Blurb for Good – Make a book. Make a difference.

BlurbforGood
Individuals, non-profits, and organizations of every size and stripe have raised awareness and funds for their causes with Blurb books.
You’ll enjoy many benefits when you join Blurb for Good.
An easy solution
No big budgets or massive production needed. Your expenses are merely the cost of a book, that’s it. We take care of the rest and give you everything you need to create, promote, and sell your book for your cause.
Fundraising mojo
Our Set Your Price program lets you name your book’s price and keep 100% of the profit for your cause. We do all the bookwork, from fulfilling orders to tracking donations and proceeds, to cutting checks and sending them your way. You’ll also get detailed revenue reports, including stats on books sold and the number of visits to your book detail page.
Contributions from Blurb
If you qualify, we’ll even pitch in with a charitable contribution for every book you sell. Simply apply to our charitable contributions program and we’ll pitch in with $1 for every book sold.
High visibility
Get the word out with free promotion tools like Blurb BookShow™, our new book preview widget, and Blurb book badges. Put your book in our Blurb for Good bookstore. And be eligible for our Staff Picks, features in our blog, and shout-outs on Blurb’s Facebook and Twitter pages.
A lot of flexibility
Print on demand means we print to order, one by one. No waste, no warehousing. Discounts to you start at orders of ten or more books. And if you’re thinking books by the hundreds, we can do offset printing for even better economies of scale.
So do some good and join Blurb for Good.
Learn more with my Bookmaking Lessons.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.

Blurb's BookSmart – 10 Tricks to Impress Your Friends and Confound Your Enemies

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Looking for tips on how to use Blurb’s BookSmart software?
Chad Jennings provides useful tips on the Blurberrati blog.
Find 10 Tricks to Impress Your Friends and Confound Your Enemies here.
– Drag and Drop Images from Your Desktop
– Drag and Drop Images to a Page Thumbnail
– Hide Used Images
– Use Arrows to Nudge an Image
– Use Keyboard Shortcuts and Right-Click Menus
– Turn off Text Auto-Zoom
– “Copy and Paste Page Layout” is Your New Best Friend
– Paste Text to Match Style
– Save Headers and Footers Until Last
– How to be Considered for Staff Picks
Find 3 more tips in his updated post here.
– Lock Your Spreads Together
– Hang Your Virtual Shingle
– Show Unused Photos
Learn more with my Bookmaking Lessons.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.

How To Make a Gorgeous Photo Book – Audio Excerpts

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I sat down and discussed many issues involving print on demand bookmaking with Brenda Hipsher of X-Rite before my recent Toronto Blurb Seminar – How to Make a Gorgeous Photo Book.
You can listen to three audio excerpts here on X-Rites blog.
Color Management and Bookmaking
Reproducing Black and White & Using BookSmart
Practical Uses for Blurb Books
Find books on bookmaking here.
Learn more about books with these online resources.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.

Books With Topical Themes Enjoy Wider Appeal

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One of the ways you can create a book that has wider appeal is to give it a topical focus. Books on well-known subjects (people, places, things, events, etc) have a built in audience – anyone interested in the subject. Comparatively few people know about and are interested in individual artists and so monographs focussed exclusively on an artist’s vision draw smaller audiences. Even books on a particular media process enjoy wider appeal.
It may be challenging to convince a major publisher interested in mass distribution to produce an artist’s monograph without a topical focus. This shouldn’t stop you from producing one yourself. Many artist’s self-publish their own books. In the age of print-on-demand services (like Blurb) the cost, time and expertise required to produce these kinds of books has been reduced dramatically. These types of books tend to be targeted to niche markets. Nobody knows your audience better than you. Nobody will give your work as much sustained attention as you will. Producing your own artist’s book can be extremely fulfilling, you’ll come to understand your work better and learn to make it more effective. The few people who enjoy the fruits of your labor will savor it all the more knowing that it’s a rare experience.
Find books on bookmaking here.
Learn more about books with these online resources.
Learn more in my bookmaking workshop.

Covers – People Do Judge Books By Them

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One of the most important decisions you can make when you create a photo book is choosing an image for the cover. Choose cover images wisely. People do judge books by their covers. Images that tend to work best for covers share one or more common traits. They have strong graphic appeal. Bold color is a plus; it attracts a lot of attention. Images that tell a story draw people in; the more pieces of the puzzle they fill in the better. The format of the image fits easily within the proportion of the book; extreme panoramas (vertical or horizontal) rarely work well, unless the book’s format is also panoramic.
You don’t have to use the full image on a cover. Sometimes, cropping a cover image works well. This works best with full bleeds.
Usually, the cover image is repeated inside the book. It’s not uncommon for it to be the first or last image in the book, as these are the most prominent an memorable positions – except, of course, the cover.
The image you select for the cover of a book should be one of the strongest and most memorable images included in the book.
The cover of a book makes a first impression. Everything else is compared to it. And when the book is closed, you return to the cover. When is put down, what you see is the cover. Covers make a lasting impression.
Find books on bookmaking here.
Learn more about books with these online resources.
Learn more in my Blurb seminar.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.

Blurb Offers Free Premium Paper Upgrades

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Blurb is offering free upgrades to their new lustre finish Premium Paper (It’s 35% heavier.) for a limited time only. Order copies of existing books or make a new one. All you have to do is place an order with two or more books before the end of May. When you do, tick the Premium Paper box, choose lustre or matte finish, and apply the code below in the shopping cart.
•    USD $ coupon code: MAYPREMIUM
•    GBP £ coupon code: MAYPREMIUM1
•    EUR € coupon code: MAYPREMIUM2
•    CAD $ coupon code: MAYPREMIUM3
•    AUD $ coupon code: MAYPREMIUM4
•    * Offer valid through May 31, 2010 (11:59 p.m. PDT). A 15% discount is applied toward one order of two books or more. Maximum discount is USD $200.00, GBP £100.00, EUR €200,00, CAD $200.00, or AUD $300.00 off product totals. This offer is good for one-time use, and cannot be combined with other promotional codes, gift cards, or used for adjustments on previous orders.
•    Note: Premium Paper is available on books with 160 pages or less, and on books made with our PDF to Book workflow created using our Premium Paper templates. Premium Paper is not available with our B/W Text option.
Find recommended reading on bookmaking here.
Learn more about books with these online resources.
Learn more in my upcoming Blurb seminar.
Learn more in my upcoming bookmaking workshop.

Use Text To Enhance Your Photo Book

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Photography books are often greatly enhanced when text is included. There are many types of text that can complement your images. Here are a few classic examples.
– facts about a subject
– history of a subject
– placing the images in an art historical perspective
– tracing influences
– appreciation expressed by an authority
– process descriptions
– project development
– thematic essay
– interviews of authorities
– interviews with the artist
– personal memoir
– excerpted texts with relevant themes
Include more than one of these types of text and you’ll offer a reader a more diverse perspective.
Whether it’s a little or a lot text complements photographs, making a presentation more powerful.
Next time you make a book of your images, ask yourself, “What kind of text would enhance this book?”
Find recommended reading on bookmaking here.
Learn more about books with these online resources.
Learn more in my upcoming Blurb seminar.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.

Many Uses For Books

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There are many different kinds of books because people use books to do many different things.
– Share content
– Make a durable record (whether history or memento)
– Support an inquiry
– Produce a catalog to facilitate and create orders
– Enhance a proposition with added value
– Give away a leave behind
– Make an impression
– Gratify an ego
Can you think of other uses? Comment here!
Identifying your goals for your next book project will affect the choices you make at every stage in its creation and ultimately make it more effective.
When you produce your next book, ask yourself what function you want your book to serve?
Find recommended reading on bookmaking here.
Learn more about books with these online resources.
Learn more in my upcoming Blurb seminar.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.

Share, Promote, Sell Your Blurb Books

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Blurb offers a number of ways you can share, promote, and sell your books.
Once you print your book you can invite others to preview and purchase it, either with Blurb’s announce feature or with your own mailing list.
Blurb’s new widget allows visitors to preview your book online. You can show as much or as little as you like. You can install it on any webpage by copying the HTML code. The widget has one click social network sharing and purchase functions.
Keyword your book to make it easier to find your book on the Blurb store and on Google. All the text in your previews is Google searchable!
You can sell your book in the Blurb store. Anyone can find your books marked public. Only people you invite can find books you mark private. Blurb’s online service will track how many books are sold. You can even make a profit on your books by marking up the price and Blurb’s website will give you reports on your progress. Checks are sent to you monthly.
Blurb takes and fulfills orders for you. Alternately, you can order any quantity from them and take and fulfill orders yourself, which you’ll need to do if you want to sign or enhance (emboss, slipcase, include a print) your books, but you’ll have to pay for shipping twice (once to you and once to your customer).
Blurb’s combination of easy to use software and order fulfillment creates a combination of capabilities that’s unique among print-on-demand services.
Find my Blurb book Antarctica here.
Find out about my Blurb seminar May 15 in Toronto.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.

Comparing Blurb's Quality to Offset

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In its few year history, Blurb’s quality has improved tremendously.
How does Blurb’s print-on-demand quality compare to standard web offset press quality? Blurb delivers better quality than most offset presses where careful attention is not paid to production. Blurb doesn’t meet the best carefully overseen offset quality.
Common problems with Blurb printing include printing dark with some shadow detail loss, inconsistent neutrality and graybalance, and slight banding. Blurb’s dot structure or line screen is average, which is somewhat coarse in comparison with the finest 300 line screen offset. Blurb offers slightly better saturation compared to offset, but not six color hi-fi offset. The problems you encounter with Blurb are all common problems with offset printing if it’s not carefully overseen, which is common.
Oversight is one of the challenges with print-on-demand paradigms. It’s not practical to proof a book of one. It’s not practical to proof it again six months later with the next order. It’s unrealistic to expect an extremely low volume run to compete with a high volume run. In a high volume run, time and materials are allocated to test press conditions, carefully proof content before final printing, and maintained during a run of hundreds or even thousands. That’s why offset runs are only cost effective if you’re making a lot of books and that drives initial costs much higher and per unit costs much lower. Blurb’s offers extremely low initial costs but higher unit costs.
The Blurb revolution makes some books, that otherwise might never have been made, a reality
So, how good is Blurb’s quality?
Good enough.
And getting better all the time.
Find my Blurb book Antarctica here.
Find out about my Blurb seminars in New York April 29 and Toronto May 15.
Learn more in my Fine Art Digital Printing Workshops.