Self publishing

[markfh]

Anybody tried this site yet?

http://www.blurb.com/

[Gordon]

I keep meaning to. I've used mypublisher.com before and was reasonably happy with the results - print & paper is 'good magazine' quality.

I suspect blurb will be much the same. What I liked about blurb was the dust jacket option (not a cut out window or stuck on photo on the cover) and their software seems a bit less horrible than mypublisher (though both is kinda clunky/ bad)

Only downside I've seen with blurb is that the books are 8x10 or 10x8 and that's it. I'd like to do a coffee-table sized book somewhere, that wouldn't cost a fortune.

[pmarv]

Blurb has introduced a 11x13 book. Just received my first book. Good Quality. Your best prints will be very good and those that are so so will be ok. I
have seen other books they are not a sharp as on screen or printed.
None the less will work up to more a cookbook and an vacation book.

[princessmocha]

I received my album from Blurb. I am pretty happy with the overall quality. the only tiny thing that I wish they cah change is NOT having their "blurb" logo printed on the album.

[brad]

There is a very long thread somewhere around here about Blurb books... the bottom line was they were OK, but not fabulous.

[HotHolly]

Originally Posted by brad

the bottom line was they were OK, but not fabulous.

Ditto

[princessmocha]

Brad, is this the thread you were talking about?
http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=40200

[brad]

The very one.

[egr1982]

Just received my first Blurb soft cover 7x7. I am disappointed by quality. I'm not sure how the booksmart software goes about resizing photos, but I doubt it does a good job. My photos from film are particularly grainy, and even from digitals, areas of OOF skin and sky are not printed smoothly (there are streak-like lines).

My front cover and first page are identical, but the cover (and rear cover as well) have a darker and slightly blue-ish cast to them. Even blurb's logo on the final page is unsharp and seems to have jpeg artifacts.

The edges are neatly trimmed, and the binding seems secure.

Also, my experience with the booksmart software is that it takes a long time to load, and is extremely sluggish.

I personally wouldn't use this book to display professional quality work. Nor would I sell it to clients unless they were on an incredibly tight budget. I don't have any experience with other printing companies, so I have nothing to compare to, but still I am unimpressed. However, I don't think this company is catering to professionals, but more to the flickr crowd.

[CaptainTom]

I did a book this Xmas as a present to family members.
My comments are: easy , inexpensive, good quality , fast.
Not the best quality I have seen, but definitely the best for the price.
If you are looking to produce acceptable results for a reasonable price, I would recommend them.

[Comanche]

I had an 8 X 10 soft cover done by Blurb, and was quite pleased with the quality - especially for the price. My experience was quite different from Edward's in that I was very pleased with the quality of the images. Granted - this was a soft cover, and would not come up to the very high quality demanded by wedding photographers, but I am more pleased with Blurb than I am with myPublisher. The software seems more flexible than myPublisher's as well.

Tom hit it on the head - more than decent quality a very good price.

[egr1982]

My girlfriend didn't seem to notice any of the quality issues I was talking about until I pointed them out. So, I will certainly agree that for the price, the quality is acceptable. Heck, 20 color one-sided copies from Copy Corner or Kinko's would be more expensive. Good idea, Tom, to use for gifts. Again, I would not use for any professional applications.

I am curious if anyone else had speed issues with the software...?

Maybe I can do some scans at some point and see if anyone else notices the same quality issues. It could be that I just got a bad book.