only thing I don't love is that each entry gets it's own page so I have to spend hours cutting and pasting to condense it, but I'm sure it'd be like that anyway.

Look around a little and see what you figure out. I actually did a mini mini tutorial/help thing on my family blog (which I don't share), but I could probably copy and paste it for you. Probably not tonight, but I could for sure tomorrow.

Thanks so much! I think I am figuring it out. It is taking forever because I am doing each entry custom so that I can add in my pictures where I want them and use my own fonts and such but I am loving it. It was just what I was looking for. Once I got in there and started playing around it is pretty easy to work with and I am very techi challenged so that is saying alot LOL!