Thursday, March 22, 2007

Blurb.com

As readers should know, I have had great experience with Blurb.com's digitial publishing 'program.' The fees are so cheap that I encourage anyone interested to give the application a try. Today they are covered in USA Today. And here is an excerpt:

Blurb now has fans among architects, real estate agents, photographers, cookbook authors, museum archivists and others who have used it to print bookstore-quality editions. It takes orders for thousands of books daily, up from hundreds just a few months ago.A basic hardcover Blurb book is adorned with a full-color, glossy dust cover that looks like it belongs in a bookstore, not on a standard $29.95 homemade project. "We live and die on … quality," says Gittins. "That's what's really gotten people's attention."

Most Blurb customers (Gittins calls them Blurbarians) order books of 100 to 120 pages, and the cost is $37.95. A similar book from Shutterfly or the Kodak EasyShare Gallery would cost upwards of $100. Gittins says Blurb makes money
on every book, and can afford the lower prices thanks to automation.Blurb's Booksmart software is a free, fully functional layout program. Designing your book — if you are so inspired — can take many hours. But once it's finished and uploaded to Blurb, there's very little human interaction. "We're the cleanest business (that) printing has ever seen," Gittins says. "There are no proofs, just finished books."

No comments: