Blurb book authors come forward

[Curt]

Out of general curiosity, what's the difference between the inks from an on-demand-printer and an Epson printer that one can buy at Best Buy? Are the inks that much different? If not then why can't a person print their own limited edition books at home?

Book binding supplies are available, I've bought Davie board, cloth, thread, needles the whole nine yards of supplies. What Blurb calls 'blocks' I've always called 'signatures'.

[Frank Petronio]

The Espon inkjet will do a lot better job. That's what BookSmart does when they make their short-run artists' books for $$$.

No reason for you not to try it. I'd practice the binding part on some dummies first.

The inks and the printing presses used by Blurb and other commercial printers are very different technologies.

[davemiller]

I don't want to poach Arca Andy's post so I've opened another thread. Have any of the members here published a Blurb book of their photography? I'm looking for a nice example of a BB that I can present to the folks I work for as an example of self-publishing.

No smut please! Sorry, Frank.

I work in a health care setting as a teacher and have been making photos of our clients, trying to make some art out of the experience. I made a half-assed joke about publishing a "Kosmo Kramer" coffee table book of images and to my surprise was told to run with it. Seeing Arca Andy's post made me think a BB might be the right vehicle but I'd like to get my hands on a nice one to see what the quality is like.

I'd rather not pick a random one from the BB store if I can also support a member here. So if you've made one, please point me to it. Remember, no smut.

Bob

Hi Bob, we printed a couple of yearbooks of member’s work using the Blurb process. Their software is easy to use and the slight additional cost of the heavier paper offered is worth paying for, and it’s also worth the extra effort of using colour scans to capture the nuances of tone in, in our case, the silver gelatine original prints. Hope that helps you.

[Bob Kerner]

I want to thank everyone who linked me to books. I looked at every one and there is some impressive work being done by the members here. I was shocked to see some of the prices on books of 40-some-odd pages. My mental model (obviously faulty) was of an inexpensive product. In the end, I looked through a lot of previews and picked a book that is in color and had a mixture of art and text on the same page, as that is how I imagine my project will evolve, if my colleagues and I pursue it.

A fair amount of smut for sale at Blurb! Perhaps I'll do a book of naked high fidelity human patient simulation manikins. These guys and gals are eager to strip down!

[Steve Nieslony]

I did a Blurb book about 1 year ago. Original Phots were from either my 4x5 (& 6x12) and a Hasselblad SWC. Finished silver prints were then 'copied' using a digital camera.

Quality was okay - but more importantly I was able to show all my work from this 6 week period of shooting in Europe. In short met my needs...

http://www.blurb.com/books/1134734

Steve

[Kirk Gittings]

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detai..._source=widget

One of my clients, Jon Anderson Architecture, did a BB that has about 95% my images. You can see the whole thing previewed.

[William McEwen]

I did a book of color stuff (all 35mm from scans of original slides and negs) a couple of years ago as a gift for a friend.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/307981

I downloaded Blurb's software and put it together in a couple of hours. It was very easy.

I own a few black and white Blurb books (including Frank's) and the quality is good. Think of it as typical exhibition catalog quality, not Lodima or Twin Palms books.

One of the Blurb books I purchased was made by a photographer who wasn't paying attention. The first page of the book is designated page 7, and throughout, the pages are misnumbered. The moral is take your time and do it right.

I'm not sure if Blurb has made changes, but when I made my book, there was no adjusting images onscreen other than crop. So your scan had to have the values you wanted in the book.

(This is an exception to the one-hour books you do at Ritz Camera/Wolf Camera. Those are OK, but not "book" quality.)

Moderators: Self-publishing, and Blurb especially, seem to come up so often here -- maybe the forum should have a self-publishing category?

[Frank Petronio]

Blurb and the others change (improve...) all the time, I've noticed all of the Print On Demand printers are better with time.

On the Blurb blog they are saying that they will be introducing a higher end, more expensive service aimed at professional photographers. I think they mean wedding albums, but anything that improves quality control is a plus.

There are quite sophisticated print on demand wedding album makers nowadays, like Asuka, where you pay $3-400 for a leather or Plexi custom book. Same printer as Blurb (it might even be a Xerox Docutech, I forgot) but much higher quality control and hands-on service.

[Ed Kelsey]

Blurp is already to expensive to make any significant amount of money selling books. A premium service? Ha even more spendy.

[Frank Petronio]

I don't think that they could have modeled it for anyone to make money by selling the books... they're a way to get your work out relatively inexpensively.