I’ve been wanting to create a book of landscape photography for years, but haven’t followed through for a variety of reasons. I now see there are a lot of new options for lay-flat pages. For me, that makes 11x11 or 12x12 formats much more feasible.
So, I was wondering which book printers are being used by this group. I am looking for a good balance of price and print quality, also, ease of software to create the layout.
I’ve self-published 2 books, one photography, the other a hiking guide book.
I used Blurb for both (neither were a “lay flat” book, so take that into account when reading the rest of my comments). The hiking guide book was designed as an e-book with a print version as an option.
Their software is easy to use, their print quality, IMHO, is very good. They are, however, not cheap. Since they are print-on-demand, they can be pretty pricey, but they do offer quantity discounts. They also frequently offer discounts on photo books. You can have customers go right to their site and order your books directly, taking you out of the whole payment/shipping ordeal. You can determine how much mark-up you want to add to the retail price. They don’t send you a check until you get at least $25 in proceeds from orders.
My only gripes with them is that they don’t e-mail you to let you know when they’re offering a special discount, so you have to remember to regularly check the website, and they don’t allow you to offer your own discounts off of the retail price you set. So, if you want to offer NPN members a discount on your book with a coupon code, there is no way to do that with Blurb.
Hope that helps.
Let me know if you need more info.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Bob. I’m glad to hear you like the quality and the software is easy to use. Are you using their layout software, or have you tried the Lightroom to Blurb route? I understand the Lightroom book publishing module has been recently updated.
My book projects would be entirely personal, with no intention of sales. Blurb certainly seems to be the leader when it comes to self-publishing options.
Bill,
I haven’t done the Lightroom to Blurb route…I’ve only used Blurb’s software.
Bob, Blurb does notify folks about their discounts… my wife has been forwarding emails to me (that I’ve missed) with a 40% off coupon. We started doing a baby book with pictures of our child for family last year, and they offered a 50% off coupon around Black Friday. I hadn’t seen any notifications since then, but apparently my wife’s getting them occasionally.
Blurb used to be one of the less expensive self-printing options out there, but they’re more expensive now, especially when a company like Shutterfly sometimes comes out with “unlimited extra pages” coupons. Still, I’ve always preferred Blurb’s quality over Shutterfly (the only two companies I’ve used and could compare), and have been pretty happy using them for personal large book projects in the 80-120 page range.
Max
I’ve had an account with them for years. I’m signed up for all e-mails (and just double checked) and have never been notified by e-mail of any promotions. Beats me.
I agree that their quality is good.
I’ve made four or five books using Blurb and LR, and agree the quality is excellent. I think the ability to move photos directly from LR into the book, and to edit them in the book, is fabulous. My major complaint about LR Blurb was that you couldn’t customize the layout presets and that the selection was limited. I have read that the new version has more presets and allows some customization, also a lay flat version, but I have no experience with that.
Thanks, Tony. That’s very helpful. I’ll have to check out the new LR layout options.
I’ve used Artifact Uprising and Shutterfly. Artifact Uprising has much better paper but both are a bit more contrasty than I would like. They’re still good books though.
Bill, I edited your OP title to clarify the context of your post.
-p
Max,
I checked my account, and I’m signed up to get e-mail notifications from them, but other than correspondence related to orders, I never get anything. Not sure what that’s all about…
Yeah, it’s weird that I don’t see their emails either, but my wife gets them. If you’re on social media, it looks like they do post their promotions to their Facebook page. I would keep an eye on things right around Thanksgiving/Black Friday, because that’s when they sprung their 50% Off deal last year. I churned out a 74 page book for family in about three days because of that deal. Thankfully this year, I’ve put in the work in advance, so I won’t be scrambling quite so much. If you’re considering going with them, I’d recommend putting the book together ahead of time and waiting for a 40-50% coupon to show up.
Max
I put in a support ticket about the e-mail issue and they’re looking into it. They do have a number of social media accounts, so I’ll follow them there. Thanks for the heads up!
Coincidentally, an ad just popped up in my Facebook feed advertising 40% off at Blurb with coupon code: BESTGIFT4T
Max
Update: Blurb just released their Black Friday 50% Off coupon. It’s BLACKFRIDAYFIFTY, and is good through November 27th.