Any good alternative to Blurb???

[fuegocito]

Greeting,

I am on the hook for a book project and self publishing seems the way to go. I would love to hear of other's experiences in dealing with these type of operations.

Cost Vs quality and etc...

thanks in advance

Robert

[Scott Davis]

I think Blurb and Lulu are about even for price and quality. There are other POD services that are much better quality but the price is commensurate - they not only charge more per book, but they may also have certain volume minimums.

[IanG]

I saw an excellent Bob Books (Bob Designer) book over Easter, B&W (or Colour) and very high quality. I plan to use them as well.

A UK website, not sure if they are International.

Ian

[Frank Petronio]

I think Blurb has overtaken LuLu and offers a good value for what they are. Lulu just doesn't have as good quality control and they are using toner-based printers versus Blurb using ink.

There are studios that will do handmade books using high-end inkjets -- I think those would be the upper-end of the professional one-off POD market. And Shutterfly-Kodak-iPhoto type books are the lower-end consumer market. Blurb serves the middle.

You want to avoid the Xerox-type toner printers like Lulu, iPhoto, Shutterfly, etc. unless price is the major factor.

[sully75]

I think Blurb has overtaken LuLu and offers a good value for what they are. Lulu just doesn't have as good quality control and they are using toner-based printers versus Blurb using ink.


I had books printed by Blurb about 3 years ago that came out really awful. It sounds like some people have had good results with them, and others bad, sometimes in a different printing of the same book. Just wondering if you've printed a lot with them? If their quality has improved, I'd be interested in trying them again.

[Frank Petronio]

Yes they have improved a lot over time, much better with consistency and B&W. I think most of the bad things you see now are more from people not following the directions, using the wrong profiles, being poor designers. When they do make a mistake they are very good at crediting you - do a digital photo of the problem.

That said, the wise way is to do a test book to nail your workflow down and see how it handles your images. They do tend to muddy things up when they print B&W using 4/c ink IMHO, it is good to open up the mid-tones on the B&W stuff compared to your usual inkjets. Their color is pretty darn good straight up, if it looks good elsewhere it will look good from Blurb.

I am now a fan, but cautious not to expect perfection.

[sully75]

That said, the wise way is to do a test book to nail your workflow down and see how it handles your images. They do tend to muddy things up when they print B&W using 4/c ink IMHO, it is good to open up the mid-tones on the B&W stuff compared to your usual inkjets. Their color is pretty darn good straight up, if it looks good elsewhere it will look good from Blurb.

Frank, thanks...do you adjust each picture individually for B&W or do you throw a curve on all of them? When you say "open up" are you talking about putting more contrast into the middles and compressing the top and bottom?

Paul

[Frank Petronio]

For my next book I am going to look at each picture printed on the earlier book and adjust the curves slightly. I don't want to go too far with any move in case I am outside their norm, it's not like I can afford to print lots of test books. I am only using a 100 images, rather brutal editing but I think it works well to use the full maximum 160 page limit they have for the premium paper. I will do a few double spreads and single-image per page sets, but most are side-by-side. I only do the 8x10 size, I tried the larger size and it seemed like a weakly constructed binding and the paper was too thin, plus the images started to break up a bit, so now I think the compact 8x10 is the perfect size for what these are.... they're solid and dense in comparison.

Usually I will just take the Curve at the mid-point and raise it 10-15 points so the middle tones open up but the white and black points remain. And of course every shot has a solid black and a clean white in any specular highlights. Leaving the faintest tone in the highlights is a good idea for high-key shots - 2-3% rather than Zero, this avoids harsh transitions to paper white.

Then I convert these images to use the Blurb B3 CMYK profile and "Save As" to a new folder for CMYK images. Then using InDesign I relink my design to the CMYK files and export using the Blurb preset PDF settings.

You can buy my last year's book or wait a month or two for the next ;-)

[patrickjames]

My Publisher makes excellent books if you are looking for an alternative to Blurb. It is hard to get a deal on a Blurb book, at least I have never seen one. MP usually has some type of discount available, often two for one, so the price is pretty good. Blurb has the marketplace type thing so others can buy your books directly. I think My Publisher does too, but I don't know for sure since I have never checked.

I have a friend who gets 50-100 at a time and he typically uses My Publisher. He says the quality is about the same for the two.

[Ben Syverson]

I just got some test prints made at Edition One (http://editiononebooks.com/), and they blew my mind. It's leagues beyond the digital offset from Blurb, Lulu, etc. They're very customer-oriented, and will print test prints of your files so you can get a feeling for their quality.

I'm doing a Kickstarter for a small photo accessory soon, and will be offering Edition One books as an incentive.

[Frank Petronio]

They look pretty good although I see they use a Xerox toner-based printer and they want you to buy a minimum of five books, so the cost of entry starts at $380....

[Ben Syverson]

Frank, I was skeptical about the laser printer too... All I can say is, get the test prints. The output is amazing.

This isn't the place for one-offs like wedding books or portfolios, but it's a good deal if you're actually printing some books -- and it gets much, much cheaper than Blurb or Lulu depending on the volume...

[Rick Russell]

Earlier this year, a group of friends and I took on a project to photograph Colonel Allensworth State Park here in California. Long story short, we ended up with a book layout of 48 pages, and chose to have Blurb print the softcover edition, and A and I print the softcover edition. Both books were nominally of the same size, and we printed 10 copies of each. Although both companies offered software, we laid out the book in Photoshop, and then transferred the data to their respective software programs. The Blurb (softcover) was approximately $29 per copy, including shipping, and the A and I (hardcover) was approximately $60 per copy (no shipping cost). I can't say that the A & I was necessarily twice as good (although the printing was better), though I did very much appreciate the fact the A and I caught a typo in the book, and telephoned me about the typo before printing, while I never got a call from Blurb. Hope this helps.

Rick Russell
richardrussell-1@ca.rr.com

[fuegocito]

This is great information, thanks for everyone valuable input, you guys are the best!

Robert