Blurb

I was very happy with my Blurb experience for our photo guestbook. The new cover feature sold me: you can get a photo printed directly on the cover, not just on the book flap thing. I also found a $10 off coupon which made it cheaper than MyPublisher. We also preferred their backgrounds, but it was mostly because they offered a circle pattern, and that is an underlying theme for our wedding.

Also, it was delivered really fast for basic shipping.

My one disapointment is that a tiny portion of the page stuck together and messed up two pictures. But it really was so minor that no one will notice and it doesn't take away the love of our book.

I'll be occasionally comparing Blurb to My Publisher's classic book because it is similar in size and it's the only other photobook I have experience with. I will review Blurb in five areas: print and binding quality, features, software usability, shipping, and customer service.

Print and Binding: Blurb says its pages are 80# coated semi-matte paper. However, I beg to differ on the paper weight. I used cardstock of 80# weight for my wedding programs and Blurb's pages are no where near the thickness of 80#. In fact, Blurb's pages are slightly thinner than My Publisher's classic book pages.

I would have to say that page print quality in terms of ink and vibrancy, is comparable to My Publisher when MP prints without problems. The jacket cover print quality is really nice. The jacket cover is glossy and the picture really pops and comes alive. The jacket cover is really sturdy and good quality and so is the black linen hardcover. The hardcover feels a bit sturdier than My Publisher's.

The Blurb book binding is really tight, which is good because the pages won't tear off as easily. But because of the tight binding, the book does not open flat, especially when you have a lot of pages. This is true of My Publisher as well. Because of this, the left page has a really big arch when opened but this is true of any book binding. So having full page bleed on this side of the book would obstruct about an inch of the photo. You'll have to press down on the page to see the whole picture.

Blurb crops 1/8" to 1/4" from the top, bottom, and opposite side from the binding. I don't think Blurb crops the binding edge but since it's the binding edge, you will see less. Like My Publisher, you only really start to see something about 3/4" from the binding edge. Even if you use their templates, they will crop and what you see in preview is not what you get with any picture that bleeds to the edge. Allow for the cropping when placing your photos in edge bleed. The actual page size is really 9.5" wide by 8" height.

Features: Blurb offers a lot of template choices. They come in different sets. I chose the portfolio set of templates which offered a mix of photo and text layouts. Within each set, there are a lot of options for cover, title, chapter, photo, and text layouts. Each set offers different backgrounds and styling. The options are definitely abundant. Even if you are using the templates, you can still somewhat customize it. For example, in my Introduction spread (see pic below), the left page has a single picture centered. I used a template that has space for 3 pictures across the center and text below each picture. However, I only chose to put a center picture with no text. The templates offer the space for photos and text but you are not required to fill out all the spaces.

You can still design your own pages and put them in Blurb. Just use the full bleed page layout. See their Help section for more details on actual size.

Blurb just came out with a book about how to design a Blurb book. It was designed and printed by Blurb. It gives design tips and is an actual sample of their book quality. If you're still unsure about Blurb quality, I would suggest buying this 40 page book for $14.95. As of this writing (10/31/2006), they are offering a $10 coupon towards your next purchase if you buy their how to book. If you're just interested in the contents of the book, they offer a free PDF version of it. Go here. This how to book they created is a great example of what you can do with Blurb. It uses different font colors and sizes to show how that can be used effectively.

One of the best features of Blurb is that it allows you to use any font on your system. Blurb books come with a laminated dust cover jacket that you design. This feature makes your book look like a real published book. Also, their book sizes are geared more towards regular book sizes. They offer both portrait (8"x10") and landscape(10"x8"), which other sites don't. They do not have cutout covers.

Blurb's pricing cannot be beat. You get a lot of pages for half the price of other online photobooks. And you don't sacrifice quality for lower pricing either. Go to their website for pricing info. My 132 paged book cost me $42. I could even go up to 160 pages and still pay $42. I had a free shipping coupon when I ordered, so the price I paid reflects that.

Software Usability:Blurb Bookmaker software is a memory and CPU resource hog. If your system doesn't have the recommended specs, then using the software will be very sluggish. I had the minimum requirements and at times, dragging pictures over was very slow. Sometimes it would freeze and to resolve that, I would minimize the Bookmaker software and then maximize it. Entering text can be annoying because when you click in the text box, it turns your text to black. So when you have a black background with black text, you can't read it! Only when you start to type something does the text turn to a readable color. Also to remember to proofread, proofread, and proofread some more. I did proofread a lot but I still found spelling errors after the book was printed. Grrr...

The program is easy to use without having to go through a tutorial. You choose a template for each page you work on and then just drag and drop your picture into the photo space. After placing your photo, it offers options to enlarge or decrease the size, change to black and white, mirror flip, and a few others. However, any photo editing needs to be done with a separate photo editing software. It's best to use a widescreen monitor. It cuts down on the horizontal scrolling when you want to work with a larger canvas.

Uploading takes a long time. My book was 103MB but it took over an hour to process and upload and I have cable internet. I set it to upload and went off to cook dinner. After eating dinner, it was done.

Blurb Bookmaker is still in beta release so it's not perfect.

Shipping: It took 6 business days for me to receive my book and they ship from Seattle, WA and I live in California. They ship through UPS, which doesn't do weekend delivery. Compared to My Publisher, MP has faster delivery and uses the USPS, which delivers on Saturdays.

Customer Service: I had a problem with uploading my book. I kept getting out of memory error. I emailed customer service (seems to be the only means of contact) on a Saturday and I got a reply on Monday telling me to upgrade to the latest Bookmaker software. After upgrading, that resolved my problem. If I were to compare Blurb customer service with My Publisher customer service, MP is faster. MP is 24 hours/7 days a week email customer service. I suppose Blurb's customer service is only the weekdays.

Samples: you can view my Knot bio for samples.

LOVED the books I got from them. I thought they were pretty great. Look at my photos for ideas of what they books look like.

I used Blurb.com to make a Honeymoon "scrapbook" before I ordered our wedding albums. I was happy with the results. As mentioned in another review, the software to create the album is a bit clunky and crashes often. But if you can work through that, you'll be fine. Print quality was good, especially since some of our images were really dark.

Blurb is an amazing tool for making a sign-in book with pictures. I easily downloaded the application to make my book, added my pictures and left some white space for guests to sign. I then uploaded and paid for my book. The process was super simple and pretty inexpensive for the quality of the end product. My final piece came in the mail promptly and it looked beautiful. All my guests loved it and it turned out to be a very meaningful keepsake!

I designed my boudoir picture book myself and printed it thru Blurb. The prices and packages are better than Mypublisher in my opinion. Shipping was a little slower, but the quality is great. You can also find coupon codes, especially at retailmenot.com. Plus you can image wrap the cover and they have a 7x7 square book option.

Blurb was the most inepensive place I could find to publish our personalized guest book and b-pic album. The quality of both books was high and the price was great!

Great option for making your own album. Design to your hearts content, you can make them as good as you can think them. very affordable as well, offering the most bang for your buck!