[FOWA Roundup] Blurb - Self Publish Without Webapp
FOWA is all about webapps, so I was amazed to see a stand that had a cool piece of software running in Mac OS X. The company is Blurb, and their self publishing tool runs on both Windows and Mac. The choice for an offline editor for an online service is interesting but in the end actually quite understanding.
In a time of webapplications that make you order your businesscards using Flickr photos, and order your self published books via Lulu, it has become common practice to have an online editor for these physical products. Still, on the other hand there are tools like iPhoto and Picasa that make it more of a pleasure to use your photo library to make a physical product without doing the editing in a sometimes not perfect webapp. The BookSmart software of Blurb takes the middle road, allowing people to use online and offline libraries to publish via the webservice by Blurb.
The actual really thing that I noticed abotu Blurb was the fact that it is dirty cheap. Melinda and I have been looking at some other websites like QOOP to make a photobook or calendar for our parents for christmas, and the Blurb service is simply way cheaper. The quality is really good, as they had a wide range of their books lying around. They even did the “24 hours of Flickr” book, so the photo quality is guaranteed to be good.A simple softcover (18×18cm, 20-40 pages) photobook that you can style yourself will set you back €9.95, a large hardcover version (33×28cm, 20-40 pages) will cost you about €41,95. Compare this to QOOP this is at least €10 cheaper. More prices can be found here. Shipping is from Amsterdam, and if you use the promo code “FOWA” you will even get the shipping costs for free!
The only problem for now is that I can’t seem to get the BookSmart software to work with iPhoto ‘08, but I have reported the bug. I hope to show my first book someday soon.
Katie Lips http://beta.treasuremytext.com
October 6th, 2007Yeah, I liked blurb. I’ve also looked at - and been confused by things like lulu. Whilst lulu is great; its flexibility and complexity make it more for the epic novel than the ‘coffee table’ or gift book. Yes, blurb is cheap too. I think we’re happily going to see a lot more of these “take your personal archive with you in a lovely way” services.
Pascal Van Hecke http://pascal.vanhecke.info
October 6th, 2007Better and cheaper than HEMA’s good old Photo Print Service
?
http://www.albumprintservice.nl/templates/
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
October 6th, 2007Well, first of all there is no HEMA in the UK
Secondly, yes cheaper. Hema has a 30×30cm photobook of 40 pages (soft cover) for 52.95 which is about €10 more expensive.
Thirdly: Their software works only on Windows, so doesn’t support iPhoto integration, and probably has no support for Flickr either.
Robbert Jan
October 6th, 2007I’ve looked at blurb and I was possitively surprised, both at price and the quality/abilities of the application. It’s a huge step forwards from services currently being supplied by companies such as Hema and Kruidvat in Holland and similar stores in the United Kingdom
Katie Lips http://www.beta.treasuremytext.com
October 6th, 2007Funny but whilst I like HEMA, I associate it with comfy socks, umbrellas, or a slice of appel gebak, - (it’s an upmarket Woolworths for UK readers).
I think blurb is a different class of app. I asked them about an API - i.e. can we link into it from our app so our users can make SMS Diary Books? A possibility in the future maybe.
@ Christiano: sorry I missed you at fowa, next time hopefully.
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
October 6th, 2007@Katie - it was way too hectic at FOWA, so no wonder we missed eachother. On the API thing I think Blurp has a serious problem with the fact that all their editing happens offline, meaining that they can only have a “publish” api, not an online api for editing. Still, maybe it’s interesting to be able to import your SMS Diary INTO their offline app?
Reinier http://zwitserloot.com
October 7th, 2007The last HEMA booklet I saw was decently made, but the ones from two years ago were basically shite. Crappy binding, paper was way too thin and the gloss just didn’t look good for some reason. From what I can tell, the production value of a blurb book is good. The only other provider I know of that really cares about production value is the professional print order options built into the apple iLife apps, but those cost a bundle.
Pascal Van Hecke http://pascal.vanhecke.info
October 7th, 2007Sorry people but I couldn’t help but being sneering a bit :-).
It’s just that… this reminded me so much of an experience I had two years ago, when I discovered QOOP, and shouted out to all my friends: “Waw, revolutionary! On demand! Mass Customization!”.
At which one of my Dutch friends dryly replied “Well, HEMA has been doing this for years…”.
I’m not saying _you_ were hyping Blurb as I did with Qoop… it’s just that a lot of us web people sometimes can’t put things in perspective anymore
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
October 7th, 2007@Pascal: I’m sorry, but did you even READ the post? I was not saying they were revolutionary, and actually putting things in great perspective.
The whole point of the story was to make it clear that Blurb is WAY cheaper than Hema, QOOP, etc and at the same (maybe better) quality. What’s *not* in perspective here?
Pascal Van Hecke http://pascal.vanhecke.info
October 7th, 2007@Cristiano: there’s nothing wrong with the post, I just felt the urge to share my own “not putting into perspective” from a few years ago. Sorry for abusing your comments and now I’m going to go for a walk after too much feedreading
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
October 7th, 2007@Pascal: I did appreciate your first comment though on Hema. I didn’t even know Hema did this and I guess their quality could be good.
PS: thanks for saying there is nothing wrong with my post, makes me all fuzzy inside.
Phil Wessells http://qoop.com
October 29th, 2007Blurb is not cheaper than QOOP. It’s $12.99 for 20 pages and 40 cents each a page thereafter on QOOP for a softback book. So if you order a 20 page book we are about 66 percent of the price of Blurb. If you order a 40 page book you’d be at $20.99 or a whole dollar more. Anything under 38 pages and we are less! Where are you getting that we are 10 Pounds more expensive? We like Blurb and HEMA, but don’t get the pricing so wrong! All of us have the same costs so the pricing shouldn’t be too different amongst anyone making photobooks.
If you’d like to try our service send me a note and I’ll send along a 25% off coupon as well.
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
October 30th, 2007Hi Phil, sorry to play with the numbers, but you say for 40 pages in a softcover I pay $20.99? Now, scaling this up to like 80 pages, I will pay $34.99 at your site, and only $21.95. My initial numbers might have been off, but admittedly Blurb scales up a bit better.
Now on a second note: I didn’t really like the Blurb experience as I recently tried to make a book and order it. Their software runs slow and is seriously infexible. I would love to try out QOOP one day and see how that workflow will please me.
Phil Wessells http://qoop.com
November 2nd, 2007Just shoot me a note at phil@qoop.com and I’ll get you set up. I’d like some feedback on the new advanced path on posters if you’d like a comp’d one. We’re extending this UI to other products soon.
Michael
August 26th, 2008QOOP’s offerings are looking better for publishing books & other documents from .pdf files:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTZwm5LgrGY