Book FrontFor as long as I have had a blog I have wished that I could have a hard copy of it. It always feels just a bit weird that we put so much our lives - creative or otherwise - out here in cyber space without any way to "have it to hold". It's not that I don't keep any other journals; I do, several written & visual - but I thought it would be great to have the information that it's my blog in a hard copy form so that I could easily page back through the years.
A year or so ago, while I was surfing about on the net, I happened upon Blurb. It sounded like the perfect solution - blog to book printing. Unfortunately, at that point in time, it was not playing nicely with Blogger & the company had no idea of when it would. A week ago I decided to have another look and, lo & behold, it now worked well with Blogger - and with a Mac too no less. I was thrilled & immediately got to work. I have decided to upload & have my blog books print by the year - so I started with 2007.
A year or so ago, while I was surfing about on the net, I happened upon Blurb. It sounded like the perfect solution - blog to book printing. Unfortunately, at that point in time, it was not playing nicely with Blogger & the company had no idea of when it would. A week ago I decided to have another look and, lo & behold, it now worked well with Blogger - and with a Mac too no less. I was thrilled & immediately got to work. I have decided to upload & have my blog books print by the year - so I started with 2007.
Book Back above WoW! Am I ever happy with this company! The design interface is quite straight forward and easy to use. The only thing that sort of bothered me was ,when I was having difficulty deciding on the size of the the book ,(they have several options available) I discovered that you cannot start a book in one size & then change your mind & move to another size. You can, however, use the photos that you have uploaded - and move them to another size - though it seems easiest to me (at this point) to just get the size right from the beginning. The information - photos, written posts & links - from your blog is 'slurped' & is then auto populated to the book format. The maximum number of pages is 440 - which is how I discovered I really needed to go one year at a time. Surprisingly enough, it does not take that long to 'slurp' everything - then you select, play and order. I did not play around at all with the page set up , although you do have many options for lots of font choices and page layouts. I wanted the blog to look pretty much the way it does on line so I did not fuss with layouts or lots of fancy reworkings. Once ordered, the book practically flys to your door. I ordered my book on April 28th and it arrived today. Yowza - that's fast !
You also have a choice of ordering a hardover, hardcover with dust jacket or softcover. I opted for the less expensive soft cover for 2007 but am thinking that I may get a hard cover for 2008 and 2009 - since they will be quite a bit larger than 2007 was. The softcover is fine though, printing quality is excellent and the book is sturdily bound. I love it !!
Above you can see that any links you reference in your blog are printed at the bottom of the entry, right below the date of the post. So if you have ever wanted to be able to have a book from you blog - this is the answer - and it's a darn good answer too ! Thank you Blurb!
