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A few times in posts over the last few months, I have mentioned my Blurb book "2008 in Pictures" and finally I've taken some shots to show it to you. I've chosen to show some pages which have images that have appeared on my photostream but what is hard to show is just how much of a quality feel this book has.
If you've been wondering about whether to give Blurb a shot, forget reading the rest of my waffle. Just go to www.blurb.com/ register and download the Booksmart software and create a book. It's easy to do, the prices are very good, the quality is excellent, the customer service is superb (and I know!) and I cannot recommend them highly enough.
This is my second Blurb book, I created my first one last summer with pictures from my family holiday and was hugely impressed. I did a 10x7 inch hardback and all went without a hitch - the quality was excellent. 2008 in Pictures was to be the full-on test of Blurb and I chose the behemoth 13x11 inch hardback format. I picked out 709 of my best photos from 2008, I decided on a structure for the book (I did it on paper and found it a useful exercise) and then started to format and layout the photos and write the text. Three weeks or so and 308 pages later I had a book. I then put the whole thing to one side and left it for two weeks. Picking the project up after the break, I spotted a number of small mistakes, fixed them and then uploaded the entire thing to Blurb (twice - all though that was my fault!), paid my money over and sat back to wait.
Two weeks later my book arrived, the weight and feel were outstanding, the print quality superb but unfortunately the spine collapsed the moment I opened the book. Blurb customer support asked for some details and pictures and later that day I got an email telling me that they'd re-print it and I could keep or recycle the broken book. Unfortunately the second and third attempts arrived in an identical condition, each time customer support gave me the same message and ordered re-prints. I must confess I was starting to lose all hope but after the third failure from the printer in the Netherlands they said that they'd get one of their other printers to print it and send it. The book from the San Francisco printer had exactly the same great quality but the spine width was smaller and so it holds together very well. I know they learn from this, a number of the Blurb team are on Flickr and monitor the forum, apparently their error rate is less than 1% of books printed.
Incidentally, as I had a number of 'broken' copies I decided to pull them apart to give the prints to friends and family - they are that good. I can testify that it was not an easy job, the binding is very strong.
I've read in the Blurb Group discussions that other people have had problems but that they do generally get fixed. If I had to rely on this professionally, I would certainly build in some extra time to allow for reprints, regardless, I have no hesitation in recommending them.
It's difficult to impress upon you how much of a quality feel the book has. A number of my friends struggled to understand how I'd got my photos into a real book. I'd also comment that whilst it does feel great to have a 308 page book and I am happy to sit and look through it, my non-photography friends were obviously flagging towards the end. For 2009, I suspect I will do two books, one for my family pictures and a separate one for my artistic photos.
If you're still reading this - I'm impressed - but go to www.blurb.com/ register and download the Booksmart software and create a book.
“Train your heart and mind to see the good in everything, there is always something to be grateful for”
-Unknown