Blurb & Photobox

[GetCarter]

Just a heads up

I'm keen on Photobox... (as you know)... but when it comes to books they are IMHO way too pricy.

I just got a delivery of some 80 page 18 cm x 18 cm books from Blurb.com. (Buy one = £7.95 + P&P) 10% discount for 10 or more. I mean, how cheap is that? I'm selling them at £14.50 and they are flying off the shelf. (And hopefully the blurb website)

An 80 page photobox Stylebook (20 cm x 20 cm) would cost £42.99! +P&P. Could I sell that? Could I fk!

Also, Blurb books are better quality (esp if you go for premium paper - £1 more mind)

Steve

Edited by GetCarter on Wednesday 27th May 11:47

[CarMac]

Thanks for the heads up. I need to get one made up with wedding pictures. Glad I saw this before I put an order in!

[S. Gonzales Esq.]

Towards the other end of the scale, I recently had a book done for a client by BobBooks and it was extremely impressive.

[bramley]

I saw the Blurb stand at the Focus show and was genuinely amazed at the quality of their books. Great prices too. I'm going to get a blurb book made up as wedding portfolio to show clients.

[Red Firecracker]

I've been very impressed by Blurb, both in their product and the software package.

[Mrs Fish]

I am off to a wedding tomorrow, I usually use photobox but will be trying blurb out this time instead.

[Pixel-Snapper]

Im putting a book together at the moment using Blurb with my best images
of 2008 so I have something material to look at instead of a screen.

And I have to say that the software you use to produce the book is easy peeeeaasassyyy.

[CarMac]

Tried to get into my PhotoBox account today and it's not recognising my email address. How annoyed???? Looks like they could have just lost a sale!!!

[10JH]

Thanks for the recommendation! I have tried bobbooks too, very good quality, easy to use software too. However the first book they sent me was missing a little bit of text on one page and so they sent me a new copy straight away without any questions and a big apology.

[GetCarter]

The online shop is now doing a pretty sexy 'preview' which shows the first 15 pages. (Esp good at full screen). I have a feeling it'll need a fast connection mind. God help dialup.

Here's one I made earlier (as they say). I've gone for the cheaper paper on this one to keep prices down... and have ordered one of each type of paper. If the 'premium' stuff is that much better I'll re-price.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/637992

Edited by GetCarter on Saturday 11th April 14:48

[davidd]

Thats good info, cheers. I have stayed away from using photobox in the past as their software was overly restrictive for books.


I used Bobbooks in the end as they gave me what I needed but I'll take a look at blurb next time>

Cheers

D

[Bob_Defly]

Steve I was thinking of using Blurb for this:

http://www.sofobomo.org/2009/ (come on people sign up!)

How do you go about laying out the images, do you do all the images/text/border/background in photoshop and just upload one large image per page or double page, or do you do it another way?

Also lets say you want an image to print at 8x10, do you resize first to 2400x3000 pixels (and sharpen) for 300dpi or do you just use the largest files possible?

P.S. Your book look awesome BTW, especially the double page spread of the snowy mountains. Are the double page spreads one shot or a panorama?

Edited by Bob_Defly on Sunday 12th April 04:29

[GetCarter]

Bob_Defly said:

Steve I was thinking of using Blurb for this:

http://www.sofobomo.org/2009/ (come on people sign up!)

How do you go about laying out the images, do you do all the images/text/border/background in photoshop and just upload one large image per page or double page, or do you do it another way?

Also lets say you want an image to print at 8x10, do you resize first to 2400x3000 pixels (and sharpen) for 300dpi or do you just use the largest files possible?

P.S. Your book look awesome BTW, especially the double page spread of the snowy mountains. Are the double page spreads one shot or a panorama?

Edited by Bob_Defly on Sunday 12th April 04:29

I would have thought blurb was perfect for that. If you go to www.blurb.com, you download free software thast deals with the layout. It's pi55 easy to use. Once layout/text is done, you press 'continue' and the layout and photos are automatically uploaded. You then have 15 days to order a book or it will dissapear.

As for prints, I always keep the image as big as possible, no matter what size the print will be. Photobox will let you decide which bits to crop if you use a format that doesn't match the image.

The mountain scene is a single image (well two, one on each page) top/bottom cropped. The nice thing about the large blurb book is that the double spread will make that image 26 inches wide! By the way, blurb alerts you if your image is not 'large' enough.

Lots more of the area on www.stevecarter.com

Good luck with the project!


Steve

[stigmundfreud]

Cheers Steve! I was about to order a 60 page book from Photobox!!

[GetCarter]

stigmundfreud said:

Cheers Steve! I was about to order a 60 page book from Photobox!!

One thing worth a mention. Photobox books can take less that a week to arrive, Blurb take at least two. (Printed overseas).

[LotusJas]

GetCarter said:

Just a heads up

Thanks mate

Useful thread!

Jas

[dean_ratpac]

Hi - great to see you enjoy Blurb. I work for them as their market development guy for the UK & Europe. If you didn't speak to me at focus on imaging; I am happy to offer an introductory offer to those who use it professionally - via my PM for anyone interested in the service.

A couple of things: yes the books are printed all over the world. For Europe we use our printers in the Netherlands and have another 5 around the globe to cater those areas. This also aids if you have books going to various clients in different countries as our software will work out the cheapest route for shipping.
We will be having a local UK printer soon.

Shipping, 99% of our economy shipping orders deliver within the week, although this is not a trackable service. Priority is trackable and so is express, well worth if it is client work.

I’m happy to answer any professional questions, and those who understand ICC profiles etc. (we have one specially calibrated to the Blurb back-end), I will be happy to upgrade you to our charter service of B3 blurb business to business ( http://www.blurb.com/b3info).

We have some exciting news regarding where we are going with the product including PDF – so what this space!

BTW – if I approached PH with the idea of Blurb sponsoring a competition for the users of the PH forums; would you guys be interested in participating?

I look forward to seeing your books!

Cheers
Dean

[GetCarter]

Just an update on Blurb (and a question for Dean)

The good news: I got another bunch delivered yesterday ( http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/683684 ), put them in the local shop and sold 6 books in 4 hours!

The bad news: Selling on-line doesn't seem to be very suscessful, I think this is due to the high price of P&P. (Printed outside UK). According to the Blurb 'stats' page, I have had over 500 visits this month, and 1 sale

..so Dean - when will the UK printer be up and running?

Edited by GetCarter on Wednesday 27th May 11:48

[Major Bloodnok]

I had a go at doing a book after Steve's original post here, and I'm very pleased with the result. It does still seem a bit pricey to me - I haven't made it public yet, because I can't decide on a mark up that doesn't take it into the realms of "no-one'll buy it at that price". £17.96 + markup + p&p does seem a bit much for a 52-page book, even if it is hardcover.

ETA: this link should go to it, if anyone's interested.

Edited by Major Bloodnok on Wednesday 27th May 12:26

[GetCarter]

Looks good Graham... if you advertise in Shark-land, surely you'll get some sales at £20 or £25 a pop?